Maritime Hunter-Gatherers: Ecology and Prehistory [and Comments and Reply]

TLDR

Coastal Peru’s nutrient‑rich littoral has been cited as uniquely productive, yet other maritime environments are often viewed as less productive, and ecological factors such as climate and sea‑level changes are considered key drivers of worldwide maritime population trends. The article argues that maritime coastal environments are generally highly productive and support dense hunter‑gatherer populations, proposing a mid‑range theory that unifies diverse coastal cases. The authors outline ten defining characteristics of maritime‑adapted populations, including abundant, diverse, low‑seasonality resources, linear settlements, sedentism, technological complexity, cooperative resource exploitation, lower dependency ratios, high densities, territoriality, interpopulation competition, and warfare.

Abstract

In a recent discussion of prehistoric developments in coastal Peru, Osborn has drawn attention to the "uniqueness" of the Peruvian littoral in providing large amounts of nutrients to support locally high population densities and a base for the development of Peruvian civilization. This bounteous resource base is contrasted with that of other maritime environments, which are seen to be relatively unproductive. The present article takes issue with that viewpoint, arguing instead that the maritime and coastal environments occupied by humans are generally highly productive and have uniformly supported relatively dense populations of hunter-gatherers. Rather than arguing for the uniqueness of the Peruvian, Northwest Coast, or other situations where complex societies developed on a coastal base, it seems more profitable to develop a "midle-range" theory which will encompass these situations within the variability of maritime hunter-gatherers in general. To this end, I have suggested ten basic features that distinguish maritime-adapted populations (high resource biomass, high resource diversity, low resource seasonality, "unearned" resources, linear settlement patterns, sedentism, technological complexity, cooperative socioeconomic forms for resources explotation, lower dependency ratios, high population densities, and territoriality, interpopulation resource competition, and warfare). This in not an idle exercise, since without a general theory of maritime adaptation it is impossible to achieve and explanation of the origins of maritime adaptation. At minimum, such an explantion would have to encompass both the origins of maritime exploitation during the Upper Palaeolithic and the worldwide intensification of maritime exploitation, particularly shellfish collection, during middle Holocene times. Ecological factors, particularly climate and sea-level changes, offer the most parsimonious explanations for these observed worldwide trends.