CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 485Language and cultural evolutionArchaeology and Rock Art StudiesEvolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Open access
Wiessner, Polly W.·2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1404212111PMC PMC4191796
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Significance: Control of fire and the capacity for cooking led to major anatomical and residential changes for early humans, starting more than a million years ago. However, little is known about what transpired when the day was extended by firelight. Data from the Ju/’hoan hunter-gatherers of southern Africa show major differences between day and night talk. Day talk centered on practicalities and sanctioning gossip; firelit activities centered on conversations that evoked the imagination, helped people remember and understand others in their external networks, healed rifts of the day, and conveyed information about cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior and corresponding trust. Appetites for firelit settings for intimate conversations and for evening stories remain with us today.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1404212111

Cites

6 of 6 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • At night, more than 80% of Ju/'hoansi conversations focused on elaborate stories: hunting ventures, meat fights, murders, marriages, bushfires, getting lost, and births.

    “At night, however, more than 80% of conversations focused on elaborate stories: hunting ventures, meat fights, murders, marriages, bushfires, getting lost, and births (Wiessner, 2014).”

    From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Wiessner, 2014

    In “Like Night and Day,” the paper says 81% of lengthy nighttime conversations involving many people were devoted to stories—not more than 80% of all nighttime conversations. “Methods and Data” lists the story topics named in the claim and cautions that the sampled conversations were not representative of all Ju/’hoansi talk. Page numbers were not provided in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • During the day, the Ju/'hoansi focused on economic issues, jokes, and gossip aimed at regulating behavior; these types of communication contain basic narrative elements.

    “She found that during the day, the Ju/’hoansi focused on economic issues, jokes, and gossip aimed at regulating behavior. These types of communication contain basic narrative elements.”

    From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Wiessner, 2014

    In “Like Night and Day” (page unavailable), the paper reports that daytime talk included economic discussions, joking, and complaint, criticism, and gossip that could regulate social behavior. It does not establish that these types of daytime communication contain basic narrative elements; it chiefly describes storytelling as a nighttime activity. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Evidence for the association between fire and storytelling comes from the work of anthropologist Polly Wiessner, who spent several decades living with the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen.

    “Evidence for the association between fire and storytelling comes from the work of anthropologist Polly Wiessner, who spent several decades living with the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen, a forager society of Botswana and Namibia.”

    From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Wiessner, 2014

    The Methods and Data section describes Wiessner’s observations of Ju/’hoansi conversations in 1974 and later visits, including three one-month research stays in 2011–2013. The paper documents storytelling by firelight and identifies the Ju/’hoansi as inhabitants of Botswana and Namibia, but it does not say Wiessner spent several decades living with them. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Over approximately 40 years, Wiessner collected data on the Bushmen's conversations.

    “Over approximately 40 years, Wiessner collected data on the Bushmen’s conversations.”

    From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Wiessner, 2014

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 77

  1. Wrangham R, Carmody R (2010) Human adaptation to the control of fire. Evol An- thropol 19(5):187-199.
  2. Carmody RN, Wrangham RW (2009) The energetic significance of cooking. J Hum Evol 57(4):379-391.
  3. Burton F (2011) Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution (Univ of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM).
  4. Berna F, et al. (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(20):E1215-E1220.
  5. Gowlett JA, Wrangham RW (2013) Earliest fire in Africa: Towards the convergence of archaeological evidence and the cooking hypothesis. Azania 48(1):5-30.
  6. Dunbar R, Gowlett J (2014) Fireside chat: The impact of fire on hominin socioecology. Lucy to Language: The Benchmark Papers, eds Dunbar R, Gamble C, Gowlett J (Ox- ford Univ Press, Oxford), pp 277-296.
  7. Hill K, Barton M, Hurtado A (2009) The emergence of human uniqueness: Characters underlying behavioral modernity. Evol Anthropol 18(5):187-200.
  8. Hawkes K, O'Connell JF, Jones NG, Alvarez H, Charnov EL (1998) Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95(3): 1336-1339.
  9. Hrdy S (2009) Mothers and Others (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA).
  10. van Schaik C, Burkart J (2010) Mind the gap: Cooperative breeding and the evolution of our unique features. Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals, eds Kappeler PM, Silk JB (Springer, Berlin), pp 477-496.
  11. Dunbar R (2008) Why humans aren't just great apes? Issues in Ethnology and An- thropology 3(3):15-33.
  12. Tomasello M, Carpenter M (2007) Shared intentionality. Dev Sci 10(1):121-125.
  13. Durkheim E (2001) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Oxford Univ Press, Oxford).
  14. Dediu D, Levinson SC (2013) On the antiquity of language: The reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences. Front Psychol 4(397): 397.
  15. Bowles S, Gintis H (2011) A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution (Princeton Univ Press, Princeton).
  16. Henrich J, et al. (2010) Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327(5972):1480-1484.
  17. Hill KR, et al. (2011) Co-residence patterns in hunter-gatherer societies show unique human social structure. Science 331(6022):1286-1289.
  18. Wiessner P (1982) Risk, reciprocity and social influences on !Kung San economics. Politics and History in Band Societies, eds Leacock E, Lee R (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, UK), pp 61-84.
  19. Dunbar R, Gamble C, Gowlett J (Oxford Univ Press, Oxford), pp 341-366.
  20. Musharbash Y (2013) Night, sight and feeling safe: An exploration of aspects of Warlpiri and Western sleep. TAJA 24(1):48-63.
  21. Greif A (2006) Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  22. North DC (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  23. Aoki H, Yamada N, Ozeki Y, Yamane H, Kato N (1998) Minimum light intensity required to suppress nocturnal melatonin concentration in human saliva. Neurosci Lett 252(2):91-94.
  24. Lee R (1979) The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (Cam- bridge Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  25. Lee R, DeVore I, eds (1976) Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers (Harvard Univ Press, Cam- bridge, MA).
  26. Marshall L (1976) The !Kung of Nyae Nyae (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  27. Kelly RL (1995) The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC).
  28. Boehm C (2009) Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  29. Barnard A (1978) Universal systems of kin categorization. Afr Stud 37(1):69-82.
  30. Barnard A (1999) Modern hunter-gatherers and early symbolic culture. The Evolu- tion of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View, eds Dunbar R, Knight C, Power C (Rutgers Univ Press, New Brunswick, NJ), pp 50-70.
  31. Wiessner P (1996) Leveling the hunter: Constraints on the status quest in foraging societies. Food and the Status, eds Wiessner P, Schiefenhövel W (Berghahn Books, Oxford), pp 171-192.
  32. Apostolou M (2007) Sexual selection under parental choice: The role of parents in the evolution of human mating. Evol Hum Behav 28(6):403-409.
  33. Walker RS, Hill KR, Flinn MV, Ellsworth RM (2011) Evolutionary history of hunter- gatherer marriage practices. PLoS ONE 6(4):e19066.
  34. Cashdan E (1983) Territoriality among human foragers: Ecological models and an application to four bushman groups. Curr Anthropol 24(1):47-66.
  35. Whallon R (2006) Social networks and information: Non-"utilitarian" mobility among hunter-gatherers. J Anthropol Archaeol 25(2):259-270.
  36. Hayden B (1987) Alliances and ritual ecstasy: Human responses to resource stress. J Sci Study Relig 26(1):81-91.
  37. Guenther M (1999) Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society (Indiana Univ Press, Bloomington, IN).
  38. Wilmsen E (1989) Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago).
  39. Wiessner P (2003) Owners of the future? Calories, cash, casualties and self-sufficiency in the Nyae Nyae area between 1996 and 2003. Vis Anthropol Rev 19(1-2):149-159.
  40. Biesele M (1993) Women Like Meat: The Folklore and Foraging Ideology of the Kalahari Ju/'hoan (Witwatersrand Univ Press, Johannesburg).
  41. Lee R (1969) Eating Christmas in the Kalahari. J Nat Hist 78(10):14-22.
  42. Wiessner P (2005) Norm enforcement among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen. Hum Nat 16(2):115-145.
  43. Shostak M (2009) Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  44. Wiessner P (2009) Parent-offspring conflict in marriage: Implications for social evolution and material culture among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen. Patterns and Process in Cultural Evolution: Origins of Human Behavior and Culture, ed Shennan S (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 251-263.
  45. Lee R (1976) Kung spatial organization. Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, eds Lee R, DeVore I (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 73-97.
  46. Katz R (1984) Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung (Har- vard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  47. Marshall L (1999) Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites (Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA.).
  48. Guala F (2012) Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate. Behav Brain Sci 35(1):1-15.
  49. Boyd B (2009) On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  50. Marshall L (1969) The medicine dance of the !Kung Bushmen. Africa 39(4):347-381.
  51. Wiessner P (1983) Style and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. Am Antiq 48(2):253-276.
  52. Dinesen I (1984) Shadows on the Grass (Penguin, London).
  53. Ohnuki-Tierney E (1981) Illness and Healing Among the Sakhalin Ainu: A Symbolic Interpretation (CUP Archive, Cambridge, UK).
  54. Brown D (1991) Human Universals (McGraw-Hill, New York).
  55. Basso K (1992) 'Stalking Stories': Names, places and moral narratives among the Western Apache. Western Apache language and Culture: Essays in Linguistic An- thropology, ed Basso K (Univ of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ), pp 99-137.
  56. Burch E (2005) Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Inpiaq Eskimos (Univ of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE).
  57. Merlan F (1998) Caging the Rainbow: Places, Politics, and Aborigines in a North Australian Town (Univ of Hawaii Press, Honolulu).
  58. Coe K, Aiken N, Palmer C (2006) Once upon a time: Ancestors and the evolutionary significance of stories. Anthropol Forum 16(1):21-40.
  59. Scalise Sugiyama M (2001) Food, foragers, and folklore: The role of narrative in human subsistence. Evol Hum Behav 22(4):221-240.
  60. Myers F (1976) "To have and to hold": A study of persistence and change in Pintupi social life. PhD dissertation (Bryn Mawr Univ Microfilms, Bryn Mawr, PA).
  61. Myers F (1991) Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics Among Western Desert Aborigines (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
  62. Meggitt M (1965) Desert People: A Study of the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago).
  63. Strehlow T (1947) Aranda Traditions (Melbourne Univ Press, Melbourne).
  64. Briggs J (1970) Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  65. Ilyatjari N (1991) Traditional Aboriginal learning: How I learned as a Pitjantjatjara child. Aboriginal Child at School 19(1):6-12.
  66. Chapais B (2009) Primeval Kinship: How Pair-bonding Gave Birth to Human Society (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  67. Jones D (2003) The generative psychology of kinship: Part 1. Cognitive universals and evolutionary psychology. Evol Hum Behav 24(5):303-319.
  68. Mithen S (2005) The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body (Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, MA).
  69. Mcbrearty S, Brooks AS (2000) The revolution that wasn't: A new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. J Hum Evol 39(5):453-563.
  70. Marean CW, et al. (2007) Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449(7164):905-908.
  71. Vanhaereny M, et al. (2006) Middle Paleolithic shell beads in Israel and Algeria. Science 312(5781):1785-1788.
  72. Henshilwood C, d'Errico F, Vanhaeren M, van Niekerk K, Jacobs Z (2004) Middle Stone Age shell beads from South Africa. Science 304(5669):404-404.
  73. Merrick H, Brown F, Nash D (1994) Use and movement of obsidian in the Early and Middle Stone Ages of Kenya and northern Tanzania. Society, Culture, and Tech- nology in Africa 11(6):29-44.
  74. Nash DJ, et al. (2013) Provenancing of silcrete raw materials indicates long-distance transport to Tsodilo Hills, Botswana, during the Middle Stone Age. J Hum Evol 64(4): 280-288. 100. Yellen J (1977) Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past (Academic, New York). 101. O'Connell J, Hawkes K, Jones N (1988) Hadza hunting, butchering, and bone transport and their archaeological implications. J Anthropol Res 44(2):113-161. 102.
  75. David N, Kramer C (2001) Ethnoarchaeology in Action (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, UK). 103.
  76. Ekirch A (2005) At Day's Close: Night in Time Past (WW Norton, New York). 104. Bille M, Sorensen T (2007) An anthropology of luminosity: The agency of light. J Material Cult 12(3):263-284. 105.
  77. Gottschall J (2012) The Story Telling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York). 106. Sutton-Smith B (1986) Children's fiction making. Narrative Psychology: The Sto- ried Nature of Human Conduct, ed Sarbin T (Praeger Scientific, New York), pp 67-90. 107. Lane H, Pillard R, Hedberg U (2010) The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (Oxford Univ Press, Oxford).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Wiessner, P. W.
Affiliations
University of Utah (US)
Corresponding author
Wiessner, Polly W.
ORCID
Wiessner, Polly W.
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2014-09-22
Volume
111
Issue
39
Pages
14027-14035
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1404212111
PMC
PMC4191796
OpenAlex
W2009503271
Cited by
485
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 37 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 77 · 2019: 71 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 2
FWCI
429.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
  • Social Sciences › Archeology › Archaeology and Rock Art Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
Keywords
Ju|'hoan, hunter-gatherers, gossip, theory of mind, storytelling, cultural transmission, artificial lighting
MeSH terms
Anthropology, Cultural, Botswana, Ethnicity, Female, Fires, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Namibia, Social Behavior, Black People

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review