Starvation and Famine: Cross-Cultural Codes and Some Hypothesis Tests

Dirks, Robert

doi:10.1177/106939719302700103

Cited by 44 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…As such, they offer no support for the thrifty genotype proposition that past foraging populations likely had access to less food, and experienced particularly severe and frequent ''feast or famine'' cycles of nutrition, thereby providing a selective advantage to thrifty genotypes. Our results mirror those of the only other cross-cultural study of which we are aware that included a comparison of the incidence of famine among food producers (agriculturalists and pastoralists) and nonfood producers (foragers) (Dirks, 1993). His analysis, utilizing the Ethnographic Atlas standard cross-cultural sample of 186 societies, evaluated famine in terms of its ranked ''severity,'' ''persistence,'' and ''recurrence.''…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 65%

“…1 While the SCCS represents another valuable resource for cross-cultural nutritional comparisons (Dirks, 1993), and while much larger cross-cultural ethnographic data sets exist in the ethnological literature, none that we are aware of provide this level of detailed, systematically classified, and evaluated nutritional information.…”

Section: Data and Methods Ethnographic Data Setmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the thrifty genotype's food-shortage assumptions: A cross-cultural comparison of ethnographic accounts of food security among foraging and agricultural societies

Benyshek

Watson

2006

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

122

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The "thrifty genotype hypothesis" has become firmly entrenched as one of the orienting concepts in biomedical anthropology, since first being proposed by Neel (1962 Am. J. Hum. Genet. 14:353-362) over 40 years ago. Its influence on inquiries into the evolutionary origins of diabetes, lactose tolerance, and other metabolic disorders can hardly be underestimated, as evidenced by its continued citation in many top scientific and medical journals. However, its fundamental assumption, that foragers are more likely to experience regular and severe food shortages than sedentary agriculturalists, remains largely untested. The present report tests this assumption by making a cross-cultural statistical comparison of the quantity of available food and the frequency and extent of food shortages among 94 foraging and agricultural societies as reported in the ethnographic record. Our results indicate that there is no statistical difference (P < 0.05) in the quantity of available food, or the frequency or extent of food shortages in these reports between preindustrial foragers, recent foragers, and agriculturalists. The findings presented here add to a growing literature that calls into question assumptions about forager food insecurity and nutritional status in general, and ultimately, the very foundation of the thrifty genotype hypothesis: the presumed food shortages that selected for a "thrifty" metabolism in past foraging populations.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Data and Methods Ethnographic Data Setmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the thrifty genotype's food-shortage assumptions: A cross-cultural comparison of ethnographic accounts of food security among foraging and agricultural societies

Benyshek

Watson

2006

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

122

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The SCCS dataset includes 3 variables that assess regular shortages in nutritional resources of the sort that predict chronic malnutrition: ordinary malnutrition, short-term starvation, and seasonal starvation (SCCS variable #'s 1261 – 1263) [47]. Each variable is coded on a 4-point scale.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogens and Politics: Further Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism

2013

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According to a "parasite stress" hypothesis, authoritarian governments are more likely to emerge in regions characterized by a high prevalence of disease-causing pathogens. Recent cross-national evidence is consistent with this hypothesis, but there are inferential limitations associated with that evidence. We report two studies that address some of these limitations, and provide further tests of the hypothesis. Study 1 revealed that parasite prevalence strongly predicted cross-national differences on measures assessing individuals' authoritarian personalities, and this effect statistically mediated the relationship between parasite prevalence and authoritarian governance. The mediation result is inconsistent with an alternative explanation for previous findings. To address further limitations associated with cross-national comparisons, Study 2 tested the parasite stress hypothesis on a sample of traditional small-scale societies (the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample). Results revealed that parasite prevalence predicted measures of authoritarian governance, and did so even when statistically controlling for other threats to human welfare. (One additional threat—famine—also uniquely predicted authoritarianism.) Together, these results further substantiate the parasite stress hypothesis of authoritarianism, and suggest that societal differences in authoritarian governance result, in part, from cultural differences in individuals' authoritarian personalities.

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“…To the best of our knowledge, only two studies [19,20] have analysed famine and food shortages across different modes of subsistence. Neither of these studies considered habitat quality in their analyses, and neither found differences in the frequency of famine between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunter–gatherers have less famine than agriculturalists

et al. 2014

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The idea that hunter-gatherer societies experience more frequent famine than societies with other modes of subsistence is pervasive in the literature on human evolution. This idea underpins, for example, the 'thrifty genotype hypothesis'. This hypothesis proposes that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were adapted to frequent famines, and that these once adaptive 'thrifty genotypes' are now responsible for the current obesity epidemic. The suggestion that hunter-gatherers are more prone to famine also underlies the widespread assumption that these societies live in marginal habitats. Despite the ubiquity of references to 'feast and famine' in the literature describing our huntergatherer ancestors, it has rarely been tested whether hunter-gatherers suffer from more famine than other societies. Here, we analyse famine frequency and severity in a large cross-cultural database, in order to explore relationships between subsistence and famine risk. This is the first study to report that, if we control for habitat quality, hunter-gatherers actually had significantly lessnot more-famine than other subsistence modes. This finding challenges some of the assumptions underlying for models of the evolution of the human diet, as well as our understanding of the recent epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

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Starvation and Famine: Cross-Cultural Codes and Some Hypothesis Tests

Cited by 44 publications

References 20 publications

Exploring the thrifty genotype's food-shortage assumptions: A cross-cultural comparison of ethnographic accounts of food security among foraging and agricultural societies

Exploring the thrifty genotype's food-shortage assumptions: A cross-cultural comparison of ethnographic accounts of food security among foraging and agricultural societies

Pathogens and Politics: Further Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism

Hunter–gatherers have less famine than agriculturalists

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