Multidecadal Ethnoarchaeological Comparisons of Livelihoods and Wild Meat Availability and Consumption in a Central African Rainforest Foraging and Farming Community

Abstract

We repurpose multidecadal ethnoarchaeological investigations of human hunting, prey availability, and socioeconomics in a rural Central African Republic village in the service of human ecology. Focusing on forest foragers in the village of Grima, initial 1999–2005 (Old Grima) data collection included documentation of hunting technology and offtakes, identification of wild meat bone assemblages, inventories of household material goods, and measurements of horticultural fields. Similar datasets were collected in 2021–2022 (New Grima) and longitudinal comparisons of prey remains and material wealth detected many significant differences. Old Grima house middens contained larger numbers of bones representing an array of wild meat taxa and inventories recorded diverse and abundant collections of material goods. The New Grima comparative data showed a reduction in the consumption of wild meat, increases in guns and especially metal cable snares, and marked declines in local wild meat (notably duiker) populations and forager material wealth paired with increases in debt. In 2022 the New Grima inhabitants were actively pursuing escargot for food and income and house middens were dominated by tortoise remains. All the data point to resource depression from overhunting and a community in jeopardy. The comparisons are also important because they include the transition from traditional nets and spears to more efficient metal cable snares and guns and provide information on the effects of hunting technology. The complexities of evaluating ecological perturbations and sustainability require multidisciplinary datasets and we propose ethnoarchaeology as a valuable tool to help identify subtleties in human food webs and biodiversity loss.