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The book "Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America" edited by Christina Perry Sampson explores the concept of complexity among hunter-gatherer societies in North America. The book challenges the traditional binary categorization of simple vs. complex hunter-gatherers and argues for a more nuanced understanding of variability within these societies. The authors emphasize that complexity should not be limited to socioeconomic aspects but should also include other domains such as worldviews, ritual, knowledge, and historical trajectories. However, the reviewer disagrees with the book's premise and argues that complexity should primarily be understood in terms of socioeconomic inequalities. The reviewer also critiques the book for oversimplifying the ethnographic record and creating strawman arguments. Overall, the book does not offer new perspectives but instead attacks traditional concepts of complexity. [Extracted from the article]

Oldowan lithic assemblages are often portrayed as a product of the need to obtain sharp flakes for cutting into animal car cases. However, ethnographic and experimental research indicates that the optimal way to produce flakes for such butchering purposes is via bipolar reduction of small cryptocrystalline pebbles rather than from larger crystalline cores resembling choppers. Ethnographic observations of stone tool-using hunter-gatherers in environments comparable with early hominins indicate that most stone tools (particularly chopper forms and flake tools) were used for making simple shaft tools including spears, digging sticks and throwing sticks. These tools bear strong resemblances to Oldowan stone tools. Bipolar reduction for butchering probably preceded chopper-like core reduction and provides a key link between primate nut-cracking technologies and the emergence of more sophisticated lithic technologies leading to the Oldowan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with Alexander Marshack's interpretation of engraved lines as lunar calendrical notations, a number of highly controversial claims have been made concerning the possible astronomical significance of Upper Palaeolithic images. These claims range from lunar notations, to solstice observances in caves, to constellation representations. Given the rare nature of artefacts and images that lend themselves to such interpretations, these claims are generally difficult to evaluate on the basis of archaeological data alone. However, comparative ethnology can provide at least a way of assessing the plausibility of such astronomical claims. If the premise is accepted that at least some of the Upper Palaeolithic groups were complex hunter-gatherers, then astronomical observances, or the lack of them, among ethnographic complex hunter-gatherers can help indicate whether astronomical observations were likely to have taken place among Upper Palaeolithic complex hunter-gatherers. A survey of the literature shows that detailed solstice observances were common among complex hunter-gatherers, often associated with the keeping of calendars and the scheduling of major ceremonies. Moreover, aggrandizers in complex hunter-gatherer societies often form ‘secret societies’ in which esoteric astronomical knowledge is developed. The existence of calendrical notations and secluded meeting places for secret-society members are suggested to be at least plausible interpretations for a number of Upper Palaeolithic caves and images. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Feasting has been proposed as the major context and impetus behind the intensification of production leading to the domestication of plants and animals. This article examines the way feasting contributes to fitness in traditional societies through the reduction of risks involving subsistence, reproduction, and violent confrontations. As other authors have noted, the risk-reduction strategies used by simple foragers differ significantly from risk-reduction strategies used by transegalitarian hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists. These differences are examined in more detail and are related to the emergence of feasting in transegalitarian societies. Surplus-based feasting is proposed as an entirely new element in community dynamics, probably first developed during the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, but becoming much more widespread in the world with the development of Mesolithic technology. Because feasting entails survival and risk-reduction benefits, it creates inherently inflationary food- production forces. These elements first appear among complex hunter-gatherers and logically lead to the intensification of food production, ultimately resulting in the domestication of plants and animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prentiss et al. (2003) have argued for a relatively recent, short (1600-1100 B.P.), and noncontinuous occupation of large villages and large housepits on the British Columbian Plateau. They argue that these developments resulted from climatically induced resource impoverishment in the region. I maintain that their database is inadequate for such conclusions and that their interpretations are in conflict with dates that 1 obtained from large housepits as well as with the distribution of early point styles (dating from 1200-4800 B.P.) that concentrate in the rim middens of large and medium-sized housepits. These data indicate that large villages and housepits that emerged by 2600 B.P., or earlier, were continuously occupied and corresponded more to the development of collector-based technologies rather than any climatic deteriorations or the introduction of the bow and arrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological models and conceptual frameworks have been relatively successful in explaining the emergence of distinctively human types of behavior This perspective can also be used to explain the development of the human species' religious nature and its penchant for ecstatic ritual experiences. Using an archaeological perspective, it is argued that the formation of inter-band alliances were critical for survival in times of severe resource stress In turn, these alliances depended for their effectiveness on the establishment of very strong emotional bonds between members in different bands. Ecstatic states induced by ritualized procedures and shared by members of different bands are proposed as one of the key mechanisms by which strong emotional bonds were created and maintained between bands. Ecstatic states involve the subsuming of individual identities and priorities under unifying concepts, thus enabling bands to overcome natural tendencies to exclusivity in times of stress Moreover, this reliance on ecstatic states leads directly to transcendent concepts typical of all religions Ecstatic religion is therefore viewed as the essential core of early human religious experience and as having become widespread and enduring because it significantly enhanced chances of survival during periods of severe resource stress by maintaining alliance connections. In summary, I suggest that the distinctive emotional makeup that characterizes human beings can largely be explained in terms of the early evolutionary stresses on hunter/gatherers. Early humans required a means to deal with long-term periodic resource shortages just as much as they required a means to deal with daily problems of survival on the open savanna. For short term survival, they developed tools, hunting skills, cooperative sharing, a sexual division of labor, and similar innovations in behavior. To cope with long term crises, they developed alliance systems that enabled them to move out of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the contribution of John Knight the recent contribution on hunting pairs has raised important issues and open up a cognitive New Age reverie. It mentions that South Africa eland plays an important role in a theocratic form in contrast to the master of animals. It also notes on the ethnographic work which focuses on traditional community members subscribe to notions.

Comments on Natalie Munro's paper on Levantine Natufian subsistence and domestication. Munro's equation of hunting pressure with food or resource pressure; Little basis for maintaining that human populations in the core area declined in Late Natufian; Factors indicating that the Natufians were complex hunter-gatherers who engaged in substantial feasting and ritual; Assumptions about ritual food.