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Title !Kung Spacial Organization: An Ecological and Historical Perspective
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1807/18044
Date 1972
Author(s) Lee, Richard B.
Abstract The ecological and social bases of spatial organization among hunters and gatherers are examined. After criticizing the patrilocal band model of social organization, the author documents the flexible, nonterritorial groupings of the !Kung Bushmen of Botswana and relates them to rainfall and surface water scarcity and variability. The paper goes on to consider the effects of extra-Bushman contacts on the breakdown of sociospatial organization and finds that the observed flexibility occurred in both the pre- and the postcontact periods. The final section attempts to relate the analysis to general issues. Three areas that need further work if a more valid model of hunter spatial organization is to be developed are the problems of time perspective in research, adaptation to long-term climatic variability, and critical thresholds of population density.
Subject(s) Hunter-gatherers; !Kung bushmen; Spatial organization - Ecological and social bases of
Language en_ca
Publisher Human Ecology
Type of publication Article
Identifier Lee, R.B. (1972). !Kung spacial organization: An ecological and historical perspective. Human Ecology 1(2), 125-147.
Repository Toronto - University of Toronto
Added to C-A: 2014-07-14;18:31:50