Jacob Freeman
I am a human ecologist with training in anthropology, archaeology and ecology. My research program combines the comparison of ethnographic and archaeological data, formal models of social and ecological systems and contextualized behavioral experiments to identify and evaluate general principles of human-environment interactions. I specifically investigate the evolution of resource ownership and territoriality among hunter-gatherers, the adoption of domesticated plants by hunter-gatherers, agricultural specialization and how diversity impacts the long-term robustness of coupled social and ecological systems.
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under improving conditions (positive disturbance) groups with higher general intelligence perform better. However, when conditions deteriorate (negative disturbance) groups with high competency in both general and social intelligence are less likely to deplete resources and harvest more. Thus, we propose that a functional diversity of cognitive abilities improves how effectively social groups govern common pool resources, especially when conditions deteriorate and groups need to re-evaluate and change their behaviors.
hunter-gatherer territorial dynamics. We develop and evaluate three hypotheses for the effects of corporate territorial ownership and the storage of food on the territory size of hunter-gatherer societies. We seek to initiate a more nuanced understanding of how social and technological organization cause and constrain the size of hunter-gatherer territories, in addition to the factors of population size and the productivity of ecosystems documented among primates and mammals in general. Our analysis suggests that the storage of food fundamentally alters population-territory size dynamics in hunter-gatherer societies. When societies store food, territory size is a sub-linear function of population. When societies do not store food, the function is approximately linear. The sub-linear scaling of population and territory size indicates that when societies store food, the social units that comprise ethno-linguistic groups produce
more food per unit of area and share ever more over-lapping
subsistence ranges in response to population growth. This non-linear population-territory size relationship signals that coevolutionary processes initiated by different ways of constructing a niche generate diversity in hunter-gatherer societies. We speculate that the storage of food, initiated to cope with the short-term risk of a short-fall of food, has long-term consequences on the trajectory of hunter-gatherer
evolution in general.
Ecological models are a fundamental tool that archaeologists use to clarify our thinking about the processes that generate the archaeological record. Typically, arguments reasoned from a single model are bolstered by observing the consistency of ethnographic data with the argument. This is often referred to as model validation, and establishes that an argument is reasonable. In this paper, we move beyond validation by comparing the consistency of two arguments reasoned from different models that may explain corporate territorial ownership with data from a large sample of ethnographic cases. Our results suggest that social dilemmas are an under appreciated mechanism that can drive the evolution of corporate territorial ownership. When social dilemmas emerge, the costs associated with provisioning the public goods of information on resources or, perhaps, common defense create situations in which human foragers gain more by cooperating to recognize corporate ownership rules than they lose. Our results also indicate that societies who share a common cultural history are more
likely to recognize corporate ownership, and there is a spatial dynamic in which societies who live near each other are more likely to recognize corporate ownership as the number of near-by groups who recognize ownership increases. Our results have important implications for investigating the
coevolution of territorial ownership and the adoption of food production in the archaeological record.
social science literature. Archaeology can provide insights into how diverse social situations play out over the long term.
There are many kinds of diversities, and we propose representational diversity as a distinct category. Representational
diversity specifically concerns how and whether differences are marked or masked materially. We investigate several archaeological
sequences in the U.S. Southwest. Each began with the coming together of populations that created situations of
unprecedented social diversity; some resulted in conflict, others in long-term stability. We trace how representational
diversity changed through these sequences. Specifically, we review the transregional Kayenta migration to the southern
Southwest and focus empirical analyses on regional processes in the Cibola region and on painted ceramics. Results show
that, initially, representational diversity increased above and beyond that caused by the combination of previously separate
traditions as people marked their differences. Subsequently, in some instances, the diversity was replaced by widespread
homogeneity as the differences were masked and mitigated. Although the social causes and effects of diversity are many
and varied, long-term stability and persistence is associated with tolerance of a range of diversities.
under improving conditions (positive disturbance) groups with higher general intelligence perform better. However, when conditions deteriorate (negative disturbance) groups with high competency in both general and social intelligence are less likely to deplete resources and harvest more. Thus, we propose that a functional diversity of cognitive abilities improves how effectively social groups govern common pool resources, especially when conditions deteriorate and groups need to re-evaluate and change their behaviors.
hunter-gatherer territorial dynamics. We develop and evaluate three hypotheses for the effects of corporate territorial ownership and the storage of food on the territory size of hunter-gatherer societies. We seek to initiate a more nuanced understanding of how social and technological organization cause and constrain the size of hunter-gatherer territories, in addition to the factors of population size and the productivity of ecosystems documented among primates and mammals in general. Our analysis suggests that the storage of food fundamentally alters population-territory size dynamics in hunter-gatherer societies. When societies store food, territory size is a sub-linear function of population. When societies do not store food, the function is approximately linear. The sub-linear scaling of population and territory size indicates that when societies store food, the social units that comprise ethno-linguistic groups produce
more food per unit of area and share ever more over-lapping
subsistence ranges in response to population growth. This non-linear population-territory size relationship signals that coevolutionary processes initiated by different ways of constructing a niche generate diversity in hunter-gatherer societies. We speculate that the storage of food, initiated to cope with the short-term risk of a short-fall of food, has long-term consequences on the trajectory of hunter-gatherer
evolution in general.
Ecological models are a fundamental tool that archaeologists use to clarify our thinking about the processes that generate the archaeological record. Typically, arguments reasoned from a single model are bolstered by observing the consistency of ethnographic data with the argument. This is often referred to as model validation, and establishes that an argument is reasonable. In this paper, we move beyond validation by comparing the consistency of two arguments reasoned from different models that may explain corporate territorial ownership with data from a large sample of ethnographic cases. Our results suggest that social dilemmas are an under appreciated mechanism that can drive the evolution of corporate territorial ownership. When social dilemmas emerge, the costs associated with provisioning the public goods of information on resources or, perhaps, common defense create situations in which human foragers gain more by cooperating to recognize corporate ownership rules than they lose. Our results also indicate that societies who share a common cultural history are more
likely to recognize corporate ownership, and there is a spatial dynamic in which societies who live near each other are more likely to recognize corporate ownership as the number of near-by groups who recognize ownership increases. Our results have important implications for investigating the
coevolution of territorial ownership and the adoption of food production in the archaeological record.
social science literature. Archaeology can provide insights into how diverse social situations play out over the long term.
There are many kinds of diversities, and we propose representational diversity as a distinct category. Representational
diversity specifically concerns how and whether differences are marked or masked materially. We investigate several archaeological
sequences in the U.S. Southwest. Each began with the coming together of populations that created situations of
unprecedented social diversity; some resulted in conflict, others in long-term stability. We trace how representational
diversity changed through these sequences. Specifically, we review the transregional Kayenta migration to the southern
Southwest and focus empirical analyses on regional processes in the Cibola region and on painted ceramics. Results show
that, initially, representational diversity increased above and beyond that caused by the combination of previously separate
traditions as people marked their differences. Subsequently, in some instances, the diversity was replaced by widespread
homogeneity as the differences were masked and mitigated. Although the social causes and effects of diversity are many
and varied, long-term stability and persistence is associated with tolerance of a range of diversities.