Demography and Ecology of the Tjimba of Northwest Namibia

在人类历史的大部分时间里，人类都是觅食者，但今天很少有人这样做了。向农业和畜牧业的转变尚未得到很好的理解，主要是因为在这一转变过程中观察到的群体很少。纳米比亚西北部的Tjimba提供了为数不多的机会之一。该研究人员在2004年秋季进行的一项为期四个月的试点研究表明，Tjimba已经“从山上下来”了一个多世纪，放弃了觅食，融入了其他民族。现在，农业和畜牧业已经渗透到津巴人的家园，为津巴人居住的地方提供了新的经济选择。这个项目将审查采用这些新的生存战略的原因和后果，特别侧重于生殖成功，这是人类进化生态学研究的一个重要领域。个人谋生的方式会影响他们找到配偶、成功生育和抚养孩子的能力。因此，那些选择放弃觅食的古代伪造者可能是在做出一个重要的战略选择。该项目将从对Tjimba人进行首次系统普查开始，随后进行家谱、生殖史和生存行为方面的访谈。这将通过观察资源使用和用于儿童保育的时间来补充，以了解这些情况如何随情况而变化。该项目将扩展我们对当代采集者之间经济变化和人口变化之间关系的理解，这也将有助于我们理解几千年前人类首次放弃采集者而转向更久坐不动的生活方式时所涉及的过程。该项目还将使Tjimba人本身以及试图帮助他们的决策者和援助机构受益，因为当代Tjimba人的情况和保健需求在很大程度上是未知的。

Humans were foragers for the vast majority of our history but few remain so today. The switch to farming and pastoralism is not well understood, primarily because few groups have been observed in the midst of this transition. The Tjimba of northwestern Namibia offer one of the few remaining opportunities. A four-month pilot study by this researcher in the fall of 2004 showed that Tjimba have been 'coming down from the mountains' for more than a century, abandoning foraging and integrating into other ethnic groups. Now, farming and cattle-herding have penetrated up into the Tjimba homeland, offering new economic alternatives where the Tjimba live. This project will examine the causes and consequences of adopting these new subsistence strategies with a particular focus on reproductive success, an important area of research in human evolutionary ecology. How individuals make their living affects their ability to find a spouse and to successfully have and raise children. Thus those ancient forgers who chose to abandon foraging may have been making an important strategic choice. The project will start with the first systematic census of the Tjimba, followed by interviews about genealogy, reproductive history, and subsistence behavior. This will be supplemented by observations of resource use and time devoted to childcare to see how these vary with circumstances. The project will extend our understanding of the relation between economic shifts and demographic changes among contemporay foragers, which will also contribute to our understanding of the processes involved when humans first abandoned foraging for more sedentary life styles millenia ago. The project also will benefit the Tjimba themselves, as well as policy makers and aid agencies trying to assist them, because the circumstances and health needs of the contemporary Tjimba are largely unknown.