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The Hadza, an ethnic group indigenous to northern Tanzania, are one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer populations in existence. With a history spanning 130 000 years but rapidly losing their land and traditional ways of life, Demography and Evolutionary Ecology of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers offers a unique opportunity to capture the lifestyle of a declining population. Blurton Jones interweaves data from ecology, demography and evolutionary ecology to present a comprehensive analysis of the Hadza foragers. Discussion centres on expansion of the adaptationist perspective beyond topics customarily studied in human behavioural ecology, to interpret a wider range of anthropological concepts. Analysing behavioural aspects, with a specific focus on relationships and their wider impact on the population, this book reports the demographic consequences of different patterns of marriage and the availability of helpers such as husbands, children, and grandmothers. Essential for researchers and graduate students alike, Demography and Evolutionary Ecology of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers will challenge preconceptions of human sociobiology.
Preface and acknowledgements
Part I. Demography:
1. Introduction
2. Geography and ecology in the Eyasi basin
3. History of the Hadza and the Eyasi basin
4. Research strategy and methods
5. Migration and intermarriage. Are eastern Hadza a population?
6. Hadza regions. Do they contain sub-populations?
7. Fertility
8. Mortality
9. Testing the estimates of fertility and mortality
10. Hadza demography. A normal human demography sustained by hunting and gathering in sub-Saharan savanna
11. The Hadza and hunter-gatherer population dynamics
Part II. Applying the Demographic Data to Hadza Behavior and Biology:
12. Introduction to part two
13. The outcome variables: fertility, child survival, and reproductive success
14. Men and women's reputations as hunters, traders, arrow makers, and diggers
15. Marriage
16. Another dependent variable. Growth as a proxy for fitness
17. Inter-birth intervals
18. Grandmothers as helpers
19. Grandmothers and competition between the generations
20. Children as helpers
21. Husbands and fathers as helpers
22. Variation among hunter-gatherers. Evolutionary economics of monogamy, male competition, and the sharing ethic
References
Index
Nicholas Blurton Jones is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research has focussed on applying the methods of animal behaviour research in direct studies of human behaviour across varied settings including hunter-gatherer cultures. He has conducted fieldwork in Alaska and Botswana and between 1982 and 2000 made a series of field visits to the Hadza in Tanzania. He is the editor of Ethological Studies of Child Behaviour, published by Cambridge University Press in 1972.
