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DECISION MAKING AND INFORMATION AMONG HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETIES
Abstract
The research problem is the impact of decision making and information sharing on hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement. The problem is placed in context with a review of general hunter-gatherer models which finds that information has not been treated as a dynamic variable. Two approaches to decison making and information sharing--rational decision making and a man-environment learning model--are evaluated to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The man-environment learning model demonstrates a greater ability to incorporate anthropologically significant variables. Through a simulation approach, the man-environment learning model is then applied to four problem areas in regional subsistence and settlement--the role of coordinated regional settlement, aggregated versus dispersed settlement systems, coastal versus interior settlement, and hunter-gatherer settlement along an agricultural frontier. In each case the regional man-environment model provides insight into how information sharing and decision making mechanisms create variability in settlement and subsistence activities which non-learning subsistence and settlement models ignore.
Subject Area
Archaeology
Recommended Citation
MOORE, JAMES ANTHONY, "DECISION MAKING AND INFORMATION AMONG HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETIES" (1981). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8201366.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8201366