TY - JOUR
T1 - Ephemeral Work Group Formation of Jenu Kuruba Honey Collectors and Late 19th Century Coloado Silver Prospectors
AU - Demps, Kathryn
AU - Klemetti, Susan M. Glover
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
PY - 2014/3/28
Y1 - 2014/3/28
N2 - Humans frequently form short-lived cooperative groups to accomplish subsistence and economic tasks. We explore the ecological and cultural factors behind ephemeral work-group formation in two disparate cultural contexts: groups foraging for wild honey in present day South India and groups prospecting for silver ore in the Elk Mountain Mining District of Colorado in the late 19th century. Contrary to traditional economic foraging predictions, we find little evidence that per capita yields are the most important factor in determining size and composition of ephemeral work groups. We explore factors in each of these cultures that may be of importance for group formation such as kinship, reputation, and pleasure. Models that only incorporate economic parameters will make poor predictions of how humans interact with their environments.
AB - Humans frequently form short-lived cooperative groups to accomplish subsistence and economic tasks. We explore the ecological and cultural factors behind ephemeral work-group formation in two disparate cultural contexts: groups foraging for wild honey in present day South India and groups prospecting for silver ore in the Elk Mountain Mining District of Colorado in the late 19th century. Contrary to traditional economic foraging predictions, we find little evidence that per capita yields are the most important factor in determining size and composition of ephemeral work groups. We explore factors in each of these cultures that may be of importance for group formation such as kinship, reputation, and pleasure. Models that only incorporate economic parameters will make poor predictions of how humans interact with their environments.
KW - foraging theory
KW - group formation
KW - human behavioral ecology
KW - resource extraction
UR - https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/108
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84907646262&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/1568539X-00003192
DO - 10.1163/1568539X-00003192
M3 - Article
VL - 151
SP - 1413
EP - 1432
JO - Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations
JF - Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations
IS - 10
ER -