ANALYZING HUNTER-GATHERERS: POPULATION PRESSURE, SUBSISTENCE, SOCIAL STRUCTURE, NORTHWEST COAST SOCIETIES, AND SLAVERY (STORED FOOD, COMPLEXITY)

Possible correlates of population pressure are tested by cross-cultural statistical surveys, using multivariate computer techniques, of twenty-five, and then sixty, hunter-gatherer groups. Five subsistence or territorial factors--seasonal and stored foods, labor groups, warfare, and territorial expansion--and five social factors--type of family, modes of marriage, unilineal kin groups, jurisdictional hierarchy, and class stratification--are used. Tests and results are discussed in Part I. Highest correlations of single factors occur between stored foods and class stratification. Size of labor groups, warfare, and unilineal kin groups give the lowest correlations with other factors. Coastal groups consistently rate higher than interior groups. Detailed study of individual tribes indicates that south of the arctic coastal hunter-gathers storing many kinds of seasonal foods should develop a more complex social system because of the logistics required for the procurement, storage, protection and allocation of resources.;Chronological data testify that commercial slave trading in natives by Euro-Americans had far-reaching effects on most groups on and near the Northwest Coast. In Part III a hypothesis is proposed, stating that neither commercial slave-trading nor hereditary slavery are aboriginal in small, autonomous, kin-based societies. It is tested with groups in West Africa, Alaska, the American Southwest and Southeast. The hypothesis is strongly supported.;In this dissertation statistical correlations initiate a series of research problems. Hypotheses are tested, disproved, and justified. Areas needing further study are suggested. The value of scientific reasoning in the formulation and testing of law-like statements about the evolution of human social and subsistence structures is demonstrated.;The correlation analyses show that Northwest Coast tribes, often labeled 'anomalous,' are different only in degree, not kind. The unpredictability and difficulty of long-term storage of fish are discussed. When the fur trade imposed demands on native adaptations, how were these groups affected? This problem is addressed in Part II. Archaeological, ethnological, and historical records are examined in a time-related, ecological framework. The conclusion: profound changes occurred in the first two decades, 1785-1805, of the maritime fur trade. This reassessment of Northwest Coast contact developments is more realistic and logical than those previously presented.