Alain Testart

The Significance of Food Storage Among Hunter-Gatherers: Residence Patterns, Population Densities, and Social Inequalities [and Comments and Reply]

Some hunter-gatherer societies (the Indians of California and of the Northwest Coast, for instance) depart significantly from the commonly accepted definition. This paper demonstrates that in such societies the economic structure is based on seasonal and intensive storage of major food resources. The societies presenting this type of economic structure are (1) sedentary, (2) high-density, and (3) prone to socioeconomic inequality. These three characteristics set California and Northwest Coast Indian societies well apart from the small, nomadic and egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies traditionally considered typical and challenge the hypothesis that the adoption of agriculture represents in itself a major milestone in the social history of humanity. The three features outlined above are found in both agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies in which resources are systematically accumulated. Thus it seems that the adoption of agriculture is less significant for social evolution than the emergence of an economic structure based on food storage.

Échange marchand, échange non marchand

Alain Testart : Tauschhandel, handelsloser Tausch. ; ; Einigen Arbeiten zufolge, schlagt der Artikel zunachst ein klares Abgrenzungskriterium vor zur Differenzierung der einfache Gabe vom Tausch. Wir behaupten anschliessend, dass die Anthropologie allgemein Phanomene, die der Kategorie des Tauschs angehoren, als « Gabe » aufgefasst hat. In Melanesien und in gewissen traditionellen Gesellschaften Afrikas und Amerikas nimmt jedoch der Tausch Formen an, die von denen in unseren Gesellschaften bekannten stark abweichen. Das bezeichnen wir mit dem Begriff des « handelslosen Tauschs ».

Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers [and Comments and Reply]

What is the relationship between the present-day hunter-gatherer studied by anthropologists and the societies of the Palaeolithic? And how is the articulation between the economy of these societies and their other aspects to be conceived? In attempting to answer these questions, this article takes into account a further problem, that of the uniqueness of Australian Aboriginal social organization.

Game Sharing Systems and Kinship Systems Among Hunter-Gatherers

This article argues that there are two major kinds of game sharing among nomadic huntergatherers. In one, sharing is initiated by the hunter himself who shares out the game. In the other, the process is initiated by persons other than the hunter: after the hunt the hunter is dispossessed of the game which is taken over by someone else who then shares it out. This latter form is found in Australia. From this distinction an hypothesis is proposed to explain the difference between kinship systems among Australian Aborigines and those of other hunter-gatherers.

Genealogical Structures and Consanguineous Marriage [and Comments and Replies]

It has been shown that mean age differences between genealogical relatives can take on a stable structure. It has further been discovered that in some populations the age differences among relatives preclude systematic sister exchange and bilateral first-and/or second-cross-cousin marriage. These discoveries have been generalized by some who argue that systematic sister exchange and bilateral cross-cousin marriage cannot occur in populations such as those in Australia, where husbands are substantially older than their wives. The classic interpretations of Kariera and Aranda systems are thus further undermined. The present paper shows this conclusion to be wrong; systematic sister exchange and bilateral cross-cousin marriage are possible in populations where birth-order-sensitive female infanticide or other extra female mortality results in systematic age differences between cross-sex siblings. It is also shown that the relative frequencies as well as the mean ages of the various types of genealogical relatives are functions of polygyny rates, the ages at marriage for males and females, age-and sex-specific mortality rates, and the relations between the latter and birth order. Minimally, a populations genealogical age/frequency structure prohibits some and facilitates other forms of systematic marriages among certain genealogical relatives. As the factors which control a populations genealogical age/frequency structure are variables which respond to ecological and political forces, such a structure and the patterning of marriages among relatives may change over time.

The extent and significance of debt slavery

The phenomenon of debt slavery has either been greatly underestimated or, on the contrary, overestimated through confusion with other ways of dealing with the debtor, like pawning, for instance, or the possibility of reimbursing debt through labor. After carefully defining debt slavery, the article shows how widespread it has been, and explains its social-significance as follows: inequalities between rich and poor, already present in most primitive societies, may be redefined in terms of masters and slaves. The transformation, or threatened transformation, of a debtor into a slave considerably strengthens the power of the dominant. The article concludes with a hypothesis about the origins of the state.

La question de l'évolutionnisme dans l'anthropologie sociale

Alain Testart : Die Frage des Evolutionismus in der sozialen Anthropologie. Der erste Teil dieses Aufsatzes bekennt sich klar zum Evolutionismus in der sozialen Anthropologie, widerlegt einige der falschen Beweisfuhrungen, die dagegen aufgefuhrt wurden und pranget die hartnackigsten antievolutionistischen Vorurteile an. Im zweiten Teil wird die evolutionistische Ethnologie des 19. Jahrhunderts gepruft, der grundlegende Unterschied zwischen zwei von Tylor und Morgan dargestellten theoretischen Haltungen unterstrichen, und schliesslich werden die Elemente einer Kritik vorgeschlagen, die vollkommen anders al s sonst in dieser Disziplin ublich gefuhrt wird.

Reconstructing Social and Cultural Evolution

This article presents a systematic critique of phylogenetic linguistic methodology as applied to social or cultural data. The example that occasions this criticism is a 2006 article by Fortunato, Holden, and Mace on marriage transfers (dowry) in the Indo-European areas. The present article advances certain general proposals for methods of reconstructing the evolution of a custom or an institution. The concepts needed to properly consider the question of marriage transfers include the notion of combination and of differentiated social practice. After having reviewed the data from comparative anthropology and historical sources, the author concludes that the most plausible evolutionary scheme for the Indo-European area is the replacement of an ancient bridewealth, or a combination of bridewealth and dowry, by dowry.

Les chasseurs-cueilleurs dans la perspective écologique

ce qui deviendra 1’&dquo;ecologie culturelle&dquo;, formulait la theorie de la bande organisation typique des chasseurs-cueilleurs theorie dont M. Harris (1969) a pu dire qu’elle constituait &dquo;le premier expose coherent [...] sur l’interaction entre la culture et 1’environnement&dquo;. Plus r6cemment, un certain nombre de travaux a orientation ecologique conduisaient a la refutation de postulats errones sur les chasseurs-cueilleurs, comme celui, par exemple, selon lequel

Importance et signification de l'esclavage pour dettes

Alain Testart : Wichtigkeit und Bedeutung des Sklaventums fur Schulden. ; ; Das Phanomen des Sklaventums fur Schulden wurde stark unterschatzt oder im Gegenteil mit unterschiedlichen Ausbeutungsformen des Schuldigers verwechselt (Personen als Pfand, Arbeit zur Schuldtilgung). Der Aufsatz definiert eingangs genau seinen Zweck und zeigt in einer Weltuberschau die Verbreitung des Sklaventums fur Schulden. Seine hauptsachliche soziale Bedeutung ist die folgende : die Ungleichheit zwischen Reichen und Armen, die in den meisten primitiven Gesellschaften schon stark vertreten ist, kann uber die Definition von Herr und Sklave neu bestimmt werden. Diese Umwandlung oder die Gefahr dazu starkt die Macht des Beherrschenden ganz besonders. Der Aufsatz endet mit einem Vorschlag zur Herkunft des Staates.