Food Sharing Among Ache Foragers: Tests of Explanatory Hypotheses [and Comments and Reply]

This paper aims to describe and explain aspects of food sharing among Ache hunter-gatherers of eastern Paraguay. Food sharing has been widely held to be a fundamental feature of the hunting and gathering way of life and has been hypothesized to have played a major role in the evolution of language, intelligence, and the sexual division of labor. The very general question that guided the research is: What factors are responsible for the evolution of food sharing among adult conspecifics, and how can we account for the variation among groups in the extent to which food is shared? Five alternative hypotheses concerning the evolution of adult-adult food sharing are reviewed and analyzed in terms of the competing predictions they generate. These hypotheses invoke (1) kin selection, (2) tolerated theft, (3) temporal reciprocity, (4) cooperative acquisition of food resources, and (5) conservation of resources. For meat and honey, the resources the Ache share most, the data conform to the predictions of the tolerated-theft and temporal-reciprocity hypotheses, with some qualifications. Long-term differences in productivity between foragers suggest that reciprocity is not completely balanced. The implications of these results for a general theory of food sharing are discussed.

[1]  A. J. Henry,et al.  National Geographic Society , 1902, Science.

[2]  D. Jenness.  The Copper Eskimos , 1917 .

[3]  B. Malinowski.  Argonauts of the Western Pacific , 1922 .

[4]  E. Bridges,et al.  Uttermost part of the earth , 1950 .

[5]  C. Hart,et al.  The Tiwi of North Australia , 1960 .

[6]  Lorna Marshall,et al.  Sharing, Talking, and Giving: Relief of Social Tensions among !Kung Bushmen , 1961, Africa.

[7]  W. Hamilton.  The Evolution of Altruistic Behavior , 1963, The American Naturalist.

[8]  W. Kühme.  Communal Food Distribution and Division of Labour in African Hunting Dogs , 1965, Nature.

[9]  George C. Williams,et al.  Adaptation and Natural Selection , 2018 .

[10]  R. Estes,et al.  Prey selection and hunting behavior of the African wild dog. , 1967 .

[11]  D. Lack,et al.  Ecological adaptations for breeding in birds , 1969 .

[12]  C. Lévi-Strauss.  The Elementary Structures of Kinship , 1969 .

[13]  T. Shibata,et al.  [The hunters]. , 1970, South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde.

[14]  R. Trivers.  The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism , 1971, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[15]  M. Sahlins.  Stone Age Economics , 2020 .

[16]  H. Brookfield,et al.  Intensification and disintensification in Pacific agriculture: a theoretical approach , 1972 .

[17]  D. Damas.  Central Eskimo Systems of Food Sharing , 1972 .

[18]  G. Schaller.  The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations , 1972 .

[19]  S. Cook.  Production, ecology and economic anthropology : Notes toward an integrated frame of reference , 1973 .

[20]  Janet Siskind.  To hunt in the morning , 1973 .

[21]  J F Eisenberg,et al.  Comparisons of canid and felid social systems from an evolutionary perspective. , 1973, Animal behaviour.

[22]  J. M. Smith,et al.  The Logic of Animal Conflict , 1973, Nature.

[23]  The Hunting Peoples , 1973 .

[24]  Geza Teleki,et al.  The Predatory Behavior of Wild Chimpanzees , 1973 .

[25]  Jerram L. Brown.  Alternate Routes to Sociality in Jays—With a Theory for the Evolution of Altruism and Communal Breeding , 1974 .

[26]  M. J. W. Eberhard,et al.  The Evolution of Social Behavior by Kin Selection , 1975, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[27]  A. Vayda,et al.  New Directions in Ecology and Ecological Anthropology , 1975 .

[28]  B. Bertram.  The Social System of Lions , 1975 .

[29]  Among the Elephants , 1976 .

[30]  G. Hausfater.  Predatory Behavior of Yellow Baboons , 1976 .

[31]  John Maynard Smith,et al.  The logic of asymmetric contests , 1976, Animal Behaviour.

[32]  G. Orians,et al.  Helpers at the nest in some Argentine blackbirds , 1977 .

[33]  C. Packer.  Reciprocal altruism in Papio anubis , 1977, Nature.

[34]  Jerram L. Brown.  Avian Communal Breeding Systems , 1978 .

[35]  Ellen B. Basso,et al.  Food Taboos, Diet, and Hunting Strategy: The Adaptation to Animals in Amazon Cultural Ecology [and Comments and Reply] , 1978, Current Anthropology.

[36]  M. Harris.  Cannibals and Kings , 1977 .

[37]  G. Isaac.  The food-sharing behavior of protohuman hominids. , 1978, Scientific American.

[38]  J. Ligon,et al.  Communal breeding in green woodhoopoes as a case for reciprocity , 1978, Nature.

[39]  W. Schaffer.  A Note on the Theory of Reciprocal Altruism , 1978, The American Naturalist.

[40]  Eric Alden Smith,et al.  Human Territoriality: An Ecological Reassessment , 1978 .

[41]  J. Silk.  Patterns of food sharing among mother and infant chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. , 1978, Folia primatologica; international journal of primatology.

[42]  T. Clutton‐Brock,et al.  Mammals, resources and reproductive strategies , 1978, Nature.

[43]  M. Owens,et al.  Notes on Social Organization and Behavior in Brown Hyenas (Hyaena brunnea) , 1979 .

[44]  S. Feinman.  An evolutionary theory of food sharing , 1979 .

[45]  田中 二郎,et al.  The San, hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari : a study in ecological anthropology , 1980 .

[46]  P. Moehlman.  Jackals of the Serengeti , 1980 .

[47]  H. Harpending.  Perspectives on the Theory of Social Evolution , 1980 .

[48]  Takayoshi Kano,et al.  Social behavior of wild pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus) of Wamba: A preliminary report☆ , 1980 .

[49]  Elizabeth Cashdan,et al.  Egalitarianism Among Hunters and Gatherers , 1980 .

[50]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The evolution of cooperation. , 1984, Science.

[51]  R. Axelrod.  The Emergence of Cooperation among Egoists , 1981, American Political Science Review.

[52]  B. Hayden.  10. Subsistence and Ecological Adaptations of Modern Hunter/Gatherers , 1981 .

[53]  Kin selection in age-structured populations. , 1981, Journal of theoretical biology.

[54]  B. Magubane,et al.  In Search of an Ideological Alternative to Marxism@@@Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. , 1981 .

[55]  B. Morris.  Economy, Affinity and Inter-Cultural Pressure: Notes Around Hill Pandaram Group Structure , 1982 .

[56]  S. Wasser.  Reciprocity and the Trade-Off Between Associate Quality and Relatedness , 1982, The American Naturalist.

[57]  W. Hamilton,et al.  Social dominance and predatory behavior of chacma baboons , 1982 .

[58]  T. Butynski.  Vertebrate predation by primates: a review of hunting patterns and prey , 1982 .

[59]  K. Hawkes,et al.  why hunters gather: optimal foraging and the Aché of eastern Paraguay , 1982 .

[60]  R. Dawkins.  The Extended Phenotype , 1982 .

[61]  K. Hill,et al.  Hunting and human evolution , 1982 .

[62]  K. Hawkes,et al.  Neotropical Hunting among the Aché of Eastern Paraguay , 1983 .

[63]  D. Posey.  Keeping of stingless bees by the Kayapo Indians of Brazil , 1983 .

[64]  H. Kaplan.  The evolution of food sharing among adult conspecifics: research with ache hunter-gatherers of Eastern Paraguay , 1983 .

[65]  J. Ligon.  Cooperation and Reciprocity in Avian Social Systems , 1983, The American Naturalist.

[66]  K. Hawkes.  kin selection and culture , 1983 .

[67]  K. Hawkes,et al.  Food Sharing Among Ache Hunter-Gatherers of Eastern Paraguay , 1984, Current Anthropology.

[68]  N. Jones.  A selfish origin for human food sharing: Tolerated theft , 1984 .

[69]  Kim Hill,et al.  Seasonal variance in the diet of Ache hunter-gatherers in Eastern Paraguay , 1984 .

[70]  E. Charnov,et al.  How Much Is Enough? Hunters and Limited Needs , 1985 .

[71]  Ian J. Winfield,et al.  The Application of Optimal Foraging Theory to Feeding Behaviour in Fish , 1985 .

[72]  K. Hill,et al.  Hunting Ability and Reproductive Success Among Male Ache Foragers: Preliminary Results , 1985, Current Anthropology.