Behavioural Ecology and Hunter-Gatherers: From the Kalahari to the Later Stone Age

South African Archaeological Society

Behavioural Ecology and Hunter-Gatherers: From the Kalahari to the Later Stone AgeAuthor(s): A. J. B. HumphreysSource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 62, No. 186 (Dec., 2007), pp. 98-103Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20474965 .

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98 South African Archaeological Bulletin 62 (186): 98-103, 2007

Research Article

BEHAVIOURAL ECOLOGY AND HUNTER-GATHERERS: FROM THE KALAHARI TO THE LATER STONE AGE

A.J.B. HUMPHREYS Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 7535, South Africa

E-mail: [email protected] (Received October 2006. Revised March 2007)

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests a behavioural ecology approach to the study of the Later Stone Age of southern Africa. It attempts to show that such an approach is viable among existing San groups which can be regarded as 'aberrant' in that they were extensively influenced by indigenous mixed farmers and herders during the last roughly 2000 years. The approach is also viable, it is suggested, in understanding hunter gatherer behaviour prior to 2000 years ago. Behavioural ecology is suggested as an alternative way of understanding the Later Stone Age archaeological record that is not dependent upon 'timeless' models of hunter-gatherer behaviour derived from studies of existing Kalahari groups that have tended to be projected (usually uncritically) back into the past.

Keywords: Later Stone Age, behavioural ecology, Kalahari San, hunter-gatherers, violence, territoriality, analogues.

INTRODUCTION In a recent paper I suggested that we should "de-!Kung"

the Later Stone Age (LSA) of the central interior of South Africa (Humphreys 2005). By this I meant that we should refrain from using Kalahari ethnography as a source of analogues for understanding what I will here call the 'pre-2000 BP' LSA archaeological record as these observations were made on groups of 'aberrant' hunter-gatherers from the 'post-2000 BP' period. The latter were called 'aberrant' because they had been exposed to influences from indigenous herders and mixed farmers - not to mention, ultimately, the effects of European colonization - and so have had to adapt or re-configure their 'traditional', or 'pre-2000 BP', patterns. I tried, moreover, to show that if 'modern' analogues were to be used, the Australian Aborigines might provide a better source for such analogues because there was no equivalent herding or farming influence until the colonial period. The Aboriginal exercise suggested some interesting parallels which, while at variance with

modern Kalahari hunter-gatherer patterns, did resonate with patterns detectable in the local 'pre-2000 BP' LSA archaeological record. The purpose of this follow-up contribution is to take the discussion further and to propose an alternative model for understanding prehistoric hunter-gatherer life patterns. This exercise has also been undertaken in the spirit of Peter Mitchell's (2005: 64) lament that "LSA archaeology risks becoming

marginalized in southern African archaeology."

THE NECESSITY OF AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH A major thrust in current archaeology is a consideration of

the emergence of the modern human mind. This interest is perhaps best exemplified by archaeologist Steven Mithen's seminal work The Prehistory of the Mind (1996). In this book

Mithen makes use of some of the ideas from the field of evolu tionary psychology. Sociologists have also begun to take note of developments in this field. This interest is nicely reflected in the title of a recently published paper, "Mindless vs mindful

sociology: models of mind in sociology and the social sciences" (lubber 2001). Ken Jubber, to a degree following Mithen though he does not cite him, here critiques the so-called 'Standard Social Science Model' - the tabula rasa or 'mindless' approaches in social science - and contrasts it with what he calls the 'Integrated Causal Model' - the 'mindful' approach. The Standard Social Science Model sees all behaviour as learned and with no innate guidance regarding what to learn. Thus the differences between groups and cultures are explained by their unique social and cultural histories. The Standard Social Science Model has, moreover, proved to be remarkably persistent. Jubber attributes this partly to isolationism - an unwillingness, particularly on the part of sociologists, to engage other argu ments - and to political and theoretical strictures. Marxism and Feminism, for example, were strongly committed to environmen tal explanations of mind and consequently strongly opposed to essentialism. Advocates of the Integrated Causal Model, on the other hand, accept that the mind is the product of biological evolution and as such it has to be explained in the same way as other biological organs. The mind consists of evolved mechanisms that are specialized for solving long-enduring evolutionary adaptive problems. It is thus endowed with content and structure. In short, we are 'mindful' and not 'mind less'.

What is the relevance of this to LSA studies? In very simplistic terms, LSA studies in southern Africa have tradition ally focused on culture history based on lithics, seasonal mobility and dietary patterns and, through these, gender issues and historical materialist perspectives. (Mazel (1987) provides a useful, though not unproblematic (Sampson 1988), overview and critique of the successive trends.) Such studies have been paralleled by increasingly sophisticated rock art research; indeed, David Lewis-Williams (1993: 49) has even asserted that rock art should now be "setting the pace" in LSA research. The important point in the present context is, how ever, that the guiding force within effectively all of these approaches has been the use of analogues drawn from studies of the Kalahari San - most particularly what Mitchell (2005: 67) calls the "holy trinity" of Ju/'hoansi (!Kung), G/wi and /Xam. The whole enterprise has been presented, in recent years particularly, as a contribution to "Khoisan history" (e.g. Deacon & Deacon 1999: 128-161) implying that such patterns derive from way back in the past. I want to suggest here, as I did in Humphreys (2005), that both enterprises - modern San studies (either in their 'traditionalist' or 'revisionist' modes) and their projection back into the past as the 'LSA' - are flawed. More over, I also suggest that they fall within the Standard Social Science Model alluded to above and that a more productive way forward lies in the Integrated Causal Model or, to use the term which I prefer, for reasons to be outlined below, behavioural ecology.

At the outset it must be acknowledged that even before my recent paper (Humphreys 2005), dissatisfaction with the use of



South African Archaeological Bulletin 62 (186): 98-103, 2007 99

modern San analogues was nothing new. It is not necessary to belabour the issue but two recent quotations will suffice to illustrate the point. In concluding a description of diversity in

mastic-mounted stone adzes, Antonieta Jerardino (2001: 865) observes: "To uncover this and other expressions of previously unsuspected diversity in the archaeological record is to achieve one of the objectives of archaeology, that is, to become the ethnography of the past and not just a wavering reflection of the recent ethnographic present." Even more forceful is Karim Sadr's (2002: 43) remark that, "if ethnographic and historical analogues masquerade as description and explanation of the archaeological record, we will never find out more about the past than we already know about the present." Implicit - or, indeed, one could argue, explicit - in these comments is the expression of a desire for other ways of reading the archaeolog ical record. It is a position with which I, obviously, concur.

It is now widely recognized that archaeological research does not take place in a vacuum. It is, in many ways, a 'political' exercise in that changing contemporary concerns impact directly on the 'kind' of past that is produced. Indeed, the 'traditionalist' and 'revisionist' positions with respect to San research are essentially politically driven even though they also represent different academic perspectives in their own right. Any desire to find other ways of reading the archaeologi cal record is thus in no way an attempt to avoid political contro versy. The inherently 'political' nature of archaeological research has always to be acknowledged. One motivation for the present discussion, however, is that if sociologists, who have direct access to living people in their societies, are becoming aware of the 'mindless'/'mindful' dichotomy, as it is articulated by Jubber, should we, as archaeologists, whose brief is to inves tigate extinct people and their societies, not be open to develop

ments in this particular direction? Indeed, it could be argued that it is even more essential for archaeologists to engage with this issue if a sociologist can make the following remark: "Sociology is not in trouble because its practitioners ape the natural sciences ... In fact, most sociologists stubbornly resist the application of evolutionary theory, the great unifying prin ciple in the biological sciences. Indeed, sociology is in real danger of obsolescence, but this is mostly a result of gains made in other social sciences that have been quicker to recognize the power of evolutionary theory. Armed with this tool, they can now provide explanations of social arrangements that are usually more elegant and compelling than what sociology can offer" (McRee 2002). Archaeologists are hardly strangers to evolutionary theory, but are they exploiting all its avenues?

WHY BEHAVIOURAL ECOLOGY? Behavioural ecology is one dimension of evolutionary

theory that is particularly appropriate to archaeology (see, for example, Bird & O'Connell (2006) and references). For present purposes I favour the succinctness of Robert Foley (1987: 65). Foley here describes behavioural ecology as the study of the survival value of behaviour which can, in turn, be linked to the ecological conditions in which any animal lives in that it is a response to the constraints and requirements of those ecological conditions. Behavioural ecology is thus largely about the func tions of behaviours, that is, the extent to which they enhance survival and reproduction. Foley (1987: 67) goes on to state that, "Genetics undoubtedly provides the basic set of rules by which behavioural strategies can be pursued. These rules, however, are not precise blueprints for behaviour, but criteria for making decisions. With them the individual is able to start 'playing the game', but can also learn from experiences gained during life. This game-playing model satisfies the basic conditions for

COMPETING NEGATIVE/AGGRESSION I

DIFFERENT RECIPROCAL 2 BANDS

BAND ' 3

I I IDENTIFIED 4 RELATIVES (Lesser)

FAMILY 5

(Greater)

INDIVIDUAL KIN 6

SOCIAL LIKELIHOOD ARBITRARY LEVELS RELATIONSHIPS OF ALTRUISM OF

INCLUSIVE FITNESS

FIG. 1. The likelihood of altruism relative to social relationships. 'Arbitrary levels of inclusivefitness' is an informal index of the decreasing 'efficiency' with which an individual's genes would be replicated. See textforfurther expla nation.

selection to operate (i.e., that there is some genetic component) while recognizing the flexibility that behaviour frequently has. What selection will operate on is not the actual behaviour itself but the rules by which that behaviour has been determined. Such a solution has the advantage that it avoids the difficulties of genetic determinism that has plagued the development of sociobiology without throwing away the notion that behaviour can play an important part in the evolution of an organism and its adaptations."

A behavioural ecology approach seems to be eminently suitable in the consideration of people who lived in very small-scale societies with an intimate person-land relationship - in our case, the Kalahari San, who, as we have seen, have been the subject of much intensive research during the late twentieth century, and the source of many analogues for the interpretation of LSA archaeological remains. Let us examine this proposition more closely.

BEHAVIOURAL ECOLOGY AND THE KALAHARI SAN Researchers among the existing San highlight several

'typical' features. (By 'existing' I mean the generalized pattern that has emerged since intensive research began in the mid 1960s.) One of the features is an emphasis on reciprocity (e.g. the highly developed hxaro system - Wiessner 1982) and what can generally be described as an egalitarian ethic (Leacock & Lee 1982: 2). These characteristics would tend to suggest that the San rate at about level 2 indicated in Fig. 1. This means that even though altruism at 'higher' levels on the scale is not ruled out, the general 'ethic' of the people is one of a clear emphasis on reciprocal altruism. However, if this is the case, there is a




point that needs explaining. This is that although the !Kung have been popularized as "The Harmless People" (Thomas 1959), in part because of this sharing ethic, there is good evidence that they in fact do not live up to this reputation. Richard Lee (1979: 398) has calculated the !Kung homicide rate as 29.3 per 100 000 per annum; it was even as high as 41.9 in the period 1920-1955. The 29.3 rate is treble the figure for the United States and six to eight times greater than the average reported among 'tribal' societies often considered to have relatively high degrees of conflict themselves (Knauft 1987: 458). Lee (1979: 377) notes that "adultery was the most common single factor" causing fights. While there may be several reasons for adultery, it is worth noting that violent reaction to its occurrence is exactly what one would expect if one were attempting to maximize genetic representation in the next generation. Furthermore, Lee goes on to note that there was a high incidence of fights within families and also between women. The latter observation can be explained by the fact that in rearing children women make by far the greater investment in terms of bearing and caring. It is therefore in their interests to retain the attention and support of their partners and to resist any attempts by other females to draw them away (cf. Ruse 1985: 59). High levels of violence occur in many other existing hunter-gatherer societies. Data from the Inuit and Australian Aborigines indicate that while inter-group fighting is rare, the 'murder rate' may be relatively high. The murderer and his victim are usually a husband and his wife's real or suspected lover (Trivers 1972: 149). Such high levels of interpersonal violence occur in many decentralized and egalitarian societies (Knauft 1987), probably because cultural mechanisms have not yet evolved to compensate for the shift in altruistic emphasis. Thus, the extent of violence may be a reflection of an enforced dependence on reciprocal altruism (level 2 in Fig. 1) within a wider social network where the more predictable and 'safer' option of kin altruism (i.e. levels 4 and 5) has been superseded. In short, therefore, it would appear that the alleged lack of 'self ishness' among the San is illusionary and what we in fact see is exactly what one would expect in terms of the classic socio biological theory of inclusive fitness.

A second point is the alleged very flexible attitude towards territory and band constituency that exists among the San (Lee 1979: 350-1; Tanaka 1980: 157). This flexibility is seen as complimenting (or reflecting) the egalitarian ethic. Yet this flexibility seems surprising given the fact that it has been estab lished that several (or many? - much evidence has become 'extinct') mutually unintelligible San languages existed (Traill 1995). The existence of such major linguistic differences was clearly recognized and attested in historical times. William Burchell (1822: 283), for example, states that "neighbouring kraals often speak dialects so different as not to be understood without difficulty." Robert Moffat (1842) also comments on "The variety of languages spoken by the Bushmen, even when nothing but a range of hills, or a river intervenes between tribes..." Similarly, Charles Orpen (1877:85) quotes a man from Bethulie, about 110 km southeast of the Kalkfontein Dam on the Riet River in the Free State, as saying, "I can speak Bushman language well, but I cannot understand the Bushmen of Riet River; their language is 'too double'."

A high degree of linguistic diversity seems to be characteristic of hunter-gatherer populations around the world. The Australian Aborigines, estimated to total some 300 000 persons in the eighteenth century (Ucko 1983: 31; Flood 1983: 77), spoke "up wards of 500 languages and dialects" (Clark 1983: 39). Josephine Flood (1983: 196) puts the number of "mutually unintelligible" languages at about 200 with an unspecified

number of dialects that could be understood "by other speak ers of the language." The languages themselves, however, were "as different from each other as Russian and English." Such major differences must reflect extended periods of virtu ally complete isolation or, alternatively, and possibly highly significantly in the context of the present discussion, sustained purposeful non-interaction. Indeed, Flood (1983: 181) makes the following illuminating comment: ".. .500 is also the average size of a 'tribe' in Australia. A 'tribe' is the traditional name used by some anthropologists for the major social and kinship group of Aboriginal society, characterized by possession of a common language, territory, identity and culture." (Note the 'packaging' here of kinship groups, language, territory, identity and culture. This combination is reiterated in Flood's (1983: 273) Glossary at the end of her book.) A similar situation existed in North America where, according to Jordan & Shennan (2003), between 64 and 80 distinct languages were spoken in what is present-day California alone. Further on the theme of purposeful non-interaction, it can be noted that 1000 of the world's 6000 languages are concentrated in the small area of New Guinea (where even, in addition, a limited degree of food production developed). Some of these languages are "as different from each other as English is from Chinese" and "nearly half of all New Guinea languages are spoken by fewer than 500 speakers" (Diamond 1998: 306). (Note how in both cases - Australia and

New Guinea - 500 appears to be the 'optimum' population size.) A further sign of the use of language as a 'selfish' ethnic

marker can possibly be seen in the fact that among the Navajo of North America, a distinction was made only between 'them selves' and 'enemies', regardless of whether these enemies were other Native American groups or White colonists (Johnson 1997: 431). Here, apparently, indigenous people did not even see themselves as 'similar' in the face of 'others' who were clearly different culturally and physically. Such vast linguistic diversity reflected in only these three examples from diverse parts of the world can only argue for a high degree of territoriality among hunter-gatherers as suggested in my earlier discussion (Humphreys 2005).

Thus, the much vaunted egalitarianism of modern San society (e.g. Leacock & Lee 1982: 2) may, rather than being representative of an 'original' human ethic, instead be symp tomatic of the marginalization of a hunting and gathering existence or even of its declining viability. Leland Donald (1987: 483) has expressed this latter point forcefully where he states: "There is the very real possibility that much of !Kung 'harmless ness' is the result of !Kung'helplessness', i.e. one of the outcomes of defeat. It is quite possible that current !Kung social behaviour (and that many - all? - other extreme egalitarians) is the product of devolution rather than evolution." Indeed, Edmund Leach (1982: 79) regards egalitarian value systems as "so exceptional that they probably always represent transient states of society."

This discussion of alleged modern San characteristics is by no means exhaustive. It has been confined to violence and territoriality, both of which can potentially be detected in the archaeological record and both of which can be explained from a behavioural ecology perspective. Let us turn therefore to the LSA and examine the implications of a behavioural ecology ap proach in contrast to "what kinds of expectations ... we derive from the ethnographic observations on recent Kalahari hunter-gatherers" (Parkington 2001: 5).

BEHAVIOURAL ECOLOGY AND THE LATER STONE AGE

It has already been pointed out how 'The Harmless People' image does not stand up to close scrutiny among hunter




gatherers even today but recent research is beginning to suggest that the same applied in the past - in the 'pre-2000 BP' LSA. Pfeiffer & Van der Merwe (2004) describe fatal trauma to the head in the case of three juveniles of LSA date (about 2600 BP) who were buried in the Western Cape. While there is always the possibility that this is a 'specific incident', it is nota ble that they also go on to review briefly several other such vio lent deaths in the region including Morris & Parkington's (1982: 167) "two bone projectile points" penetrating an adult vertebra. They make the point that while people could be killed "in ways that did not draw blood," there were apparently some situations where "the use of weapons was dictated and those weapons could be used with vigour" (Pfeiffer & Van der Merwe 2004: 64). Although far removed in time and space, it is worth noting two potential foreign parallels. Flood (1983: 224) suggests that agriculture did not penetrate prehistoric Austra lia "because of hostility on the part of Aborigines to new comers." And what form did this hostility take? John Beattie (1964: 3) notes that it could be very violent and fatal: "...a stranger who cannot prove that he is kin to the group, far from being welcomed hospitably as a fellow human, is regarded as a dangerous outsider and may be speared without compunc tion." Equally explicit is Mithen's (2004: 175) description of "endemic violence" within the Mesolithic of northern Europe and his observation that, "This would suggest a remarkably high level of violence for small-scale societies" (Mithen 2004: 534, note 19). Clearly, as Pfeiffer & Van der Merwe (2004: 64) suggest, a world-wide survey of such violence is required.

Janette Deacon (1992: 12) has pointed out how Parkington (1980) (seasonal factors), Wadley (1989) (increasing social obligations during hard times) and Mazel (1989) (arrival of migrating population) all interpret changes in backed stone segment frequencies in different ways. She suggests that, "reality may be more complex than we imagined." At least two points that need to be highlighted arise out of this proposition. First, all three interpretations are based on Kalahari-derived analogues, whatever theoretical slant has been applied. Second, and perhaps more important, is the possibility that the ubiqui tous types of artefacts found in archaeological sites mask subtle behavioural variations that will only be exposed if close attention is paid to the 'exotic' and exceptional in artefact assemblages. I

will address both these issues, particularly with respect to the issue of territoriality.

An early example of an archaeological attempt to accommo date linguistic diversity in the LSA can be seen in H.J. Deacon's (1976) study of Highlands and Melkhoutboom in the Eastern Cape. Here he suggested that "major ecological divisions" might have constituted "communication barriers of high order" and that the two sites might therefore have fallen "in different linguistic groupings" (H.J. Deacon 1976: 170 & fig. 67a). J. Deacon (1986) has shown in the Northern Cape, however, that distinct territorially based dialectal groups may be identified in the ethnographic record even where there are no ecological or other barriers to interaction. In trying to account for this linguistic diversity, Deacon & Deacon (1999: 132; see also J. Deacon 1988) have recently referred to the concept of 'topophilia' which is "the affective bond between a people and the landscape in which they live that extends into a desire to stress the individuality of the group" (my emphasis). They go on to point out that, "The power of the bond that developed between the San and their surroundings is obvious from remarks they made about the land they regarded as their own. ... The rich folkiore surrounding features in the landscape underscores this" (again, my emphasis). As already intimated, the alleged modern San flexible attitude may be illusionary or,

at least, a recent innovation induced by the need for survival - in short, pressure towards level 2 in Fig. 1. Language diversity (and topophilia) must reflect a deeper great emphasis on territoriality in the past that has been superseded by changing circumstances. If such is the case, the challenge for archaeology becomes recognizing territoriality in the 'pre-2000 BP' past.

The notion of a flexible attitude to territory, derived from Kalahari studies, formed the basis for John Parkington's influential model of 'seasonal mobility' during the LSA, first articulated in 1972 (Parkington 1972) and recently reasserted (Parkington 2001). As Parkington (2001: 2) observes, "...it seemed hard to envisage mobility in any other than seasonal terms." For some years now, however, Judith Sealy and others have been concerned with reconstructing prehistoric dietary patterns on the basis of isotope analysis. From her initial major contribution, Sealy (1986) cast doubt on the seasonal mobility hypothesis by showing that some groups in the south-western Cape did indeed spend their whole lives at the coast rather than moving seasonally between the coast and the Cape Fold

Mountains as envisaged by Parkington. Subsequent work in the same area has continued to support Sealy's position. In a re cent publication Sealy et al. (2000: 41) note with regard to three child skeletons that they "ate diets based on terrestrial foods, clearly separating them from coastal skeletons with similar dates. This finding supports earlier suggestions that, in this part of the Western Cape, hunter-gatherers from the Fold Mountain Belt were economically and hence socially distinct from those at the coast." An equivalent study on diet and land scape use in the southern Cape has elicited comments such as the following: "The isotopic contrasts are clear indicators of economic differences between adjacent groups of hunter gatherers and, we believe, evidence for territorial boundaries in the past" (Sealy & Pfeiffer 2000: 654). They go on to challenge the Kalahari-inspired approach directly where they observe, "...there is a pervasive underlying assumption among archae ologists that Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers lived in mobile bands, ranging over long distances, as in the Kalahari. Our results indicate that this expectation is not necessarily met, at least for some groups in the southern Cape" (Sealy & Pfeiffer 2000: 654). Over and above their own data, Sealy & Pfeiffer point to work such as that of Simon Hall (1990) which involved the recognition of storage pits and their potential as a reflection of longer-term planning of resource use than is documented among modern hunter-gatherers. Hall (2000: 139) has also suggested burials as possible territorial markers in the Eastern Cape (and, interestingly, in Australia). In one of her most recent contributions Sealy (2006: 580) has, on the basis of isotope evi dence, explicitly stated: "I infer that there was a territorial boundary between Robberg/Plettenberg Bay and Matjes River, very likely marked by the estuary of the Bietou/Keurbooms River." She, moreover, proposes another territorial boundary between the coast and the site of Whitcher's Cave which is 14 km inland and 'isolated' from the coast by very rugged country (Sealy 2006: 580-1). Significantly this work is based on skeletal material from the 'pre-2000 BP' LSA and so represents populations that were not impacted upon by an incoming herding lifestyle in the 'post-2000 BP' period. These strands of evidence, based on skeletal remains and site features, are strongly suggestive of territorial behaviour. Can they be paral leled by patterns in artefactual remains?

This question leads to the second point, 'unmasking' such patterns which might be hidden in the artefact assemblages - or which might be there if we look specifically for them. J. Deacon (1984: 317) has observed that even today San in Namibia and Botswana fashion beaten wire arrowheads into




shapes "unique to their groups." She has been able to trace group specific styles back about 50 years but unfortunately older collections are either too small or not well enough docu mented to extend the differentiation back even further. An important point to note here is that this pattern has been recog nized among people who have, in the literature, been pre sented as 'flexible' with regard to territory and group constitution. If, as is being suggested here, there was a shift from kin altruism 'up' the arbitrary scale to reciprocal altruism and that modern San groups exhibit the latter, then the fact that they still express some differentiation in arrowhead design could be interpreted as evidence of the persistence of what must have been a very strongly entrenched tendency in the past.

Unfortunately complete arrows or even arrowheads seldom survive in the archaeological record but close attention to the component parts (such as bone points, linkshafts and stone segments) might well reveal territorially distinctive traits.

Mitchell (1999: 94) has suggested with regard to pressure flaked backed bladelets that they might well have "acted as a stylistic marker for some kind of social group or alliance network." Close & Sampson (1999: 81) remark of bifacial tanged and barbed arrowheads that "their small numbers and frequently dubious contexts are out of all proportion to the attention they have received in the archaeological literature."

While the point about their dubious contexts might be conceded, it is precisely because of their small numbers or rarity that they hold potential as some sort of ethnic markers. As Close & Sampson (1999) go on to demonstrate, there is a high degree of variability in tanged arrowheads (sensu lato). The possibility exists that, in time, large enough samples might be assembled in order to recognize more distinctive regional patterning. Looking at another type of artefact, Mary Leslie (1989: 25) has suggested that "...Kasouga flakes are a stylistic

marker with social correlates." She goes on to note that "Kasouga flakes are not shared even with Wilton and Melkhoutboom in the same way as the other Holocene lithic elements." These two sites are within 100 km of Uniondale Rock Shelter, where Leslie did her research.

Such 'trace elements' (Humphreys 2005: 40) are, however, not the only keys to territorial patterning in the past. Isabelle Parsons (2003: 36) has noted that in the Northern Cape small surface sites form a substantial part of the archaeological record. She goes on to say, "By ignoring these data sets we ... effectively eliminate a major source of potential informa tion..." These comments are made in the context of a study of the Swartkop and Doornfontein Industries, but what is of interest here is that Beaumont & Vogel (1989: 79) suggest a direct distribution correlation between the Swartkop Industry and the historical /Xam. Despite the fact that this correlation has yet to be confirmed and we are dealing with a 'recent' (and potentially 'aberrant') grouping, such a possibility seems to hold out promise for linking distinctive assemblages with terri torially conscious groupings in the past - in the 'pre-2000 BP' period before the 'post-2000 BP' impact of indigenous farming and herding communities and the formation of present day Kalahari patterns. It will, however, involve close attention to large numbers of small surface sites, and their resolution through time, but a model for such a study can be found in Garth Sampson's Seacow Valley project (e.g. Sampson (1985) and many other references).

CONCLUSION This paper makes no pretense at being an exhaustive

discussion of the topic at hand. It is, rather, aimed at drawing

further attention to some of the problems inherent in using Kalahari analogues as a key to understanding the LSA. It attempts, more particularly, to point out the potentials of a completely new approach to LSA studies, one based on the principles of behavioural ecology. It is to be hoped that the points made here are sufficient to demonstrate the viability of such an approach. Any change along the lines suggested here is, in some ways, going to be counter to the view that LSA studies can provide a 'satisfying' time dimension for communities claiming San descent (consider the dedication in Deacon & Deacon 1999) but, this notwithstanding, some change is essential if LSA archaeologists are to escape the impasse - or state of "marginalization" as Mitchell (2005: 64) puts it - in which they find themselves. As David Clarke (1968: 3) said some years ago, though from a very different perspective, we should "be able to aim at more rewarding results than ... a steady flow of coun terfeit history books."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Peter Mitchell of the University of Oxford

for comments on an earlier draft of this paper and for drawing my attention to some useful references. Judy Sealy of the University of Cape Town also alerted me to several relevant references, while I engaged in many useful exchanges with Ken Jubber, also of UCT, after the appearance of his seminal paper; I am equally grateful to both of them. The paper also benefited from some very pertinent comments from two anonymous referees. It should be noted, however, that such assistance from all these colleagues does not necessarily imply agreement on their part with the views expressed here.

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Documents

Behavioural Ecology and Hunter-Gatherers: From the Kalahari to the Later Stone Age