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Pretelli I, Crittenden AN, Dounias E, Friant S, Koster J, Kramer KL, Mangola SM, Saez AM, Lew-Levy S. Child and adolescent foraging: New directions in evolutionary research. Evol Anthropol 2024; 33:e22020. [PMID: 38214699 DOI: 10.1002/evan.22020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2023] [Revised: 12/01/2023] [Accepted: 12/27/2023] [Indexed: 01/13/2024]
Abstract
Young children and adolescents in subsistence societies forage for a wide range of resources. They often target child-specific foods, they can be very successful foragers, and they share their produce widely within and outside of their nuclear family. At the same time, while foraging, they face risky situations and are exposed to diseases that can influence their immune development. However, children's foraging has largely been explained in light of their future (adult) behavior. Here, we reinterpret findings from human behavioral ecology, evolutionary medicine and cultural evolution to center foraging children's contributions to life history evolution, community resilience and immune development. We highlight the need to foreground immediate alongside delayed benefits and costs of foraging, including inclusive fitness benefits, when discussing children's food production from an evolutionary perspective. We conclude by recommending that researchers carefully consider children's social and ecological context, develop cross-cultural perspectives, and incorporate children's foraging into Indigenous sovereignty discourse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Pretelli
- Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse School of Economics, and University of Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Edmond Dounias
- CEFE, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France
| | - Sagan Friant
- Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Jeremy Koster
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Karen L Kramer
- Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Shani M Mangola
- The Law School of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
- Olanakwe Community Fund, Mang'ola, Tanzania
| | - Almudena Mari Saez
- TransVHIMI Unit, French National Institute for Sustainable Development, IRD, Montpellier, France
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Jang H, Ross CT, Boyette AH, Janmaat KR, Kandza V, Redhead D. Women's subsistence networks scaffold cultural transmission among BaYaka foragers in the Congo Basin. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadj2543. [PMID: 38198536 PMCID: PMC10780863 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj2543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/12/2024]
Abstract
In hunter-gatherer societies, women's subsistence activities are crucial for food provisioning and children's social learning but are understudied relative to men's activities. To understand the structure of women's foraging networks, we present 230 days of focal-follow data in a BaYaka community. To analyze these data, we develop a stochastic blockmodel for repeat observations with uneven sampling. We find that women's subsistence networks are characterized by cooperation between kin, gender homophily, and mixed age-group composition. During early childhood, individuals preferentially coforage with adult kin, but those in middle childhood and adolescence are likely to coforage with nonkin peers, providing opportunities for horizontal learning. By quantifying the probability of coforaging ties across age classes and relatedness levels, our findings provide insights into the scope for social learning during women's subsistence activities in a real-world foraging population and provide ground-truth values for key parameters used in formal models of cumulative culture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haneul Jang
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse School of Economics, 1 Esplanade de l'Université, 31080 Toulouse cedex 06, France
| | - Cody T. Ross
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Adam H. Boyette
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Karline R.L. Janmaat
- Department of Evolutionary and Population Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Vidrige Kandza
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Daniel Redhead
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 31, 9712 TG Groningen, Netherlands
- Inter-University Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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Chittar CR, Jang H, Samuni L, Lewis J, Honing H, van Loon EE, Janmaat KRL. Music production and its role in coalition signaling during foraging contexts in a hunter-gatherer society. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1218394. [PMID: 38022909 PMCID: PMC10646562 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1218394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Music is a cultural activity universally present in all human societies. Several hypotheses have been formulated to understand the possible origins of music and the reasons for its emergence. Here, we test two hypotheses: (1) the coalition signaling hypothesis which posits that music could have emerged as a tool to signal cooperative intent and signal strength of alliances and (2) music as a strategy to deter potential predators. In addition, we further explore the link between tactile cues and the propensity of mothers to sing toward infants. For this, we investigated the singing behaviors of hunter-gatherer mothers during daily foraging trips among the Mbendjele BaYaka in the Republic of the Congo. Although singing is a significant component of their daily activities, such as when walking in the forest or collecting food sources, studies on human music production in hunter-gatherer societies are mostly conducted during their ritual ceremonies. In this study, we collected foraging and singing behavioral data of mothers by using focal follows of five BaYaka women during their foraging trips in the forest. In accordance with our predictions for the coalition signaling hypothesis, women were more likely to sing when present in large groups, especially when group members were less familiar. However, predictions of the predation deterrence hypothesis were not supported as the interaction between group size and distance from the village did not have a significant effect on the likelihood of singing. The latter may be due to limited variation in predation risk in the foraging areas, because of the intense bush meat trade, and hence, future studies should include foraging areas with higher densities of wild animals. Lastly, we found that mothers were more likely to sing when they were carrying infants compared to when infants were close, but carried by others, supporting the prediction that touch plays an important prerequisite role in musical interaction between the mother and child. Our study provides important insight into the role of music as a tool in displaying the intent between or within groups to strengthen potentially conflict-free alliances during joint foraging activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chirag Rajendra Chittar
- Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Haneul Jang
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Liran Samuni
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
- Cooperative Evolution Lab, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Jerome Lewis
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Henkjan Honing
- Music Cognition Group, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - E. Emiel van Loon
- Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Karline R. L. Janmaat
- Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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