An Analysis of Cultural Interaction

Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Karen Lupo of Southern Methodist University will lead a team of international researchers to investigate the nature of cooperative mutualistic relationships among populations with different ethnic identities, subsistence orientations and political organization. Interactions among prehistoric populations are widely recognized as processes that ignited cultural change and had far-reaching consequences influencing the spread of languages, religion, technology, sociopolitical organizations, economic patterns and human demography. Some of the most profound impacts occurred when prehistoric food producing (farmers and herders) populations spread and migrated into new areas where they encountered indigenous hunter-gatherer's or foragers who did not produce food. Interactions among populations can take many different forms, from complete assimilation to competitive exclusion. Interactions can also result in the formation of cooperative interrelationships in which both groups maintain their ethnic identities but regularly interact in ways that are mutually beneficial (also called mutualism). Mutualistic interactions are well-known among contemporary foragers and food producers but are difficult to explain with current knowledge. Previous scholarship focused largely on economic exchange as the driving force behind these interactions, but observations show that these interrelationships are very complicated and have economic, social and nutritional benefits for the participants. The question faced by researchers now is why some population interactions result in the establishment of mutualistic interrelationships and others do not? An equally important question concerns how archeologists might recognize similar kinds of cooperative arrangements in the archaeological record? Ethnoarchaeology, which uses anthropological methods to identify the material traces of different behavioral processes, is uniquely situated to investigate all of these questions. This research project will help build scholarly capacity by providing ethnoarchaeological training to Central African researchers. An international team of researchers from the United States and Central African Republic will use ethnoarchaeological methods to study cooperative mutualistic interactions among foragers and food producers in the Central African rainforest, one of the last remaining areas in the world where these interrelationships persist. The team will collect information on how these interactions are maintained through observations and interviews with foragers and farmers. The team will also collect information on the material traces that result from these interactions and that can serve as a framework for identifying mutualistic interactions in the archeological record. These include biomarkers of diet and nutritional health from hair samples and proxy measurements of economic and social interactions through the contents of faunal records and household inventories. This interdisciplinary project will create a unique intersecting dataset that documents how mutualistic interactions work and are reflected in the material record. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.