Territoriality Among Human Foragers: Ecological Models and an Application to Four Bushman Groups [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

Cost-benefit models derived from evolutionary ecology have led to the general expectation that territoriality will be found where resources are most abundant and predictable. Literature sources for four Bushman groups, however, indicate that the most territorial of these groups are found where resources are sparsest and most variable. This paper has as its aim the extension of the animal models of territoriality to make them more widely applicable to human foragers. The Bushmen control access to territorial resources in ways not found in other animals, and it is argued that these differences in the means of territorial defense may alter the expected relationships between environmental variables and territorial costs and benefits. The seemingly anomalous findings concerning Bushman territoriality are shown to be consistemt with cost-benefit theory only when this and other factors are taken into a account.