UC Davis

Anthropological views on the labour effort required of hunter-gatherers have flip-flopped between stereotypic positions depicting either very limited subsistence work or long exertion. A computer simulation using evolutionary and population ecology models shows that at equilibrium foraging efficiency is a declining function of work effort, whereas population density responds to work effort by first increasing and then decreasing. This and other foraging theory models provide a framework which can explain observations of routine sharing, modest effort and limited material accumulation in hunter-gatherer societies, leads us to expect diversity in the expression of these characteristics and, is consistent with neo-Darwinian and neoclassical economic theory. Evolutionary ecology theory thus obviates the need for a "Zen' economics as proposed by Sahlins. -from Author