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Exploring Adaptive Variation among Hunter-gatherers with Binford’s Frames of Reference

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Journal of Archaeological Research Aims and scope

Abstract

The most significant change in hunter-gatherer studies has been the shift from expecting hunter-gatherers to have similar properties wherever they are found to recognizing that hunter-gatherer adaptations should vary along many different dimensions. Although archaeologists approach research with different goals, there is remarkable convergence in our knowledge about hunter-gatherers past and present. The ethnographic record of recent hunter-gatherers reveals enormous variation along several dimensions. The specific combinations of characteristics displayed among hunter-gatherers are not infinitely variable but cluster as distinctive “system states” (following Binford, Constructing frames of reference: an analytical method for archaeological theory building using ethnographic and environmental data sets, 2001) that pattern with both environmental and demographic variables at a global scale. Frames of reference based on these generalizations have implications for what archaeologists should expect for hunter-gatherers in different environmental settings, and also for how they should change over time if regional population density generally increases. Recognizing that patterns of variation at the regional scale are different from those at the global scale, I propose a hierarchical strategy for developing expectations for variation among prehistoric hunter-gatherers that can both situate the research locale with respect to global patterns of variation and acknowledge important dimensions of variation in habitat structure that are likely to condition regional variation in hunter-gatherer mobility, subsistence, and social organization.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the editors Gary Feinman and Doug Price for the invitation to contribute to the Journal of Archaeological Research and for their patience in waiting for the finished manuscript. The work of Lewis R. Binford (1931–2011) is both the inspiration and the foundation for this exploration. As a professor, he challenged me to think in ways no one else ever has. As a colleague, he modeled scholarly dedication to his profession and provided intellectual companionship and professional encouragement. This paper has benefitted greatly from comments by Iain Davidson, Peter Peregrine, four anonymous reviewers, and the careful attention to editing text and figures provided by Linda Nicholas. Any errors in fact or logic are mine.

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    Amber L. Johnson

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Johnson, A.L. Exploring Adaptive Variation among Hunter-gatherers with Binford’s Frames of Reference. J Archaeol Res 22, 1–42 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-013-9068-y

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