1. Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present [and Comments and
Replies]
Author(s): Thomas N. Headland, Lawrence A. Reid, M. G. Bicchieri, Charles A. Bishop, Robert
Blust, Nicholas E. Flanders, Peter M. Gardner, Karl L. Hutterer, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Robert
F. Schroeder, Stefan Seitz
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 43-66
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743304
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2. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number i, FebruaryI989
? I989 byThe Wenner-Gren All
Research. rights
Foundation Anthropological
for OOI
reserved I-3 204/89/300I-oooI$$2.50
LAWRENCE A. REID iS Professor Linguistics theUniversity
of at of
Hunter-Gatherersand
Hawaii. He was bom in I934 andreceived Ph.D. from Uni-
his the
versity Hawaii in i966. His research
of interests Philippine
are
languages linguistics thecomparative
and and syntax Austrone-
of
sianlanguages. Among publications "Diachronic
his are Typology
Their Neighborsfrom ofPhilippine VowelSystems," Current
Mouton,I 973); Philippine
in
pp.
vol. II, edited ThomasSebeok, 485-506 (TheHague:
by
MinorLanguages:Word
in
Trends Linguistics,
Listsand
Prehistory the
to Phonologies
English
(OceanicLinguistics
Dictionary,
SpecialPublications Bontok-
withEnglish-Bontok
guistics 36); and "The EarlySwitch
C
Finder
Hypothesis:
8);
List(Pacific
Linguistic
Lin-
Evi-
Present' dencefor Contactbetween
in
and Culture Oceania 3[special
and
Negritos Austronesians"
issuej:4i-6o).
(Man
The present form 8 v 88.
paperwas submitted final
in I
byThomasN. Headlandand
A.
Lawrence Reid Westerners today commonlythink of tribalpeoples in
in as
general,and hunter-gatherers particular, primitive
and isolated-incomplete, not yet fully evolved, and
outside the mainstream.This view has been supported
throughout this century the writings explorers,
by of ad-
It is widelyassumedthatmodemhunter-gatherer societieslived venturers, missionaries,government agents,journalists,
untilvery recently isolationfrom
in food-producing societiesand and,until veryrecently, anthropologists. Tribalpeoples,
statesand practiced neither nor
pastoralism, trade.
cultivation, and especially nomadic foragers, oftendescribedas
are
This paperbrings together data suggesting very
a different model
ofmiddleto late Holocenehunter-gatherer economy. is argued "fossilized"remnants isolated late Paleolithichunter-
It of
thatsuchforaging groups wereheavilydependent uponboth gatherers who have just emerged,throughrecent con-
tradewithfood-producing and
populations part-time cultivation tact, into the 2oth century."Modern foragers tend still
or pastoralism. Recentpublications a number hunter-
on of to be viewed in most ofthe current anthropological liter-
gatherer societiesestablish and
thatthesymbiosis desultory food ature as
production observed amongthemtodayare neither recent nor sequesteredbeingswhose veryexistenceis due
anomalousbutrepresent economy
an practiced mosthunter- to the fact that theylive beyondthe reach of the trade
by
gatherers manyhundreds, not thousands, years.Psycho- routes of foreign
for if of powers. They are depictedas quintes-
logicaland politicalreasonsforWesterners' attachment the
to sential isolates, whose world was merely glimpsed in
of
myth the "SavageOther"are discussed. passing by explorers,and who remained remote until
THOMAS N. HEADLAND is Adjunct Assistant of
Professor Linguis- anthropologists penetrated theirlives" (Schrirei984:2).
ticsat theUniversity Texas at Arlington an International
of and The literature is full of recent "discoveries" of
Anthropology Consultant theSummer
of Institute Linguistics
of
(7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd.,Dallas, Tex. 75236, U.S.A.). Bornin "isolated" tribal groups. Stereotypeddescriptions of
I935, he was educated Bethel
at Collegein St. Paul (B.A., I960) such peoples are foundin popularwritings such as Bur-
andat theUniversity Hawaii (M.A.,I98I; Ph.D., i986). His
of roughs'sLand That Time Forgot(i963 [i9i81) and Gib-
research interests humanecology thetropics Holocene
are in and bons's The People That Time Forgot(i98i) and in an-
hunter-gatherers. i 962 he has spenti 8 yearsdoing
Since
fieldwork in
amongNegritos thePhilippines. publications
His in- thropologicalworks such as PrimitiveWorlds: People
clude"The WildYam Question:How Well CouldIndependent Lost in Time (Breeden I973). Redfield's I947 classic
Hunter-Gatherers in a TropicalRainforest
Live "The Folk Society," which idealizes tribal systemsas
Ecosystem? "(Hu-
man Ecology I5:465-93), "Kinship and SocialBehavior among
"isolated," helps throughits reprintings (most recently
AgtaNegrito Hunter-Gatherers" (Ethnology26:26i-8o), "Cul-
in Bodley i988) to keep the mythalive in anthropology
turalEcology, and
Ethnicity, theNegritos Northeastern
of Luzon"
(Asian Perspectives 2I:I27-39), D.
and,withJanet Headland,classrooms.Otheranthropological
A examples are Huxley
Dumagat(Casiguran)-English Dictionary and Capa's (i964) Farewell to Eden, describing
(Canberra: Austra-
The theirvisit
lian NationalUniversity, I974). to some Indians in the Amazon as "a tripthat was to
take us back thirty-fivehundredyears in time" (p. I3),
and the I984 educational film on the Mbuti pygmies
version thispaperwas readbyHeadlandat theFifth titled Children of the Forest (see review by Morelli,
i. An earlier of
Annual VisitingScholar'sConference, Southern IllinoisUniver- Winn, and Tronick i986). Schebesta's I947 work on the
sity,AprilI 5-I6, I988. We thank following written
the for critical PhilippineNegritosis called Menschenohne Geschichte
commentson earlierdrafts: Alan Barnard, MatthiasGuenther, (People withoutHistory), and the authorof a I98I book
JanetHeadland, SusanHochstetler, Hutterer,
Karl Richard Lieban, on the "Auca" of the Ecuadorian rain forestcalls them
CarolMcKinney, WilliamScott. feela specialdebtofgrati-
and We
tudeto BionGriffin AgnesEstioko-Griffin their
and for substantial an "isolated" people whose "way of life has changed
input overmany yearsandto LeslieSponselfordetailed comments littlesince theirancestorsmigrated from Asia acrossthe
on severalearlierversions.RichardCrawford, Ronald Edgerton, Bering Strait" (Broenniman i98i:I7).
PedroGil Munoz,Rudolf Rahmann, John
and Slonaker assistedus Perhaps the best-knowncase, made famous by some
in ourarchival research. had help in translating
We certain docu-
mentsfrom Hella Goschnick, Marianne Finkbeiner, Hartmut
and 2o ethnographic films produced in the I970s by Napo-
Wiens(from German) CharlesPeck,WilliamScott, Martha
and and leon Chagnon and TimothyAsch, is that of the Yano-
Shirai(from Spanish). mamo, a horticulturalpeople of the Amazon. In the
43

3. 44 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number i, FebruaryI989
thirdedition of what is probablythe most widely read Most practice minor desultorycultivationand intense
anthropology book in the United States today,Chagnon trade of forestproductswith non-Negritoagricultural
(i983:I) continues portray
to these"fierce people"as populations.Two models oftheirprehistory be pro- may
livingin pristine isolationfrom Western influence the posed. The olderand moregenerally
at accepted"isolation-
time of his initial visit to them in I964-and this de- ist stance"(toborrow term a from Gordon i984:220) is
spite the fact that American missionaries have been thatthe first human inhabitants the Philippineswere
of
working with the Yanomamo in his area since 1950 (pp. some type of Pleistocene Homo sapiens that evolved
3, 9). He even calls them "our contemporary ancestors" some 20,000 yearsago into the Negrito foundin the
in the finalsentence ofhis book (p. 2I4). (Fora contras- archipelago today(Solheimi98i:25; Ramboi984:240-
tiveview ofYanomamo prehistory, ColchesterI984;
see 4I; Omoto i985:I29-30; BellwoodI985:74, II3); that
see also Ramosi987.) their original languages were not Austronesian; that
These works and many othersperpetuatea view of theywere "pure" hunter-gatherers; thattheyhad at and
tribal peoples as having lived until relativelyrecent most only infrequentcontact with the Austronesian-
times in isolation fromtheirneighbors. There is, how- speakers who began migratinginto the Philippines
ever, conclusive evidence that this "isolate model" is around 3000 B.C.2
incorrect-thatmost,ifnot all, tribalpeoples have typi- This isolate model is reflected, example, in the
for
cally been in more or less continuousinteraction with report a psychologicalanthropologist
of who studiedthe
neighboring groups,oftenincludingstate societies, for Ayta in westernLuzon in the late I930S thatthese Ne-
thousandsof years.We will call this view the "interde- gritos, living "an isolated lifein the equatorialrain for-
pendentmodel" and supportit withrecentethnographic ests,wheremillennia slip away with so littlechange...
descriptionsof several hunter-gatherer societies tradi- are probably livingthe way our own ancestorsdid some
tionallyconsidered"isolated" and "primitive." hundred thousand yearsago" (Stewart I954:23) andthat
We are not the first question the mythofthe primi- "nowherewerethe Negritosknownto have agriculture"
to
tive isolate. Spielmann(i986:305), forexample,crit- (p. 24). The anthropologist (I978) describes re-
Eder the
icizes anthropologists their"unrealisticand mislead- cent past of the Batak Negritosof Palawan Island in a
for
ing" tendencyto analyze egalitariansocieties as closed similar framework,assuming without evidence that
systems,and Wolf (i982:i8) points to anthropology's they"once lived in self-contained isolation" (p. 55), that
"mythology the pristineprimitive." is partofwhat "in the closing decades of the nineteenth
of It century"they
Strathern (i987) refers as the "persuasivefictionsof were still "isolated . . . fromall but sporadic contact"
to
anthropology." Our argument here is in factinfluenced with outsiders(I978:ix; see also I2), that they "began
by recentwritings several anthropologists
of who began cultivatingrice only duringthe latterpart of the igth
to challenge it at about the same time as we did (e.g., century" (1978:58), and thattrade commercial
of forest
chapters thevolumes editedbyLeacock and Lee I982,
in products"to obtaindesiredconsumergoods ... may also
Francis,Kense, and Duke I98I, and especially Schrire have begunat thistime" (p. 58). Warren (I984:3) also
i984). More generally, our model was inspiredby the assumes that the swidden cultivation he observed
writingsof Roger Keesing, FrederickDunn, and Karl amongtheBatak in I950 was "obviouslynewlyacquired
Hutterer, who describethe prehistoric world as one in from theirneighbors." (I953:I75) notedthatthe
Fox
which tribal peoples have been in intense interaction Ayta Negritos "are today all shifting cultivators"but
with one anotherfora long time. Keesing calls the iso- believed that they "were once able to live without re-
late model "the mosaic stereotype"and critiquesit in courseto cultivation"(p. 245), judging thattheir"associ-
detail(i98i:iii-22). He proposes insteada "systemic ation . . . with cultivatedplants must be reckonedin a
view" of the prehistorictribal world in which simple few hundred years-excepting perhaps the taro and
tribalsocieties,complex societies,and even statescoex- yams"(p.27, emphasis added). AndReynolds (I983:I66)
istedand evolvedtogether. believes thatmostprehis- has recentlystated, "For thousands of years, the Ne-
He
toricforaging groupswere partsofcomplexregionalsys- gritos in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia had
temstiedtogether trade,exchange,and politics-that managed to maintain a traditionallife by withdrawing
by
"forseveral thousandyears the 'environments' most from
of prolonged contactwith non-Negritos." Rai's (i982)
huntersand gatherers have included surrounding agri- ethnography presentsAgta Negritosin northeastern Lu-
culturalists, pastoralists,and in many cases kingdoms zon as "relativelyisolated" in pre-Hispanicand early
and empires" (p. i22). What we are calling the isolate Spanish times, with only "marginal" and "peripheral"
model is a view of "a worldthatneverexisted" (p. II4). tradewith outsidersuntil the last two or threecenturies
It continues,however,to be taughtto anthropology stu- (pp. I39-40, I45-46, i52, I54) and formal trade "at most
dents and to the public. onlyas old as the beginning this century"(p. I56). He
of
evidence
2. The latestarchaeological linguistic
and favors hy-
the
Case Studies pothesis thattheoriginalhomeland Proto-Austronesian For-
of was
mosa and that a groupspeakinga daughter languageof Proto-
THE PHILIPPINE NEGRITOS Austronesian arrived the northem
in PhilippinesfromFormosa
around 3000 B.C. (Pawley and Green
1973:52-54; Blust 1978:220;
The Philippine Negritos, some 25 ethnolinguistically Harvey I98I; Scott 1984:38-39, 52; Bellwood I985:107-21, I30,
different
groups in
numbering totalabout I5,000, are 232). Forrecentopposingviews on the locationof thehomeland,
hunter-gatherers various stages of culture change. see Solheim (I984-85) and Meacham (i984-85).
in

4. HEADLAND AND REID fromPrehistory the Present| 45
Hunter-Gatherers to
surmisesthat "the Agta may have been practicing some communities were well established throughoutthe
degree of horticulturefor the past two centuries" (p. Spanishperiod.When Dean C. Worcester, U.S. Secretary
i66). of the Interior the Philippines,made a quick steamer
of
Negritos,then, accordingto the isolate model, were tripdown the east coast of Luzon in I909, he depicted
pure hunter-gatherers with a near-Pleistocene economy the Agta on the remotenortheast coast as primitive and
throughout most of the Spanish era and perhaps even untouched:"In this region,and in this regionalone, the
into the earlypartof this century. [Agta] Negrito... has had littleorno contactwithwhite
We propose a more complex interdependent model men or with Christian [i.e., non-Negrito]Filipinos"
thatbetterrepresents historyof the Negritosin the (Worcester i2:833). It is clear,however,thathe failed
the I9
late prehistoric period.Symbioticinteraction3 with out- to grasp the significanceof the many trade items he
sidersprobablybegan soon afterthe first Austronesian- foundin theirabandoned lean-tos: coconut shells, clay
speakingpeople beganmigrating into Negritoareas-for pots, metal fishhooks,metal arrowheads,bolos, and
some populations as early as 3000 B.C. For the proto- commercialcloth (p. 84I). Furthermore, ofhis pho- one
Agta groups in northeastern Luzon it may have been tographs"taken [in these Agta camps] on the northeast
somewhatlaterbut was likelywell establishedby I400 coast of Luzon" (p. 837) shows a wooden mortarfor
B.C., when humans who were probablynot Negritos poundingcornor rice,a small clay pot,and a tin can.4In
were cultivating rice in that area (Snow et al. I986). I 909 the Agta bands in this area wereprobably the most
The Agta are the least acculturatedof all Philippine remoteand "primitive"hunter-gatherers the Philip- in
Negritos(see Griffin Headland I985 forbibliography pines,but the tradegoodsjust mentionedshow thatthey
and
and Headland I986, Reid I987, I988a and b, Headland were certainlynot independentof otherFilipinos or of
and Reid n.d.). Called Dumagat by outsiders,the Agta agriculture.
ethnolinguistic groupsof easternLuzon typically reside A numberof i 8th-century reports make clear thatthe
in small nomadic camps in the rain forests the Sierra Agta were involved in intense symbiosis,includingpa-
of
Madre.The most salient activity Agtamen is hunting tron-clientrelationships,with Christianized farmers
of
wild pig,deer,and monkeywith bow and arrow.Among and trading forest for
products rice,tobacco,metal tools,
the CasiguranAgta, in a typicalyear about a quarterof beads, and pots (AFIO MS 89/60 I745; Santa Rosa I746,
the households cultivatetinyswiddens,averaging only cited in Perez i928:87, 94, Io6 and I927:294). It is clear
one-sixthof a hectare in size. Rice is the main staple, frommany other records that this system was wide-
wild starchfoodsbeingpartof only 2% of meals (Head- spreadby the igth century(see, e.g., Semper i86i:252,
land I987). Almost all of this rice is acquiredby trading .255-56; i869:5i-52; de Medio i887, quoted in Report
wild meat, minor forestproducts,or labor with neigh- I90I:39I; Platero n.d., quoted in Report I90I:39I;
boringagriculturalists; less than 5% comes fromtheir Segovia I969 [I902]:IO3; EighthannualreportI903:334;
own small fields. Garvan, MarchI 2 I 9 I 3, in Worcester9 I 3: I 05-7; Luk-
I
Proponentsof the isolate model would claim that ban I9I4:2, 4, 6-9; W. Turnbull I929:I77, 237-38;
theseAgta bands were until recently almost completely I930:782, 783; VanoverburghI937-38:I49, 922, 928;
separated from non-Agta farmingpopulations, since Lynch I948; Amazona I95I:24; Tangco i95i:85; and
even duringSpanish times veryfewnon-Negrito people Schebesta I954:60, 64). Likewise,thereis solid evidence
lived in that inhospitablearea, with its ruggedmoun- thattheAgta were makingswiddensoftheirown by the
tains,stormy weather, and roughseas. Theywould argue I740S (AFIO MS 89/60; Santa Rosa I746, cited in Perez
thatthe Agta's involvementin agriculture, desultory as i928:87, 88, 92-93, 96), in the igth century(Semper
it is, is a recent"contamination"resulting from contact i86i:252, 255-56; de Medio i887 and Plateron.d.,cited
withfarmers thepressureofshrinking
and hunting terri- in Report I90I:390-9I), and in the early years of this
tory.Negritos have been widely describedas "people century(Worcesteri9i2:84I; Lukban I9I4:2; Whitney
without cultivation" even into this century(e.g., Bor- I9I4; Turnbull I930:32, IIO, 782, 794; Vanoverburgh
and
rows I908:45-46). Estioko-Griffin Griffin (I98I:55), I937-38:922, 927; forEnglishtranslations Headland see
for example, present the agriculturalpractices of the I 986 ).5
Agta theystudiedin the I970S as "new," with the more Archaeologicalevidence. The archaeologicalevidence
acculturated Agta only "in theirsecond or thirdgenera- establishes that extensive international trade in forest
tion as part-timemarginal [swidden] farmers."They
state that Agta cultivation practices are still little 4. This photograph, takenon August30, I909, is in theWorcester
knownand thatin the traditional Agta systemtherewas Photographic Archives the Museum of Anthropology,
of Univer-
a "lack of use of cultigens" (p. 6i). The ethnohistorical, sityof Michigan,File No. I-Z-i. It shows another tradeitem,a
archaeological, linguistic, and botanicalevidencefailsto small clay pot to the right the mortar, was cut from
of that the
supportthese views. reproduction published Worcester *2;837).
by (I9
5. Eder(i987:23, 45-46, 48-49) cites a number archival
of refer-
Ethnohistoricalevidence. Early reportssubstantiate encesshowing theBatakNegritos engaged interethnic
that also in
beyond question that the Agta were making swiddens trade and some agricultureduring Spanish times. Endicott
and that symbioticrelationshipswith nearbyfarming (i983:224-26; i984:30) cites igth-century references indicating
that trade,labor barter,and occasional horticulture "have long
been regular features the economiesof the nomadicSemang
of
3. Atleastseventypes symbiosis recognized e.g.,Sutton (Negritos)" Malaysia(p. 30). Brosius
of are (see, in (I983:I38; see also I39-40)
and HarmonI973:i84): mutualism, cooperation,
commensalism, indicatesthattheAytaNegritos beenmaking
had swiddens "for a
amensalism, competition,
predation, parasitism.
and verylongtime, almostcertainlyprior thearrival theSpanish."
to of

5. 46 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number I, FebruaryI989
productshas been goingon throughout much ofinsular Linguistic evidence. Our interdependent model pro-
Southeast Asia forat least the last thousandyears and poses that these Agta hunters carried on intense in-
that nomadic forestpeoples, includingNegritos,have terethnic relationships with Austronesian-speaking
been the collectorsand primary traders(Hall I985:I-2, farmers the earliestperiods.The linguisticsupport
at for
2I, 23-24, 226). Dunn (I975) argues that such tradein this view has been outlined elsewhere (Headland
Malaya, mostlyto China, began in the sth century A.D. I986:I7-I9, I74-78; Reid I987, i988a, b; Headland and
Rambo (ig8i:I40) agrees, saying that Malaysian Ne- Reid n.d.) and will be only briefly reviewedhere.
gritosmay have evolved into specialistforest collectors All Philippine Negrito groups speak languages that,
for maritimetraders earlyas 5,ooo yearsago. Hoffman
as like those of theirnon-Negrito neighbors, belongto the
(I984, I986) arguesthat Chinese sailorswere trading for Austronesianlanguagefamily.These Negritolanguages
forest productsin Borneo beforethe 5th century. Their are,forthe most part,unintelligible theiragricultural
to
arguments dispel any suggestionthatPaleolithicpeople neighbors;they are not simplydialects of those neigh-
were livingisolated in thejunglesoftheseislandson the bors' languages as has frequently been suggested.They
eve of the Europeans' arrival. are neitheraberrantnor distinctiveas a group among
Hutterer's (I974, I976, I977, i983) description of ex- Philippine languages. Now, since Austronesian-speak-
tradein the Philippinessupportsour
tensiveprehistoric ing people did not begin migrating into the Philippines
interdependentmodel forthese islands. He and others untilaround3000 B.C., and since the ancestorsoftoday's
(Fox i967; LandaJocano I975:I45-53; Scott i98i; i983; Negritoshad lived in thoseislandsfor thousandsofyears
i984:63-84) review the evidence fortradebetween the beforethat time and therefore presumablyspoke lan-
Philippinesand China by at least the time of the Sung guagesthatwerenot Austronesian, questionis when
the
dynasty (A.D. 969-I279), with Negritos having intense and underwhat circumstancestheygave up theirorigi-
symbiotic relationships with outsiders at that time nal languagesand began speakingAustronesianones.
(Hutterer I974:296). Mindoro, the central
in Philippines, At some time in the prehistoric past, the ancestorsof
was part of the international Asian traderoutesby A.D. today's Negritos must have established some type of
972 (Scott I 983: I) and "was itself the central port forthe contactwith the Austronesian-speaking immigrants in
exchange of local goods on a Borneo-Fukien route" by the course of which they lost theirown languages and
A.D. I270 (p. i5). According to Scott,"the total impres- adoptedthose of the newcomers.In orderfora language
sion is one of continual movements of rice, camotes, switch of this magnitudeto have occurred,more was
bananas, coconuts,wine, fish,game, salt, and cloth . . . probably involvedthan trade.There must have been pe-
to say nothing of iron, gold, jewelry, porcelain, and riods of intimateinteraction long enoughforbilingual-
slaves" (p. 24). ism to develop and then forthe original Negrito lan-
Looking specifically the Agta areas of northeastern
at guagesto be replaced.The linguisticdata suggest thatall
Luzon, archaeological studies indicate that therewere this happeneda verylong time ago. While it is theoreti-
non-Negritopopulations here long beforethe Spanish cally possible forearlyNegritosto have abandonedtheir
era. Peterson (I974a, b) excavated what was almost originallanguages in the space of threeor fourgenera-
surelya non-Negrito habitationsite in the centerof to- tions,the degreeoflanguagedifferentiation has sub-
that
day's Agta area that he dates at I200 B.C. or earlierand sequentlytakenplace could not have occurred such ain
considers"incipientagricultural." has yieldedpottery,
It shortperiodoftime. This divergence implies a periodof
mortars, and evidence of the reaping of grain (I974b:I3I, independent developmentofwell over a thousandyears
i6i, I62, 225, 227). Another archaeologist presents evi- in the case of the Negritolanguagesthatare todaymost
dence that humans were living in anotherpart of this similar to their non-Negritosister languages and of
area by the end of the Pleistocene and by 5000 B.C. were many thousands of years in the case of those that are
using "grass reapingblades" (Thiel I980). These blades least similar.
should probablybe associated with a Negrito popula- Our hypothesis, then,is thatwell over i,ooo yearsago,
tion; the brass needle foundat the same site in an ar- and quite possibly 3,000 years ago, the ancestorsof to-
chaeologicallevel dated 2000 B.C.and a burialcave dated day's Negritoswere interacting withnon-Negrito speak-
I500 B.C. are probably not Negrito. ers ofan Austronesian language.This interaction was so
The evidenceis solid thatpeople were cultivating rice intensethat the Negritosadoptedthe languageas their
in northeastern Luzon by I400 B.C. (Snow et al. I986). own. Laterthese ancientNegritosseparatedthemselves
This site is also on the westernedge oftoday'sAgta area fromtheirnon-Negrito neighborsbut retainedthe lan-
and just a fewkilometers fromThiel's. It is probablethat guagetheyhad borrowed from them.Over time,through
theancestorsoftoday'sAgtawereinteracting withthese the normal processes of language change,separatedia-
farmers the middleofthe 2d millenniumB.C. Finally,
by lects and finallyseparatedaughter languagesdeveloped.
recent archaeological research establishes that there There is no otherplausible explanationforthe linguistic
were ceramic manufacturing cultures in northeastern facts. For example, some Negrito languages have re-
Luzon as early as around 3000 B.C. (Snow and Shutler tained archaic features, such as case-marking particles
I985:I). The archaeological record, then, suggests that and verbalaffixes, thatare not foundtodayin mostother
rice-farmingpopulations and Negritohunterswere liv- Philippine languages but existed in some very early
ing within a day's walk of each other in northeastern daughter languages of Proto-Austronesian. These ar-
Luzon for at least the last 3,000 years. chaic formsindicate that these Negritolanguageswere

6. HEADLAND AND REID fromPrehistory the Presentj 47
Hunter-Gatherers to
first learnedwhen such formswere still presentin the THESAN
protolanguagespoken by the non-Negrito people with
whom theywere then in contact. (For details see Reid Since the appearanceofthe I980 filmThe Gods Must Be
I987, Headland and Reid n.d.) Crazy,millions ofmoviegoers have been convincedthat
Botanical evidence. The reason that prehistoric Ne- the San Bushmen are the sweetest,most innocent,and
gritos attached themselves so readily to non-Negrito most contentedpeople on earth-still lacking,in this
farming populations was, we suggest,a critical nutri- age of airplanes and Coke bottles, any knowledge of
property, money,or the outside world. Other powerful
tional need. As one of us has arguedelsewhere (Head-
land I987), tropical rain forestsare not the food-rich media continueto perpetuatethis myth.A I985 article
in Newsweek (January p. 66) depictsthe San as un-
28,
biomes theyare sometimesassumed to be. While faunal
resourcesare usually sufficient there,thesemaynotpro- touched until, "early in this century, theyencountered
needs of Civilization." In a recenthuman ecologytext(Campbell
vide sufficient lipids to supplythe nutritional
humans in the absence of wild plant starches.The late I983) this view is reinforced:"San lifestyleprobably
changedlittle over the course of hundredsof thousands
Pleistocenehuman populationsof the Philippinesseem
of years" (p. I24). In accord with this is another,more
to have been living in areas that were then wooded
recentNewsweek articlereviewingthe latest scientific
savannas,not rain forest (Thiel I980; see Scott I984:I4,
I42 fora review of the evidence).The prehistoric Agta theoryon modern man's common ancestor,a woman
theyare calling Eve who lived about 2oo,ooo yearsago
probablydid not move into the rain forestbeforethey
had at least seasonal access to cultivatedstarchfoods. and "probably [lived] much like today's Bushmen in
we southernAfrica"(January I988, p. 5I). Johnson
II, and
We propose,then,that the symbioticrelationship
and Earle (I987:38-54) make no mentionofthe !KungSan's
findtodaybetween tropicalforest hunter-gatherers
farmers evolved long ago as an adaptivestrategy ex-for involvement with outsidersor withfoodproduction, de-
ploitingthe tropicalforest. This aspect of our model ac- scribingthem as pure foragers and asserting that "until
cords well with Rambo's (I988) "adaptive radiation themid-i96o's, the San wererelatively isolatedfrom the
outside" (P. 38). Konner and Shostak (I987:II) extend
model" forthe ethnogenesis SoutheastAsian Negrito
of
culture:thatNegritosevolved culturally into what they this date anotherdecade, sayingthat"the !KungSan ...
are today as theymoved into the forestto collect wild were subsisting primarilyby traditionalmethods of
products tradewith agriculturalists overseastrad-
to and huntingand gathering into the I970S," and suggestthat
ers fortools and starchfood. theirlife-style may be "relevantto the interpretation of
The accumulation of evidence,then,leads us to favor some aspects ofhuman adaptationduring paleolithic
the
the interdependent model forthe historyof the Philip- periodofhuman evolution." (Fora reviewofmanyother
pine Negritos.6 Some bands possiblydid live seasonally references describingthe San in isolationistterms,see
farfromand independentof non-Negrito farming pop- Hitchcock I987.)
When RichardLee first describedthe !KungSan in the
ulations, but even these groupsmoved at times to lo-
cations in which they could trade with farmers. Most
I960s, he too presentedthem in terms of the isolate
model. The !Kungwere in factpopularizedthrough Lee's
Negritos,however,interactedintenselywith theirAu-
writingsand the Marshalls' (e.g., Thomas I959) as the
stronesian-speaking neighborsto the extent that they
classic example of "real" hunter-gatherers because of
not only learned the languages of those neighborsbut
theirapparentisolation and independenceof food pro-
actually adopted them as their own. The interdepen-
duction. But it was Lee himselfwho later discovered
dence of Negritos and farming populations observable
that "the !Kung were no strangersto agriculture and
todayhas existedmuch longerthan most scholarshave
pastoralism" (Lee I979:409; see also Lee I984:I35). He
thought. There is no question that the ancestorsof the
foundthat the !Kunghad been doingno plantingat the
present-day Agta were at one time Paleolithic hunter-
time of his firstvisit (I963-64) simply because of a
gatherers. What we are arguingis that this Stone Age
drought;on his return(I967-69) he foundthat 5i% of
life-styleended long ago, probably by the middle
the men planted fields (P. 409; see also I976:I8;
Holocene, and thatprehistoric Negritosprobably moved
into the Neolithic at more or less the same timeas their
I98I:I6 ).7 Wiessner describes,too, the way some ex-
tremelyacculturated!Kung groupsmay returnto what
neighbors.
appears to the outsiderto be a completelyunaccultur-
ated state-a "common occurrence" among them
(I977:xx). This observationis supportedby Guenther
6. To advocate the isolate model would requirehypothesizing (I986). Accordingto Wiessner"it was impossible... to
eitherthatthe Negritos inhabitants the infer
werenot the original of anything about degreeof acculturationof a family
Philippines but ratherimmigrated thereconcurrently with the fromcurrent
lifestyle."
Gordon(i984:2I9) statesthe
variousgroups Austronesian
of immigrants some s,ooo yearsago problemclearly:"It is not thatLee is wrongin his repre-
or thatthe homelandof Proto-Austronesian the Philippines.
was
The latterhypothesiswouldimply thatthere alwaysbeenboth
had sentationof reality.Indeed he has shown himselfto be
and
Negrito non-Negrito peoplesin theislands,bothgroupshaving
evolvedbiologicallyfromsomeearlier type H. sapiensorperhaps
of
even H. erectus,and that their earliest languagewas Proto- 7. This is a figure
much higher thanforCasiguranAgtamen,of
Austronesian. our knowledge, one has seriously
To no proposed whom24% didsomeminor cultivation themselves I983, an
for in
either thesehypotheses.
of average year(Headlandi986:483).

7. 48 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number i, FebruaryI989
quite flexibleon the issue ofcontactand interaction.... Gordon's (I984) startling descriptions the intensein-
of
the problem lies in how others interpret Lee's state- teractionbetween Africanherdersand Kalahari San in
ments." the last hundred years, it is hard to believe that the
In fact, Lee's I984 book on the !Kung shows how groups described by Silberbauerand Tanaka were as
closely tied the Dobe !Kung were to food producers isolated and "untouched" as theyseem to have thought.
when he first encountered them in I963. The 466 Dobe These groupsare indeed "hunter-gatherers," in the
but
!Kung were then living in nine camps, eight of which sense of Leacock and Lee (i982a:4, 7-9)-not because
were withina 20-km radius.What studentsoftenfailto theyare isolated primitives who eat onlywild foodsand
note is thattherewere thenlivingwithinthatsame area not because of theirmode of subsistence (i.e., hunting,
340 blacks and thousands of livestock. In eight of the fishing, gathering) because of theirunique foraging
but
nine camps, the Kung were living with black herders, mode of production, characterizedby sharing, com-
forwhom theyworkedpart-time herders.as Only at one munual ownership land and resources,
of and egalitarian
camp, Dobe, were !Kung living with no non-!Kungor political relations (Lee I98I). Today's hunter-gatherers
livestock,and even these "frequently visited"theblacks engage in minor food productionand eat tradedstarch
at Mahopa, only io km away, "to ask forsome milk" foods,"but theirrelationship theirenvironment
to con-
(pp. I6-I7, I23). In I963 truckswere passing through tinues to be predatoryand opportunistic" (Keesing
the Dobe area-"about one truckeverysix weeks" (p. I98I:5I2). Above all, as Guenther (I986) points out,
i8)-and a minority Dobe !Kungmen had workedin
of they manifestflexibility and adaptability, the same
as
the mines at Johannesburg I38). In spite of this,Lee
(p. bands may move sequentiallyover a generation two or
sometimes overemphasizesthe "relative isolation" of from serfdom foodproduction miningto pureforag-
to to
the !Kung (pp. vi, I29). It seems an overstatement for ing to employmentas mercenariesas they adjust to
him to claim that the Dobe !Kungwere living "almost ecological and political changes in theirenvironments.
entirely huntingand gathering" vi) when he found
by (p. As Parkington(I984:I72) says, "We know now
them or that "by I960 the !Kungstill remainedhunter- thatall hunter-gatherers southernAfricahave shared
in
gatherers withoutherdsor fields"(p. ii 9, but see p. I35, the landscape forat least i500 years with pastoralists
where he acknowledgesthat most !Kunghad practiced or agriculturalists." Wilmsen (I983:I6) cites a wealth
both herdingand agriculture the past). And he con-
in of data to supportthis view forthe Kalahari and says
tinuesto rejectthe thesis of Schrire(I980) and Wilmsen that "in the nineteenthcentury,the !Kung homeland
(I983) that !Kung society had been fundamentally al- was alreadylaced by a networkof traderoutes supply-
tered by interactionwith herdersmany hundreds of ing local products to the European market." Denbow
yearsago (p. I30). (I984.:i88) points out that,thoughanthropologists like
From Silberbauer's (I98I) descriptionof the neigh- Lee, Silberbauer, and Tanaka have triedto findindepen-
boringG/wi San, theyseem as close to the archetype of dent foraging groupsto studyin the Kalahari, "in fact
the "isolated" hunter-gatherer societyas one could hope therehas probably been no such thinghere,in an histor-
to come. Brooks (i982), however,casts doubt on this ical or processual sense, for almost i5oo years." The
characterization. She points (personalcommunication, recent reviews by Hitchcock (I987) and Denbow and
I 986) to a statementbyTanaka (I 976: IOO)thatthe same Wilmsen (i986) on the issue supportthe idea of hun-
G/wi,whom Tanaka studiedonlya yearafter period the dredsof yearsof San interethnic symbiosis.We may ac-
represented Silberbauer'sstudy, "do keep herds of
by cept Vierich's (i982:2I3) propositionthat "if the hunt-
goats and donkeys." Accordingto Wilmsen (I983:I7), ing and gatheringway of life has survived in the
"Accumulatingevidence overwhelmingly renders obso- Kalahari,it is not because of isolation."
lete any thoughtof San isolation even beforeEuropean
colonial intrusionsinto theirnative arenas. Early Iron
Age agropastoralist economies were active in all partsof THE CENTRAL AFRICAN PYGMIES
the Kalahari and its surroundings least forthe past
at
millennium.... To ignorethis is illusion." Moving north to central Africa, we find Campbell
Schrire(I980), who believes that the San have been (i983:32-33) describing the Mbuti pygmiesas until re-
practicingsporadic pastoralismfor hundredsof years, cently "independentforestgroups." For him, "there is
reviewsa good deal ofevidencethatcontradicts the- any no doubt of [the]ability[ofthe Mbutil to survivewith-
ories about the existence of pure hunter-gatherers any- out [trade]."Turnbull,of course, argueda quarterof a
where in southern Africa. Denbow (I984:I78) shows centuryago that the Mbuti were not economicallyde-
that "foragers and food producershave been enmeshed pendent upon farmersbecause they could and some-
in networksof interaction and exchangefori,ooo years times did live independently wild foods (I963:35;
on
longerthan was previouslysuspected.Over I,200 years I965:34; but see Vansina I986:436). Indeed, he main-
ago these networksreached into the heartof the Dobe tains this positiontoday(I983, I986), despitethe failure
!Kungarea" (see also Denbow I986, Denbow and Camp- of anthropologists find a single case-either ethno-
to
bell I986, Denbow and Wilmsen I986). Volkman (I986) graphic or in the archaeological record-of a pygmy
presentsthe San as havinglong practiceda mixed econ- grouplivingindependently village farmers
of anywhere
omy that included crop plantingand animal husbandry in Africaand the evidence that the African rain forests
as well as huntingand gathering. Finally,afterreading would not provide sufficient wild foods to sustain hu-

8. HEADLAND AND REID fromPrehistory the Present| 49
Hunter-Gatherers to
man foragers long periods(Hartand Hart i986, Head- recognized.
for For the Holocene, Wobst(I978) cites several
land I987, Bailey and Peacock n.d.). references widespreadinterregional
to tradeamong"late
Cavalli-Sforza (i986) paintsa somewhatless isolation- paleolithic hunter-gatherers" on several continents.
ist pictureofpygmy life.While he suggeststhatpygmies McKinley(n.d.)has a book in pressto be titledStoneAge
(albeit imperfectly) representUpper Paleolithic living World Systems,and Gregg(n.d.) is editinga collection
conditions (p. xxii; see also pp. 378, 422, 424, 425), he of papers on interactionin small-scale societies. Both
does acknowledgethat "thereprobablyare no Pygmies volumes will emphasize the worldwide extent of the
livingin completeisolation" (p. 369) and "seem to be no interaction model we propose here. Several papers
Pygmieswho have truly zero contactwithAfrican farm- in a volume edited by Francis,Kense, and Duke (i98i)
ers" (p. 422; see also p. 362). He argues,however,that show the complexityof long-range trade networksin
they "continue living in an economic systempresum- Amazonia in prehistoric times. The papers collectedby
ably similar to that of our earlier ancestors" (p. xxii), Mathien and McGuire (I986) describe prehistoric net-
"have not, or only veryrecently, adopted farming a workslinkingMesoamerica and the Southwest.Schrire
as
major source of food" (p. i8), "live, or presumably lived (i984:I4-I7) and Spethand Spielmann(i983:20) review
until a shortwhile ago, exclusivelyas hunter-gatherers" the writingsof others on the idea of more general in-
(p. 2o), and "live still basically unaffected contact terethnic
by tradein NorthAmericalong before arrival
the
withthe modernworld" (p. 422). Although pointsout of Europeans,includingEskimo interchanges
he across the
thatBantu farmers "probablymade earlycontactswith BeringStrait.For insular Southeast Asia in particular,
Pygmies . .. 2ooo years ago or earlier" (p. 362), he mini- Dunn (I975:I20-37) reviews evidence suggestingthat
mizes the effect those contactson pygmy
of cultureand inland-coastal tradewas establishedon theMalay Penin-
feels that pygmies "retain substantial independence" sula by 8000 B.C. and that by 2000 B.C. Malayan forest
even today (p. 362). peoples livingfarinland may have been tied into over-
In contrast,Bahuchetand Guillaume (i982) arguefora seas tradenetworks.And Hoffman(I984, i986) dispels
long historyof interethnictrade between the African any idea thatthe hunter-gatherers the interior Bor-
in of
pygmies and their agriculturalneighbors.Concerning neo were independent "wild people ofthe woods," argu-
the Aka, theycall into question "the widespreadimage ing thatthese "Punan groups... arose initiallyfrom the
of pygmiesliving confinedand isolated in theirforest demandforvariousjungleproductsdesiredby Chinese"
cocoon," sayingthat "the linguisticaffiliations Aka, morethan I,000 yearsago (I986: i02). According Hoff-
of to
and the long process of differentiation, imply the exis- man, "it is time foranthropologists stop thinking
to of
tence of ancient contacts which must have been more Borneoas thoughit were anotherNew Guinea" (p. I03).
extensive than mere occasional exchanges of material We should not, then, continue to consider the
goods" (p. I9I; see also Bahuchet and Thomas I986, "hunter-gatherers" the last 2,ooo years or so as
of
Bahucheti987).8 Morelli,Winn,and Tronick(i986:744) isolated or as people who eat no domestic foods (Coon
go a step farther propose that "forestliving forthe I97I :xvii), practice strict"Pleistocene economies-no
to
Mbuti may be a relativelyrecent phenomenon" (after metal, firearms, dogs, or contactwith non-hunting cul-
theywere forcedinto the forest warring
by tribes). tures" (Lee and DeVore i968:4), live in patrilocalbands
(Service I97I), or have no agriculture of any kind (Mur-
OTHER HUNTER-GATHERER GROUPS
dock i968:i5). As Lee and DeVore have stressed,such
definitions would effectively eliminate most, if not all,
Recentevidencesuggeststhat-with thepossible excep- ofthe foraging peoples describedoverthe last century as
tion of the arctic and subarctic peoples-most late "hunter-gatherers." Even prehistoric AustralianAbori-
Holocene hunter-gatherer societies were not isolated at gines evidentlypracticedvarious types of simple plant
all but engagedto some degreein interethnic tradewith cultivation, includingburning, seed planting, replanting
neighboring societies and, in manycases, part-time food of wild yam tops,fertilization, irrigation
and (Campbell
production. There is some evidence of intense trade,at i965).
least in Europe,duringthe late Pleistocene.The archae-
ologistOlga Soffer, referring Cro-Magnon
to peoples,has
recentlybeen quoted as saying,"You have something Explainingthe Persistence
like a prehistoric Hudson Bay Co.," with elaboratenet- of the Isolate Model
works of exchange between clans (Newsweek,Novem-
ber io, I986, P. 7I). Soffer(I985) argues for much more A Frenchjournalistwho visitedan AgtaNegritoband in
complexityin social organizationamong Upper Pleis- thenorthern Philippinesfora week in I 979 reported that
tocene hunter-gatherers than has heretofore been therewas "no evidencethatthe tribepracticedany kind
of agriculture" (Evrard1979:38) and describedtheirfear
of his mirror, tape recorder,and camera,"obviouslythe
8. Berry al. (i986:26) make the same argument the Biaka first
et for theyhad everseen"-considering himself"the first
A
pygmies. brief reviewofother suchlinguisticreferences be white man to intrude
may upon them" (p. 39). A I98I report
found in Cavalli-Sforza (i986:367-69). In this light, Tumbull's
(i983:21) argument thatthe Mbutirecently "lost theirown lan- on these same Agta by the Commissionerto the Non-
guageand adoptedthose of the immigrant peoples" is unaccept- ChristianTribesforCagayan Province(appointed the by
able. governor and given that title in the late '70s) describes

9. 50 | CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number i, FebruaryI989
them as a "Newly Found Tribe" of "cannibal[s]in the Spain, describedthe wildness and brutalnature of the
upperSierraMadre" and even quotes one Agta as saying Amerindians and proposed genocide as a solution.
that "the most delicious meat is the liverof human be- Rosaldo (I978:242) notes the same situationin the
ings" (Cortez n.d.). He describes them as "the most Philippinesand sees "the dominantmotive . .. [as] con-
primitive, wild, fierceand dangerousgroup... a genera- trol"; colonizersview indigenouslifewaysas dangerous
tion fromthe Stone Age" and speaks of theirhavingno to the goals of "civilization" in that they threatenthe
clothes,being fondof eatingraw meat, and being igno- establishment of roads and towns in frontierareas.
rant of days, weeks, months,and years; theirchildren, Guenther
(i980:I35) reviews i8th-
the and igth-century
he says,are "unwantedand unloved," and "idolatry and pejorativeattitudesand destructive actions ofEuropean
adultery supreme." These are the same Agta among
are colonists against the San in southern Africa and ac-
whom one of us had been livingsince i 962. They have, counts forthe persistenceof negativestereotypes an
as
ofcourse,longbeen quite used to whitepeople,cameras, "ideological mechanism . .. [that]justified denial of
the
and mirrors, they love and care fortheirchildren,and land,freedom and lifeto the Bushman." Volkman(i986)
theyhave interacted with outsidersformany hundreds reports that the Namibian governmentcontinues to
of years. treat the San in the same way, making political deci-
Ethnocentric and racist statementssuch as these still sions forthem based on their"primitiveness."Finally,
appearin print,and the prejudicetheyreflect continues Taussig (i987) shows how the colonial representation of
to be widely held (forsummarycompilationsof exam- the Colombian Indianas Wild Man led to thetorture and
ples, see Headland I986:445; Headland and Reid n.d.; killingof Indians by colonists in the earlyyearsof this
Hoffman I986:22-4, 8, 46, 57, 95-96; Rosaldo I982; century.
GuentherI980). While few if any anthropologists today Sponsel(i985:96-97) that in
suggests anthropologists
would accept any partof the igth-century evolutionary particularperpetuatethe isolate model because of the
theoriesof Tylor and Morgan or of Frazer'screationof high value theyplace on the "primitiveness the cul-
of
"an atmosphere of romantic savagery" (Strathern ture studied," "the traditionalin 'primitive'culture,"
i987:256), manylay peoplecontinue believein the
to "culturalpurity,"and the depictionofthepeople as "our
anthropological fiction that Tylor and Morgan contemporary ancestors." On the same theme,Martin
codified-that human peoples evolve culturallyfrom (i986:420) of
says that the folklorization ethnographic
savagery barbarism civilized status.Implausibleas
to to inaccuracies is the result of "exoticism" in anthro-
this viewpointis in the lightofnew archaeological, lin- pology. Ramos (i987) believes that this is why the
guistic,archival,and ethnographic data, it continuesto Yanomamo are so famous today,at the same time es-
overshadowrecent scientifically sound analyses based (pp. 298,
pousingFabian'spoliticalexplanation 299).
on these data. Rosaldo (i982), focusing the PhilippineNegritos,
on sug-
Some anthropologists have recentlyattemptedto ex- gests that they are mythologized "uttersavages" to
as
plain whythismythofthe "Savage Other"persists. Pan- make them more fascinating "objects of scientific
dian(I985 :63), who reviews anthropology theper- value." He is probably
from right saying,
in "Had Negritosnot
spective of the historyof Westernthought,concludes existedperhapstheywould have been invented"(p. 3 2 I ).
that "the psychologicalneeds of people are met by the Wobst(I978:304) arguesthatanthropologists "rein-
symbolofthewild man." Fabian (i 983: I 64) takes a more force the overwhelmingethnographicstereotypethat
political position, showing that anthropology tends to hunter-gatherers articulateexclusivelywith local vari-
view contemporary tribalculturesas if theywere sepa- ability, and that regional and interregionalprocess
ratefrom in time and place. He sees thisas a political among hunter-gatherers a symptomof degeneration
us is
use ofanthropology thatmaintainsand reinforces rela- and culture contact." It is his view that "all hunter-
a
tionshipbetweendominantand dominatedsocieties.He gatherers the ethnographic were intimatelytied
in era
views what we call the isolate model as an ideological into continent-wide culturalmatrices"(p. 303) but that
tool for exploitationand oppression-for "intellectual "the literature remarkably
is silent" (p. 304) on this be-
imperialism."Dove (I983:85) discusses the persistence cause anthropologists have done a kind of "salvage eth-
of the belief that swidden cultivationis primitiveand nography"on them, trying reconstruct
to the "ethno-
wasteful and that swiddeners (no less than hunter- graphicpresent-the imaginary point in time when the
gatherers) in isolation,"completelycut off
live fromthe studied populations were less affected culture con-
by
rest of the world," and, with Fabian, sees the reason as tact." In short, Wobstsays,anthropologists have filtered
political: "These myths. . . have been used since colo- out behaviors involving interactionbetween hunters
nial times to justify exploitationof a . .. vulnerable and theirsurrounding
the nation-states, and therefore "the
peasantry ... [a] morepowerful
by urbanand governing ethnographic literature perpetuatesa worm's-eyeview
elite" (p. 96). of [hunter-gatherer] reality." Cowlishaw (i987) shows
Behar (I987) shows how the Spanish colonizers of forAustralianAboriginesthat anthropologists have de-
northernMexico emphasized the savagery of local nied theirhistoryand authenticity focusingon the
by
hunter-gatherers a justification drivingthem off "traditional"in theircultures.
as for
desiredlands or enslavingthem.Many Spanish settlers, Wolf (I982:I4) blames functionalist anthropology,
in their petitions to authorities in Mexico City and with its static view of cultures,formisleadinganthro-

10. HEADLAND AND REID fromPrehistory the Present15I
Hunter-Gatherers to
pologists into treatingtribal cultures as "hypothetical Comments
isolates." We suggestthatthe moreecologicallyoriented
neofunctionalists the I970S have made the same mis-
of
take. As Mintz (I985 :xxvi-xxvii) explains, M. G. BICCHIERI
Central Washington
DepartmentofAnthropology,
Culturalor social anthropology built its reputa-
has
tion as a disciplineupon the studyof . .. what are University, Wash.98926, U.S.A.I7 VIII 88
Ellensburg,
labeled "primitive"societies.... [This]has unfor-
our
Headland and Reid do a good job ofincreasing appre-
tuantely anthropologists,. . occasionally,to ig-
led .
noreinformation thatmade it clear thatthe society ciation of cultural variabilityamong hunter-gatherers
and airing justifiable analytical concerns. Having ap-
beingstudiedwas not quite so primitive isolated)
(or
plauded the substanceoftheircontribution,would like
I
as the anthropologist would like.... [thusgivingthe
of to turnmy attentionto its "reprimanding" tone,which
impression] an allegedlypristine primitivity,coolly
wave ofcriticism directed
is typicalofthe contemporary
observedby the anthropologist-as-hero.... One an-
thropological monograph afteranotherwhisks out of at past studies of simple human collectives. Criticisms
view any signsofthe presentand how it came to of hunter-gatherer culturesas pristineisolates have be-
be. come so pervasiveas to command the attentionof the
"ResearchNews" section ofScience,in which the "very
simple but persuasive model of hunter-gatherer is life"
challengedand IrvenDeVore acknowledgesthe error of
Conclusion viewingsuch societies as pristine(Lewin i988). This de-
bunkingshould be directed more at media images ofthe
The historical and philosophical reasons for Western
modernnoble savage than at the paradigms thatbecame
civilization's fascination with savagerymay be more
part of the anthropologicalscene in the sixties. As a
complex than all of these suggestionscombined.As we
participantin the Ottawa symposia on band organiza-
learn fromStocking(i987), this Westernworld view of
tion (i965) and culturalecology (i966) and the Chicago
the Savage Otherprobably evolvedfrom i 8th-century
an
Victoriananthropology, and aspects of this view con- symposium"Man the Hunter" (i966), I findit difficult
to dismiss them as having fostered the idea of hunter-
tinue to be fed by both anthropologicalwritingsand
as
gatherers "primitive isolates." I feel that,while pres-
popularworks today.9
ent in the studies of simple societies of the last several
We have arguedthat small indigenoussocieties are as
decades,the "affluent savage isolate" is receiving too
far
fully modern as any 20th-century human group, that
much press relative to the total ethnographic and eth-
many hunter-gatherer groups have been involved in
context.
minorfood productionforthousandsof years,and that nological
While the data base generatedand utilized by Head-
many of these latter were also participatingin in-
land and Reid is fundamentally good,theirtreatment of
terethnicand possibly internationaltrade long before
the Western"Savage Other" mythand theirclaim to be
the i 6th-century Europeanexpansion.The foraging soci-
the rightful heirs to evolutionary-adaptive theoryare
eties we know today remain in their"primitive"state
not because they are "backward" but because they are questionable. In theiruse of teleological language they
display the very Eurocentrismthey decry in others.
kepttherebytheirmorepowerful neighbors because
and
Whatwe need are pliable categories ecologicaladapta-
of
it is economicallytheirmost viable optionin theirvery
tion that referto population/spaceratios. On such a
restricted circumstances.Westernershave chronically
basis one would postulatethatmanythousandsofyears
failed to understandsuch societies because they con-
some small-scale societies ran out of the space nec-
tinue to see them as fossilized isolated huntersrather ago
than as "commercial foragers"carrying a life-style essaryto subsist by food collection and had to shiftto
on
the more laborious and less reliable foodproduction.
not in spite of but because of theirparticular economic
We must perceive variability and predictability-
role in the global world in which they live. Until this
change and resistanceto change-as intrinsic and com-
anthropological bias is corrected, our image of hunter-
plementary tendencies of human adaptiveness and,
gatherer cultureand ecologywill remainincompleteand
therefore, hold that culture change and the attendant
distorted.
variabilityare universals. We must study rates and
forms change,not argueoverits existence,and accept
of
the fact that biocultural viability implies the coexis-
9. An exampleof this was the worldwide excitement createdin tence, not the mutual exclusiveness, of "identifiable
1971 whena group scientists
of claimedto havefound lostStone units." At a more specificlevel, it is important
a thatwe
Agetribe Tasadaycavemen a denserainforest thesouthem acknowledgethe difference
of in in betweenmaterialand social
Philippines-a story that,according severalI986 reports,
to may need-resolving technologies that,notingthe ease with
so
have been a hoax (see e.g., Newsweek,April 28, I986, p. Si; which material cultural elements can cross societal
Asiaweek, August 31, I986, pp. 60-6I; Anthropology Today
2[61:23-24;see also the officialpositionof the University the boundaries,we can marvel not at the interdependence
of
Philippines Department of Anthropology[Universityof the Philip- and "impurity" small-scale societies but at theirper-
of
pines i9881). sistence.

11. 52 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 30, Number i, FebruaryI989
In the analysis of human adaptiveness,useful cate- "obsession with cowrie shells" thatwere obtainedfrom
gories and labels are rooted (within the confines of distantareas.
finitenessand relativism) conceptssuch as integrated
in If in I988 scholars can still write that there were
change, probabilism,and change meeting change. For "isolated" horticulturalists until 5o years ago, how
instance, the advent of storagein material technology much more isolated hunter-gatherers must appear to
and of complex kinship forms in social technology some! Naive romanticism, value ofemphasizingthe
the
should be recognizedas indicatorsof an overall trend primitivenessof a people, the theoreticalneatness of
from simple to complex,not as revolutionary inventions closed-system analysis,and an emphasis on salvage eth-
that made civilization possible. Headland and Reid nographyto gather informationon an assumed ab-
should have put less stresson chastisingthe proponents originalpast in which time is collapsed into the eth-
of unpalatable views and more on demonstrating the nographic present are among the reasons given by
presence,historically and prehistorically, moreinter-
of Headland and Reid forthe isolate model's appeal. In re-
dependence of food collectors and food producersthan gard to the last of these, while historicalresearchhas
had been thought. favorsynthetic
I approachescouched demonstrated ethnological misrepresentation, some-
in positiveterms,as exemplified the writings Bar-
by of times it has not gone far enough. Once aboriginal
nard and Ingold,in which criticismis offered a man-
in baseline sociocultural systems were reconstructed
ner that engenders constructivedialogue ratherthan throughethnohistoricaltechniques, scholars, particu-
polemics. larlynonarchaeologists, treated themas iftheyextended
indefinitely into the past. The intergroup tradeand war-
fareevidentin the archival/ethnographic accountswere
CHARLES A. BISHOP oftenassumed to be post-Western-contact phenomena
DepartmentofAnthropology and Sociology, stemmingfromthe introductionof new technologies.
State University New Yorkat Oswego,
of For example, SubarcticAlgonquian and AthapaskanIn-
Oswego, N.Y. I3I26, U.S.A. I5 vii 88 dians who live in less productive regionshave often been
treatedas iftheywere immune from effects trade
the of
This is a good article that challenges the isolationist priorto European influences.In fact,however,thereis
view of hunter-gatherer societies. Despite a huge archaeologicalevidence of widespreaddisseminationof
amount of evidence to the contrary, thereremains the ideas (Wright i987:9-Ii). Evenbefore direct European
tendency, deliberate or unconscious, to see recent contact,various peoples later designatedCree tradeda
hunter-gatherer lifewaysas representative an ancient, variety materialswith the Nipissingand Ottawa,who
of of
uninfluenced and unchanging past. But clearly this in turn exchanged them forhorticultural productsob-
model has also been assumed to apply to many small- tainedfrom Huron and Petun. Complex tradechains
the
scale horticulturalists. Diamond (I988), for example, and middleman systems extendedthroughout most of
stresses the extremeisolation of parts of New Guinea the easternSubarctic(Bishop i986), and similarsystems
due to the difficulty-atleast forEuropeans-of travel. existed among the prehistoricAthapaskans of British
This may well explain why the Dani did not have face- Columbia (Bishop i987) and otherinland Athapaskans
to-face contactswithEuropeansuntilthe I938 Archbold (Rubeland Rosmani983). Thus, there no evidence is
Expedition,but it does not mean that they were not thatSubarcticpeoples were "possible exceptions"to the
an he
influenced theirneighbors, impression conveys interdependent
by model. Indeed, certainfeaturesof their
in discussingvariationsin materials,artforms, and lan- sociopolitical organization can best be explained in
guage: "New Guinea shows linguists what the world termsof the intensity of
and regularity intergroup rela-
used to be like, with each isolated tribehavingits own tionships (Bishop i983, i986).
language,until agriculture's a
rise permitted fewgroups I have only one criticismof this article: it does not
to expand and spread theirtongue over large areas" (p. carrythe argumentfarenough. At one point Headland
31). In all fairness mustpointout thatDiamond, not an and Reid refer Soffer's
I to attribution rankingin t-he
of
anthropologist, considersvillage isolation to have been Upper Paleolithic in part to involvementin trade.This
generatedby intergroup warfare ratherthan simplythe to me is significant because it demonstrates thatsocietal
difficulty travel.The point is, however,that cultural complexitydoes not simply depend upon food abun-
of
and linguisticdiversity New Guinea is due to interde- dance(Bishop
in to
i983, i987) or,contrary Testart (i982,
pendent relationships among often hostile neighbors i988), on storage.Moreover,given that involvementin
who have forced upon each othera degreeofsocial isola- politicallyand sometimes economically motivatedex-
tion that otherwisewould not have existed. These and change was importantto hunter-gatherers, if Sof- then
similar types of relationshipstend to generate tribal fer's argumentis correctit underminesthe view that
boundedness (Fried I975) and may have led some an- most Holocene hunter-gatherers were egalitarianin the
to
thropologists assume, incorrectly, thatthe particular ways outlinedby Leacock and Lee (i982b:7-I3). In fact,
groups they were studyingafterhostilities ended had the only conclusion that can be reachedis thatthe ma-
little to do with surroundingpeoples. Whatever the jorityof hunter-gatherers duringat least the last i2,ooo
causes of warfare, groupsappear to have known much yearswere socially stratified. The only exceptionsmay
more about the worldbeyondtheirvillages thanreports have been groupssuch as the Paleo-Indiansthatbeganto
suggest.For instance,the Dani are said to have had an occupynew areas forthe first time. Withinthe last few