AQ74(1) Bird 1/2/09 10:54 AM Page 3 IN PURSUIT OF MOBILE PREY: MARTU HUNTING STRATEGIES AND ARCHAEOFAUNAL INTERPRETATION Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, and Brian F. Codding By integrating foraging models developed in behavioral ecology with measures of variability in faunal remains, zooar- chaeological studies have made important contributions toward understanding prehistoric resource use and the dynamic interactions between humans and their prey. However, where archaeological studies are unable to quantify the costs and benefits associated with prey acquisition, they often rely on proxy measures such as prey body size, assuming it to be posi- tively correlated with return rate. To examine this hypothesis, we analyze the results of 1,347 adult foraging bouts and 649 focal follows of contemporary Martu foragers in Australia’s Western Desert. The data show that prey mobility is highly cor- related with prey body size and is inversely related to pursuit success—meaning that prey body size is often an inappropri- ate proxy measure of prey rank. This has broad implications for future studies that rely on taxonomic measures of prey abundance to examine prehistoric human ecology, including but not limited to economic intensification, socioeconomic complexity, resource sustainability, and overexploitation. Mediante la integración de modelos de forrajeo de la ecología del comportamiento con las medidas de variabilidad en restos de fauna, estudios zooarqueológicos se han realizado importantes contribuciones para entender la prehistoria del uso de los recursos y las interacciones dinámicas entre los seres humanos y sus presas. Sin embargo, cuando los estudios arqueológicos no están en condiciones de cuantificar los costes y beneficios asociados con la adquisición de presas, a menudo dependen de parámetros de sustitución como presas tamaño corporal, suponiendo que se observa una correlación positiva con la tasa de retorno. Para examinar esta hipótesis, se analizan los resultados de 1,347 episodios de forrajeo y 649 focales de la siguiente de Martu, contemporáneo cazadores-recolectores en Australia del Desierto Occidental. Los datos muestran que la movilidad de presa se encuentra altamente correlacionado con el tamaño corporal presa y está en relación inversa a alcanzar el éxito— lo que significa que el tamaño corporal presas es a menudo una medida inadecuada representación de presa rango. Esto tiene amplias implicaciones para los estudios futuros que se basan en medidas taxonómica de la abundancia de presas para estu- diar la ecología humana prehistórica, incluyendo pero no limitado a la intensificación económica, socio-económica comple- jidad, la sostenibilidad de los recursos, y la explotación excesiva. oraging models derived from behavioral tion, including its relationship to constellations of ecology have had a dramatic effect on our changes in life history, fertility, and health (e.g., Funderstanding of variability in archaeofau- Hawkes 2003; Lambert 1993; O’Connell et al. nal assemblages. Recent reviews of the field 2002), prestige and sociopolitical complexity (e.g., demonstrate that over the last three decades zooar- Bliege Bird et al. 2001; Fitzhugh 2003; Hawkes chaeologists have, with varying degrees of success 2000; Hawkes et al. 1991; Hildebrandt and Jones and sophistication, increasingly applied the theo- 1992; Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002; Kennett retical underpinnings, attendant logic, and predic- 2005; Lupo and Schmitt 2002; McGuire and Hilde- tions of these models (Bird and O’Connell 2006; brandt 2005; Sassaman 2004), tool use and tech- Lupo 2007; Shennan 2002). Many of these studies nology (e.g., Bettinger et al. 2006; Bright et al. address long-standing arguments about the role 2002; Kuhn and Stiner 2001; Ugan et al. 2003), that hunting mobile prey played in human evolu- regional colonization and economic intensification Douglas W. Bird I Department of Anthropology, Bldg. 50, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2034 ([email protected]) Rebecca Bliege Bird I Department of Anthropology, Bldg. 50, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305- 2034 ([email protected]) Brian F. Codding I Department of Anthropology, Bldg. 50, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305- 2034 ([email protected]) American Antiquity 74(1), 2009, pp. 3–29 Copyright ©2009 by the Society for American Archaeology 3 AQ74(1) Bird 1/2/09 10:54 AM Page 4 4 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 74, No. 1, 2009 (e.g., Beaton 1991; Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982; prey types based on estimates of post-encounter Grayson and Delpech 2002; Jones 1991; O’Con- return rate (energetic yield relative to handling nell 2007; Stiner and Munro 2002; Stiner et al. costs, e/h) and assumed that the inclusion of highly 2000), origins and diffusion of agriculture (e.g., ranked prey should scale with their local availabil- Alvard and Kuznar 2001; Barlow 2002; Hawkes ity. They then demonstrated that, as predicted, most and O’Connell 1992; Layton et al. 1991; Redding resources added later in time were very low ranked 1988; Russell 1988; see contributions to Kennett and that their inclusion was a function of fluctua- and Winterhalder 2006), gender and divisions of tions in the encounter rate with higher-ranked prey, labor (Kuhn and Stiner 2006; Waguespack 2005; not their own abundance. Much of this work iden- Zeanah 2004; see contributions to Stiner 2005), tified climate- or predation-related depression or and resource sustainability and overexploitation extirpation of highly ranked prey as a principal (e.g., Barnosky et al. 2004; Broughton 1994a, 1999; determinant of increasing diet breadth and intensi- Grayson 2001; Jones et al. 2004; Jones et al. 2008a; fication. Many subsequent studies of prehistoric Jones et al. 2008b; Lyman 2003; Munro 2004; diet change and, to a lesser extent, patterns in patch Nagaoka 2002; O’Connell et al. 1982; Porcasi et use have led to similar inferences (e.g., Basgall al. 2000; Simms 1987; Waguespack and Surovell 1987; Beaton 1991; Bouey 1987; Braje et al. 2007; 2003). Broughton 1994a, 1994b, 1997, 1999, 2002; Can- The zooarchaeological utility of an approach non 2000, 2003; Codding and Jones 2007; Edwards from behavioral ecology is well illustrated in the and O’Connell 1995; Erlandson 1991; Glassow development of arguments about “Mesolithic,” and Wilcoxon 1988; Grayson 1991; Gremillion “Archaic,” or “broad-spectrum revolutions.” These 2004; Hildebrandt and Jones 1992; Jones 1995; transitions include long-recognized shifts in ter- Jones and Richman 1995; Jones et al. 2004; Jones minal Pleistocene and Holocene subsistence strate- et al. 2008b; Kennett 2005; Klein et al. 2004; Man- gies around the world, whereby many nino and Thomas 2002; Nagaoka 2002, 2005; hunter-gatherers intensified resource use and began O’Connell et al. 1982; Perlman 1980; Porcasi et al. to exploit a wider array of prey than did their pre- 2000; Raab 1992; Russell 1988; Simms 1987; decessors (e.g., Clark 1952; Willey and Phillips Szuter and Bayham 1989; Wohlgemuth 1996; 1958). Well-known explanations for this change Wright 1994; Yesner 1989, 1994; Zeanah and have made reference to increasing familiarity with Simms 1999). resource variability, technological innovation or This work on changes in resource exploitation diffusion, intensifying social relations, and declines has produced important questions about how to in the abundance of certain prey, possibly as a result establish reliable measures of resource rank (see of climate change and/or human population growth discussion in Bettinger 1991, 1993; Bird and (e.g., Binford 1968; Braidwood 1960; Cohen 1977; O’Connell 2006; Broughton and Grayson 1993; Flannery 1969; Lourandos 1983). Though all these Lupo 2007). Some of these problems have been hypotheses are plausible, and combinations of them addressed satisfactorily for sessile resources (e.g., are probable, none of them has generated clear pre- plant foods, shellfish) through a combination of dictions or well-defined tests about the nature and ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and actualistic studies direction of intensification. (e.g., Barlow and Metcalfe 1996; Bettinger et al. Early applications of foraging models, espe- 1997; Bird and Bliege Bird 2000, 2002; Bird et al. cially the encounter-contingent prey choice model 2004b; Cane 1989; de Boer 2000; Jones and Rich- (PCM), changed this situation (e.g., Bayham 1979; man 1995; Kelly 1995; Madsen and Schmitt 1998; Beaton 1973; Botkin 1980; O’Connell and Hawkes O’Connell and Hawkes 1981, 1984; Petruso and 1981). One of the principal predictions of the PCM Wickens 1984; Raab 1992; Reidhead 1976; Simms is that the range of resource types exploited will 1985, 1987; Simms and Russell 1997; Smith et al. increase with declines in overall foraging efficiency 2001; Talalay et al. 1984; Thomas 2002; Thomas (energetic yield relative to search and handling 2008; Thoms 1989; Ugan 2005a). However, the sit- costs [see the subsequent section and Stephens and uation for mobile prey has proven less tractable, Krebs 1986]). In accordance with the PCM, early and thus far, few zooarchaeological analyses have archaeological applications generated rankings of incorporated actual (or actualistic) return rates for AQ74(1) Bird 1/2/09 10:54 AM Page 5 Bird et al] IN PURSUIT OF MOBILE PREY 5 mobile animals (Egeland and Byerly 2005; Lind- sentation of large-bodied prey in the archaeofau- strom 1996; Lupo 1998, 2006; Madrigal and Holt nal assemblages shows no significant diachronic 2002; Thomas 2008). This is due in part to (1) the decline, the frequency of different taxa of small- fact that in many cases the opportunity has long bodied prey changes dramatically. Slow-moving, passed to record ethnographic return rates for the easily captured prey types (tortoises in the Mediter- resources of interest and (2) the presumed difficulty ranean; the flightless duck, Chendytes lawi, in Cal- of attempting to evaluate variability in pursuing ifornia) are common in the early components but and capturing mobile prey through replicative decline in relative frequency over time, probably experiments (see Thomas 2008 and Simms as a result of human overexploitation. In fact, in the 1987:43–46 for thorough treatment).