Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers
Alongside my archaeological research and laboratory analysis, a large part of my work is dedicated to studying contemporary hunting and gathering (foraging) societies through ethnography and social anthropology. My aim is to better understand the diversity in human social and ecological behaviour and the complex pathways of its evolution.
We cannot simply imply an analogy between past and present hunter-gatherers, or suggest that contemporary foragers are a relic of the past. However, contemporary foragers offer an exceptional context to study how unique social notions and ecological behaviours can be associated with specific material evidence. The interpretative framework produced by such work can be then applied in archaeological sites to test how similar or different the archaeological evidence is and what are the implications for interpreting past social behaviour.
I carried out, together with Noa Lavi, a yearlong ethnographic fieldwork among the Nayaka people, a contemporary hunter-gatherer group living in the forested hills of South India. My research among the Nayaka focuses on studying the unique set of social notions and perceptions shared by many hunter-gatherers which distinguish them from other societies. In particular, I’m interested in how these core social notions are reflected in specific practices and studying their material expressions and archaeological significance.
Current research themes and outputs
Use of space
Anthropologists have argued that there exists a unique set of social notions and behaviours among contemporary foragers. While scholars acknowledge the diversity between groups located in different parts of the world, many believe that these communities display similar fundamental social schema, such as sharing, immediacy, mobility and egalitarianism. My work is based on the assumption that social behaviour possesses specific spatial patterns. Through multi-scalar spatial analysis, I examine patterns of macro- and microscopic material distribution at hunter-gatherer sites. For example, I showed how Nayaka’s notion of relatedness, expressed through high mobility and sharing, dictated a dynamic use of fireplaces. Nayaka’s hearths are not affixed to a certain location inside each house but constantly change locations in the outdoor open space to allow maximum sharing in full visibility. As a result, microscopic fire residues are not concentrated in specific areas or found in indoor spaces; rather, they are widely spread throughout the outdoor activity space, which leads to ephemeral use and low preservation. My analysis of the use of space by hunter-gatherers goes beyond the use of fire to examine locations of houses, activity areas, waste areas/middens and distribution of tools as well as fire residues and plant remains.
Diversity among forest dweller hunter-gatherers
The anthropological study of foragers often emphasises similarities between such groups over other kinds of societies. However, it is essential to acknowledge the diversity of social and ecological behaviour among contemporary foragers that can be affected, among other things, by availability of resources, environmental conditions or other forms of sociality. Only by considering diversity among contemporary foragers and examining archaeological formation processes we can establish a novel framework to test whether the social world and behaviour that characterised foragers of the past have any similarity with contemporary societies. In a recent research study that I lead, in collaboration with Noa Lavi, Daniel Kricheff, Sheina Lew-Levy and Adam Boyette, we are looking at the diversity in mobility, sharing, immediacy and relatedness among three hunter-gatherer groups living in tropical forests in India, Thailand and the Congo Basin. Our aim is to explore how the social and behavioural diversity is expressed through differences in each group’s use of space and resulting distribution of materials.
Hunter-Gatherer Sharing
In September 2016, together with Noa Lavi, I organised an international conference titled “SHARING: The Archaeology & Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers”, held at the University of Cambridge. The conference hosted 75 scholars from five continents. Its aim was to bring together archaeologists and social anthropologists as well as biological and evolutionary anthropologists studying hunting and gathering societies of the past and present, with a particular focus on sharing. Following the success of the conference, Noa Lavi and I co-edited a monograph titled “Towards a Broader View of Hunter-Gatherer Sharing” published by the McDonald Institute Monographs Series at the University of Cambridge (free for download). The book re-opens the discussion about the practice of sharing among foragers and other small-scale societies. It urges the reader to rethink the social importance of this practice, its place in constructing everyday life and social ethics and the conditions it requires. Broadening the concept of sharing allowed us to consider new fascinating aspects of this practice - e.g., sharing of selves, space and time can be equally perceived and valued by people as sharing of food. We also offer new perspectives about its intangible aspects, such as relatedness, sociality, values, identities and social, self and environmental perceptions. Involving scholars from diverse fields, the book provides inter-disciplinary perspectives for the study of hunting and gathering societies from the early Palaeolithic to modern times in a wide range of geographic areas and contexts.
