The Socioecology of Territory Size and a "Work-Around" Hypothesis for the Adoption of Farming

This paper combines theory from ecology and anthropology to investigate variation in the territory sizes of subsistence oriented agricultural societies. The results indicate that population and the dependence of individuals within a society on “wild” foods partly determine the territory sizes of agricultural societies. In contrast, the productivity of an agroecosystem is not an important determinant of territory size. A comparison of the population-territory size scaling dynamics of agricultural societies and human foragers indicates that foragers and farmers face the same constraints on their ability to expand their territory and intensify their use of resources within a territory. However, the higher density of food in an agroecosystem allows farmers, on average, to live at much higher population densities than human foragers. These macroecological patterns are consistent with a “work-around hypothesis” for the adoption of farming. This hypothesis is that as residential groups of foragers increase in size, farming can sometimes better reduce the tension between an individual’s autonomy over resources and the need for social groups to function to provide public goods like defense and information.

本研究融合生态学与人类学理论，探讨以生计为导向的农业社会领地规模的变异。研究结果指出，人口数量及社会中个体对‘野生’食物的依赖程度在一定程度上决定了农业社会的领地规模。相比之下，农业生态系统的生产力并非领地规模的重要决定因素。通过对农业社会与人类采集者的人口-领地规模动态的对比分析，表明采集者和农民在扩张领地及加强领地内资源利用的能力上面临相同的限制。然而，农业生态系统中食物的高密度使得农民的平均人口密度远高于人类采集者。这些宏观生态模式与采纳农业的‘权宜之计假设’相一致。该假设认为，随着采集者居住群体的规模扩大，农业有时能够更好地缓解个体对资源的自主性与社会群体为提供公共品如防御和信息而运作的需要之间的紧张关系。