Costly Signaling and the Ascendance of No-Can-Do Archaeology: A Reply to Codding and Jones

Abstract

While providing a review of some of the ethnographic literature surrounding hunting and Costly Signaling Theory, Codding and Jones offer no alternative framework for how this emerging theoretical approach might be applied to the archaeological record. In their view, Costly Signaling Theory lies beyond the pale of current archaeological inquiry, or at least our conception of it. We respond to this characterization by providing a specific methodological approach, combined with several additional applications, that answer Codding and Jones's call for greater linkage between the theory and the archaeological record. Ultimately, we believe that the archaeological record, with its temporal dimension, may illuminate some of the underlying aspects of Costly Signaling Theory that are otherwise obscured by more synchronic ethnographic studies.

What Explains Differences in Men’s and Women’s Production?

“…These articulations between gendered production inequities and social, technological, and ecological variables also have salient implications for recent archaeological research aimed at addressing the prehistoric gender division of foraging labor (see Codding and Jones 2007;Elston and Zeanah 2002;Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002;Jochim 1988;Jones 1996;Jones et al 2008;Kuhn and Stiner 2006;Hildebrandt 1994, 2005;McGuire et al 2007;Waguespack 2005;Zeanah 1996Zeanah , 2004. If archaeologically visible changes in (1) social organization, (2) prey acquisition technology, or (3) proxy measures of prey abundance are correlated with changes in the relative frequencies of larger taxa, this may be indicative of an increase in men's hunting success rates, which in turn may have altered production inequalities between men and women.…”

Bighorn hunting, resource depression, and rock art in the Coso Range, eastern California: a computer simulation model

“…A synthesis of regional archaeofaunal data for southeastern California has been formally reported in several publications (Garfinkel, 2006;Gilreath and Hildebrandt, 2008;Hildebrandt and McGuire, 2002;McGuire et al, 2007). These data derive from over 75 prehistoric sites in the general Coso region.…”

Explaining prehistoric variation in the abundance of large prey: A zooarchaeological analysis of deer and rabbit hunting along the Pecho Coast of Central California

“…Initially build ing on ethnographic work by Hawkes (1991Hawkes ( , 1993 and others, McGuire (2002, see also Hildebrandt andMcGuire, 2003) proposed that the abundance of large prey varies through time in response to changes in social organization which alter the rewards associated with acquiring large prey. Later cast in the framework of Costly Signaling Theory (McGuire and Hilde brandt, 2005;McGuire et al, 2007;see Bliege Bird, 2007;Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005;Bliege Bird et al, 2001;Hawkes and Bliege Bird, 2002;Smith and Bliege Bird, 2000;Smith, 2004;Smith et al, 2000;Zahavi, 1975), the prestige hunting hypothesis predicts that an increase in group size or the frequency of social aggrega tions will lead to a synchronous increase in the benefits individuals gain from acquiring large game: as group size increases, a success ful hunters' audience increases as well, providing a greater poten tial payoff for signaling strategies. While this may lead to an overall decrease in the archaeological abundance of large prey (see Codding and Jones, 2007b;Jones and Codding, 2010), it is hypothesized by McGuire (2002, 2003;McGuire and Hilde brandt, 2005) that the relative abundance of large taxa will in crease, leading in turn to a relative increase in acquisition costs because foragers engaged in a signaling strategy should differen tially seek out larger prey, ultimately having to travel further to encounter artiodactyls (McGuire et al, 2007).…”

“…The second hypothesis proposes that patterns in the proportion dealing with remains deposited by behaviorally modern humans, of large prey remains are driven by changes in the size of social groups and/or the frequency of social aggregations both of which are linked to the social payoffs of hunting McGuire, 2002, 2003;Hildebrandt et al, 2010;McGuire and Hildebrandt, 2005;McGuire et al, 2007, see also Aldenderfer, 2006;Cannon, 2009;Potter, 1997Potter, , 2000Plourde, 2008). Predictions from the prestige hunting hypothesis suggest that an increase in the social payoffs of large game hunting should lead to (P2a) a diachronic in crease in the archaeological visibility of large prey relative to small prey, accompanied (P2b) by an increase in the logistic mobility of foragers (sensu Binford, 1980) caused by hunters having to travel further to acquire large prey at higher costs.…”

“…Bayham, 1979; agers to shift to smaller prey which is archaeologically identified by 2002 ; Broughton and Bayham, 2003 ;Broughton et al, 2008;Butler, (PI a) a reduction in proportion of larger prey to smaller prey (e.g., 2000; Butler and Campbell, 2004;Byers and Broughton, 2004;Broughton, 1994;Stutz et al, 2009) and (PI b) changes in age struc Byers and Ugan, 2005 ;Cannon, 2000Cannon, , 2003 ture oflarger prey (e.g., Stiner, 2006), both of which may either influ Codding and jones, 2007a;Hildebrandt and McGuire , 2002; ence, or be influenced by forager settlement and mobility, (PIc) Hildebrandt et al, 2010;Hockett, 2005 ;janetski, 1997 ; resulting in changes in the processing and transport of skeletal Codding, 2010;jones et al, 2008a elements from large prey (Cannon, 2000(Cannon, , 2003(Cannon, ). 2005McGuire et al, 2007;Whitaker, 2009). From the research…”