Prestige and Prejudice: The Role of Long Distance Big Game Hunting as an Optimal Foraging Decision

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Signaling theory has much to offer anthropology and archaeology, which is in part why there is an increasing number of applications and healthy debates surrounding how best to apply it. One of those debates surrounds whether big game hunting is a costly signal or simply an aspect of efficient foraging. Grimstead (2010) contributed to this debate by showing that long-distance big-game hunting (greater than 100 km roundtrip) produces higher caloric return rates than does local small-game hunting, despite increased costs of travel and transport for the former. Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue) present a model that also suggests long-distance big-game hunting produces higher economic returns than local foraging but only up to about 50 km. This paper provides further details on the tenets of the Grimstead (2010) paper in response to criticisms by Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue), and then uses a previously published central place foraging model (Cannon 2003) to show that another model also shows long-distance big-game hunting over a distance greater than 100 kilometers roundtrip produces higher returns than local foraging.</jats:p>

Native American impact on past forest composition inferred from species distribution models, Chautauqua County, New York

“…Native American groups may have travelled long distances (e.g., 50-100 km) from villages to hunt, including the Seneca (Morgan 1901), because long-distance hunting for larger game could have produced a larger net caloric gain, in comparison to hunting near village sites for smaller game (Grimstead 2012); multiple Native American groups may have also conducted communal hunts far from villages (Waselkov 1978). While this study's approach may have adequately represented areas where horticulture, village construction, and hunting occurred, additional hunting practices may have occurred far from village sites.…”

Do tree-ring fire-scar records adequately reflect Native American settlement and land use?

“…Native Americans may have conducted cultural burning far from settlement as a conscious land use decision, for example to reduce risk and create travel corridors. Big-game hunting at long distances could have conferred a higher rate of caloric return compared to hunting for small game near settlement(Grimstead 2012). Furthermore, rewood collection for cooking and heating around settlements by traditional peoples consumes a high amount of wood near settlement (Gerard-Little 2017; Markwith and Paudel 2022), and therefore cultural burning of wildlands in areas near settlement might threaten to consume this fuel source.…”