Prehistoric hunter–gatherer population growth rates rival those of agriculturalists
Prehistoric hunter–gatherer population growth rates rival those of agriculturalists
复制标题
史前狩猎采集者的人口增长率与农业人口的增长率相当
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
R. Bettinger
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Bettinger
在进化成功的许多有用标准中，人口增长轨迹可能是最有说服力的，扎希德等人的贡献正是对这一指标的关注。 (1) 在 PNAS 中如此引人注目。他们记录了美国西部怀俄明州和科罗拉多州 13,000 至 6,000 年前狩猎采集者人口的增长情况，结果表明：(i) 通过仔细分析放射性碳记录可以获得可靠的人口轨迹，以及 (ii) 他们研究的怀俄明州和科罗拉多州狩猎采集者实现的长期人口增长率与史前新旧世界的人口增长率相当 (iii)他们根据这一证据和其他证据得出结论，与公认的观点相反，史前狩猎采集者始终实现了与史前农业学家相当的长期增长率。这些发现提出了许多关于从狩猎和采集向农业过渡的有趣问题，特别是为什么在全新世期间，在人口增长率方面没有任何竞争优势的情况下，农业能够如此持续地取代狩猎和采集。
Among the many useful yardsticks of evolutionary success, trajectory of population growth is perhaps the most telling, and it is the focus on this metric that makes the contribution by Zahid et al. (1) in PNAS so compelling. They document hunter–gatherer population growth between 13,000 and 6,000 y ago in the western US states of Wyoming and Colorado, in doing so showing (i) that reliable population trajectories can be obtained through careful analysis of the radiocarbon record, and (ii) that the Wyoming-Colorado hunter–gatherers they studied achieved long-term rates of population growth comparable to the rates of population growth achieved by prehistoric New and Old World agriculturalists, and (iii) they proceed on the basis of this and other evidence to generalize that contrary to received wisdom, prehistoric hunter–gatherers consistently achieved long-term growth rates equivalent to the growth rates of prehistoric agriculturalists. These findings raise a multitude of interesting questions regarding the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, particularly why, without enjoying any competitive advantage in rate of population growth, agriculture was so consistently able replace hunting and gathering worldwide during the Holocene.