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This paper examines how innovative skills and knowledge are transmitted and acquired among adolescents in two hunter-gatherer communities, the Aka of southern Central African Republic and the Chabu of southwestern Ethiopia. Modes of transmission and processes of social learning are addressed. Innovation as well as social learning have been hypothesized to be key features of human cumulative culture, enhancing the fitness and survival of individuals in diverse environments. The innovation literature indicates adult males are more innovative than children and female adults and therefore predicts that adolescents will seek out adult males. Further, the mode of transmission should be oblique (i.e., learning from adults other than parents). Thus, learning of innovations should be oblique or horizontal rather than vertical, with adolescents paying particular attention to "successful" innovative individuals (prestige bias). The social learning literature indicates that complex skills or knowledge is likely to be learned through teaching, and therefore that teaching will be an important process in the transmission of innovations. In-depth and semi-structured interviews, informal observations, and systematic free-listing were used to evaluate these hypotheses. The study found that (1) cultural context patterned whether or not adolescents sought out adult male or female innovators; (2) oblique modes of transmission were mentioned with greater frequency than horizontal or vertical modes; (3) knowledge and skill bias was notable and explicitly linked by the adolescents to reproductive effort; and (4) teaching was biased toward same-sex individuals and was an important but not an exclusive means of transmitting complex skills and social knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While “Pygmy” hunter-gatherers have generally been assumed to be the original inhabitants of the central African rainforest, recent studies dispute the viability of subsistence in tropical rainforests through foraging alone. There are, however, few studies that are based on sound data of actual long-term foraging. This paper examines the viability of “pure” foraging in tropical rainforests, based on data from participant observation of a long-term foraging expedition among the Baka in the northwestern Congo Basin. The group was observed to subsist solely on wild food resources, particularly wild yams, for two-and-half months. The study was carried out during the dry season when food resources are generally thought to be scarce in tropical rainforests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intracultural variability of parental and alloparental caregiving among the Aka foragers of the Central African Republic. It has been suggested that maternal kin offer higher frequencies of allocare than paternal kin and that maternal investment in infants will decrease when alloparental assistance is provided. Behavioral observations were conducted on 15 eight- to twelve-month-old infants. The practice of brideservice and the flexibility of Aka residence patterns offered a means to test the effect of maternal residence on parental and alloparental investment. There was a significant variation in the frequency of investment and who supplied care to infants depending on whether mothers resided with their kin or their husbands' kin. However, in spite of the variation in allocare, when all categories of caregivers were examined collectively, infants received similar overall levels of care.

We examine the opportunities children have for interacting with others and the extent to which they are the focus of others' visual attention in five societies where extended family communities are the norm. We compiled six video-recorded datasets (two from one society) collected by a team of anthropologists and psychologists conducting long-term research in each society. The six datasets include video observations of children among the Yasawas (Fiji), Tanna (Vanuatu), Tsimane (Bolivia), Huatasani (Peru), and Aka (infants and children 4–12 years old; Central African Republic). Each dataset consists of a series of videos of children ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years in their everyday contexts. We coded 998 videos and identified with whom children had opportunities to interact (male and female adults and children) as well as the number of individuals and the proportion of observed time that children spent with these individuals. We also examined the proportion of time children received direct visual gaze (indicating attention to the child). Our results indicate that children less than 5 years old spend the majority of their observed time in the presence of one female adult. This is the case across the five societies. In the three societies from which we have older children (Aka, Yasawa, Peru), we find a clear shift around 5 years of age, with children spending the majority of their time with other children. We also coded the presence or absence of a primary caregiver and found that caregivers remained within 2 ft of target children until 7 years of age. When they were in the company of a primary caregiver, children older than seven spent the majority of their time more than 2 ft from the caregiver. We found a consistent trend across societies with decreasing focal attention on the child with increasing child age. These findings show (1) remarkable consistency across these societies in children's interaction opportunities and (2) that a developmental approach is needed to fully understand human development because the social context is dynamic across the lifespan. These data can serve as a springboard for future research examining social development in everyday contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]