Island Arrivals: the Ideal Free Distribution and Prey Choice Models in Neolithic Taiwan and Beyond

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the Neolithic transition of Taiwan, current evidence indicates that farmer-gardeners immigrated from China's southeast coast about 6,000 BP and brought a diverse subsistence of cultivation, foraging, and fishing. The migration would have influenced habitat choice and interactions with Paleolithic foragers already existed in residence. The Ideal Free Distribution with the encounter-contingent Prey Choice Model predicts that groups moving into new habitats will settle first in high ranked locations, then growing densities will deteriorate those habitats to the point that migration begins toward second ranked habitats. The Despotic Variant predicts that in cases where prime habitats are already occupied, immigrants will be forced to settle in low-ranked locations. In contrast, the IDF with Allee Effects describes density-related niche construction and habitat modification that may actually increase encounters with preferred prey or resources. In this paper, environmental, archaeological, and ethnographic data from Amis farmer-gardeners of Taiwan are used to evaluate and derive evidence to test these alternative predictions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32023