WrongBot comments on Forager Anthropology - Less Wrong

11 Post author: WrongBot 28 July 2010 05:48AM

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 28 July 2010 12:26:18PM 11 points [-]

There's a deep problem in general with using modern hunter-gatherer or forager societies to get data about historic human societies. These societies live in the margins, often in isolation in land that was not taken by other humans. Thus, they are likely to live in areas with different resource availibility constraints and less trading than historical human groups. This problem impacts both what you call the standard narrative and your alternative.

Comment author: WrongBot 28 July 2010 09:51:59PM *  9 points [-]

Good point. I hadn't considered that there are strong effects determining which hunter-gatherer societies survived to get surveyed by anthropologists. I'll have to adjust my estimation of the significance of this evidence downwards; I wish I could see a way to do better.