Radiocarbon data may support a Malthus-Boserup model of hunter-gatherer population expansion

Freeman, Jacob; Hard, Robert J.; Mauldin, Raymond P.; Anderies, John M.

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101321

Cited by 14 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Often contrasted with one another, their positions are arguably complementary, with alternating periods of demographic and economic stasis and expansion ( 8 , 24 ). There is, in fact, some empirical support for such growth among hunter-gatherers ( 25 ).…”

Section: Population and Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America

Milner

Boldsen

2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Agriculture—specifically an intensification of the production of readily stored food and its distribution—has supported an increase in the global human population throughout the Holocene. Today, with greatly accelerated of growth during recent centuries, we have reached about 8 billion people. Human skeletal and archaeobotanical remains clarify what occurred over several millennia of profound societal and population change in small-scale societies once distributed across the North American midcontinent. Stepwise, not gradual, changes in the move toward an agriculturally based life, as indicated by plant remains, left a demographic signal reflecting age-independent ( α 2 ) mortality as estimated from skeletons. Designated the age-independent component of the Siler model, it is tracked through the juvenility index (JI), which is increasingly being used in studies of archaeological skeletons. Usually interpreted as a fertility indicator, the JI is more responsive to age-independent mortality in societies that dominated most of human existence. In the midcontinent, the JI increased as people transitioned to a more intensive form of food production that prominently featured maize. Several centuries later, the JI declined, along with a reversion to a somewhat more diverse diet and a reduction in overall population size. Changes in age-independent mortality coincided with previously recognized increases in intergroup conflict, group movement, and pathogen exposure. Similar rises and falls in JI values have been reported for other parts of the world during the emergence of agricultural systems.

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Section: Population and Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America

Milner

Boldsen

2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…To evaluate the plausibility of the MaB Ratchet model among hunter-gatherers, Freeman et al (2021b) use approximately 1700 radiocarbon ages to create calibrated summed probability distributions (SPDs) in Central Texas. They then used loglet analysis to fit summed logistic models to the SPD of Central Texas, and the best fitting model contained three components of growth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They then used loglet analysis to fit summed logistic models to the SPD of Central Texas, and the best fitting model contained three components of growth. Based on these results, Freeman et al (2021b) proposed that the exponential shape of the SPD observed in Central Texas over 12,500 years results from three successive waves of large social and technological changes that created new production systems. In subsequent work, Freeman and colleagues attempted to test whether increases in estimated population from 8400 to 400 cal BP were driven by changes in technology and social organization related to resource extraction or climate changes that increased the productivity of Central Texas ecosystems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In subsequent work, Freeman and colleagues attempted to test whether increases in estimated population from 8400 to 400 cal BP were driven by changes in technology and social organization related to resource extraction or climate changes that increased the productivity of Central Texas ecosystems. Their analysis indicates that, over 8000 years, changes in technology and social organization that increased the proportion of biomass extracted from ecosystems had a larger effect on increases in carrying capacity than changes in climate that impact the productivity of ecosystems (Freeman et al, 2023b). However, this result is so coarse grained that it does not distinguish between the population dynamics proposed by Richerson et al (2009) and Wood (1998Wood ( , 2020.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent advances in the analysis of archeological radiocarbon now shed light on the long-term growth and decline of human populations throughout the Holocene (e.g. Bird et al, 2020; Brown and Crema, 2021; Freeman et al, 2018a, 2021a, 2021b; Kelly et al, 2013; Lima et al, 2020; Palmisano et al, 2019; Robinson et al, 2013, 2021; Shennan et al, 2013; Tallavaara and Seppä, 2012; Timpson et al, 2014; Zahid et al, 2016). Yet, despite these advances, as well as decades of modeling (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Repeated long-term population growth overshoots and recessions among hunter-gatherers

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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We propose a model that may explain long-term population growth and decline events among human populations: The intensification of production generates a tradeoff between the adaptive capacity of individuals to generate a surplus of energy to maximize their fitness in the short-run and the long-term capacity of a population as a whole to experience a smooth transition into a demographic equilibrium. The model reconciles the conflicting insights of dynamic systems models of human population change, and we conduct a preliminary test of this model’s implications in Central Texas by developing time-series that estimate changes in human population density, modeled ecosystem productivity, human diet, and labor over the last 12,500 years. Our analysis indicates that Texas hunter-gatherers experienced three long-term population growth overshoots and recessions into quasi equilibria. Evidence indicates that each of these overshoots and recessions associate with changes in diet and labor devoted to processing high density, lower quality resources to unlock calories and nutrients. Over the long-term, population recessions may be necessary for populations to experiment with social and physical infrastructure changes that raise the carrying capacity of their environment.

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Human burials during the hunter‐gathering/farming transition in Ojo de Agua, Northern Patagonia, Argentina

Peralta,

Luna,

Gil

et al. 2024

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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This paper explores the implications of the conformation of formal burial areas in the southernmost limit of agricultural dispersion in South America. Previous research proposed the development of cemeteries or formal burial areas due to specialization in using specific habitats and the development of territorial ownership. From a paleoecological background, we hypothesize that hunter‐gatherers intensified resource exploitation and develop territoriality in population growth and pressure over resources. The expectation is that formal burial areas emerged in this context to legitimize the ties with the territory and ensure exclusive access to the land and its resources. To evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed a mortuary context from southern Mendoza (Central Western Argentina), named Ojo de Agua, by describing the site's characteristics, burial modality, presence of grave goods, age at death profile, and evidence of violence. This site has two main conditions for handling our hypothesis: (1) the chronology and spatial localization coincide with the temporal and geographic dispersion of pre‐Hispanic cultigens; (2) systematic procedures during fieldwork led us to access a significant amount of information not available in other mortuary contexts of the area. Our results point to Ojo de Agua as a cemetery that emerged in the frame of increasing territoriality and conflict with neighboring groups and permitted us to improve our knowledge about the dynamic relationship between human population, environment, and cultural responses in the context of intensification and contact with food production. These results deepen recent studies in the same line but with a greater resolution.

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Radiocarbon data may support a Malthus-Boserup model of hunter-gatherer population expansion

Cited by 14 publications

References 34 publications

Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America

Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America

Repeated long-term population growth overshoots and recessions among hunter-gatherers

Human burials during the hunter‐gathering/farming transition in Ojo de Agua, Northern Patagonia, Argentina

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