COGNITIVE AND EVOLUTIONARY APPROACHES TO FISH DISTRIBUTION IN A TRINIDAD VILLAGE By BRANDON M. CHAPMAN A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of Anthropology MAY 2012 © Copyright by BRANDON M. CHAPMAN, 2012 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by BRANDON M. CHAPMAN, 2012 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of BRANDON M. CHAPMAN find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. ___________________________________ Barry S. Hewlett, Ph.D., Chair ___________________________________ John H. Bodley, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Robert J. Quinlan, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT Numerous colleagues, friends, and family helped make my research and career in anthropology come to fruition. For the sake of being brief, I will focus on those who surrounded me during my years working on my doctorate and dissertation at Washington State University (WSU). On my doctorate committee, thanks go to Rob Quinlan for providing theoretical and statistical guidance and practical suggestions for my research. Thanks go to John Bodley for always having potential improvements in hand and providing thorough positive references when I needed them. John and Rob have helped contribute ideas, especially to the community ethnography and statistical methods portions of this dissertation, which substantially improved it. In the office, Joy Strunk, Annette Bednar, and the now retired LeAnn Couch made choosing a committee, selecting courses, processing grants and budgets, and the graduation process a breeze. Graduate students could not ask for a more knowledgeable and friendly group of academic advisors. Thanks go to my friends throughout my time at WSU including Nick Parsons, Ellen Rogers, Amitava Chowdhury, Pasang Sherpa, Jack McNasser, Melissa Artstein, and Kerensa Allison who were all good friends that supported me and showed me how to be a model graduate student. Among these, Beth Horton was around me for most of my years at WSU, in Pullman and later Vancouver. We spent multiple Thanksgivings, Fourth of July parties, dinners, and late nights at the bars, together. We leaned on each other iii when we both needed encouragement to continue on and we have been enthusiastic supporters of each other’s careers and studies. She is the most proactively friendly and nicest person I met at WSU. Thank you Beth and I miss you. Most thanks go to my committee chair and mentor, Barry Hewlett. Besides Doug Jackson-Smith and Jon Moris during my master’s degree at Utah State, no one has taught me more about how to effectively conceptualize, organize, and write grant proposals and research results. I remember first calling Barry when I started the program in 2005 to ask him to be my chair and without hesitation he agreed, despite not having met me in person. Within a few weeks of discussing what I wanted to research and some general ideas, he had me on track with the theoretical perspectives and literature areas that constitute this dissertation. There were many changes, edits, and over the years, in the proposals and this final product, but the overall theoretical approach and idea of contribution to the discipline remained the same. Barry is a caring, soft-spoken, generous, but an intellectually demanding and detailed mentor and an engaging and concise teacher and I thank him. Much of the following work is based on his contributions, edits, and suggestions. Finally, thank you to the residents of Icacos for welcoming the researcher, despite his occasionally intrusive questions, into their daily lives. My multiple visits to each of their households could have been seen as annoying, but I was welcomed with joy, warmth, and often the best homemade seafood dishes in Trini. I hope this research will eventually benefit their community in some way. I will return! iv COGNITIVE AND EVOLUTIONARY APPROACHES TO FISH DISTRIBUTION IN A TRINIDAD VILLAGE Abstract by Brandon M. Chapman, Ph.D. Washington State University May 2012 Chair: Barry S. Hewlett This dissertation utilizes human behavioral ecology (HBE) and cognitive anthropology (CA) approaches to try and understand fish distribution in a Trinidadian village. HBE identifies universal (i.e., reproductive fitness) factors that explain human cooperative behavior while CA explains culture specific factors that influence cooperation. HBE utilizes detailed behavioral measures to evaluate cooperation, but seldom systematically integrates and tests cultural factors. CA uses specific methods to evaluate cultural factors, but seldom do researchers who use this approach measure actual behavior (e.g., frequency of sharing). This dissertation is one of the first to utilize quantitative methods from both approaches to understand fish distribution in a Trinidadian village. The actual exchange patterns and use of cultural models among two different ethnic groups (Indo-Trinidadians and Afro-Trinidadians) of fisher-folk in a Trinidad/Tobago village are measured. These elements from cognitive anthropology are compared with metrics of HBE (reciprocal altruism, kin selection, costly signaling, tolerated theft) concerning fish catch distribution through ethnographic decision-trees to test the significance and integration of evolutionary and cognitive theories on allocation choices. v Results suggest that systematically identifying and testing cultural models alongside HBE metrics can elucidate inter-cultural diversity regarding material transfers and improve prediction rates of transfers. Kin selection and reciprocal altruism show significant influence on transfer patterns, while models of courage, fishing experience, on and off-water work habits, and honesty and reliability also provide reliable predictions of distribution. Local cognitive models “enhance” genetic fitness as individuals who adhere to these and transfer resources among “high quality” kin evidence higher reproductive success. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................x LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................xiv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................1 Research Problem............................................................................................1 General Research Questions............................................................................6 Specific Hypotheses.........................................................................................7 Preliminary Studies........................................................................................12 Methods..........................................................................................................14 Study Site.......................................................................................................28 Outline of Chapters........................................................................................33 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.....................................................................35 Human Behavioral Ecology...........................................................................35 Utility Maximization and Cultural Models in HBE Studies of Material Transfers ........................................................................................................35 Cognitive Anthropology Approaches............................................................41 Ethnoscience, Cultural Models, and Foundational Schema...........................41 Connectionism, Motivations, and Institutions v. Interpretation ....................47 vii Cultural Models in Maritime Anthropology..................................................55 Rational Man and the Development of Ethnographic Decision-Making Trees...............................................................................................................58 Identifying and Integrating Cultural Models in Decision-making.................66 3. HISTORIC AND ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND OF THE CARIBBEAN AND TRINIDAD.................................................................................................74 Geography......................................................................................................74 Island Peopling, Early Migrations, and Archaic Horizons ............................75 Cultural History of Caribbean Fishing...........................................................80 Caribbean and Trinidad/Tobago Fishing Since the Twentieth Century ........92 Ethnographic Background of Caribbean and Trinidadian Peoples................95 4. CULTURE, KINSHIP AND DEMOGRAPHY OF ICACOS COMMUNITY FISHER-FOLK..................................................................................................103 The Community...........................................................................................103 Ethnicity and Kinship..................................................................................120 Ethnicity, Household Composition, and Genetic Relatedness.....................128