Repeated Hunter-Gatherer Intensification and Population Decline Events

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We test a general hypothesis that may explain large population decline events among human populations: the intensification of production generates a cross-scale tradeoff between individuals generating a surplus of energy to maximize their fitness and the vulnerability of a population as a whole to large decline events, known euphemistically as driving over a “Malthusian Cliff.” We test this hypothesis in Central Texas by developing a collection of time-series that estimate changes in human population density, modeled ecosystem productivity, human diet, and labor intensive cooking over the last 12,500 years. Our analysis indicates that Texas hunter-gatherers experienced three Malthusian Cliffs, and evidence indicates that each of these cliffs was preceded by intensification on low-ranked resources that require significant processing to unlock calories and nutrients. The three decline events may have been necessary releases in the short-term for Texas foragers to experiment with social and technological changes that raised the long-term carrying capacity of their environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36271.0