Hadza Hunting, Butchering, and Bone Transport and Their Archaeological Implications

Abstract

A study of Hadza hunting and scavenging practices, patterns of medium/large mammal carcass dismemberment and transport from kill sites to base camps, and subsequent processing and disposal of bones reveals archaeological bone assemblage formation processes among these hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania. Body part transport patterns are highly variable, but they probably are understandable in terms of the goal of maximizing net nutritional benefit relative to the costs of field processing and transport. The Hadza data have implications for some widely held views about patterns of bone transport among hunters, for particular reconstructions of past human or hominid behavior based on those views, for the problem of distinguishing hunting versus scavenging as contributors to assemblage composition, and for current thought about the suitability of modern hunters as a source of inference about the prehistoric past.