Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers

ref: Before Farming 2009/4 article 4

Mixing it up, again

This final issue of the year brings us back to the more typical mix of archaeological and anthropological topics that makes Before Farming distinctive. Jayson Orton revisits the long-running debate about the archaeological signatures of hunter-gatherers and herders in the mid to late Holocene of southern Africa. He presents new data derived from a salvage excavation on the Bakoond peninsula of the Western Cape. The results provide support for the existence of a consistent set of traits that signal a hunter-gatherer presence, despite significant changes in stone tool technology over time. Not all will agree, of course, with this interpretation, seeing instead evidence of contact or even population movement, but Orton offers a range of alternatives favouring dynamic hunter-gatherer responses to a changing social landscape. The challenge for archaeologists lies in testing these; in the interim it’s good to see the results of a Cultural Resource Management project feeding directly into wider academic debate.

Richard Daly (‘Insulting the Meat’) embarks on a philosophical and ethnographically supported exploration of the role of sharing in structuring social relations. But this isn’t just an anthropological exercise. He reaches a powerful and overtly political conclusion: the future of humankind lies in less hierarchical and more socially just states. In other words, a mature communism tempered by the failures of 20th century distortions of its core social ideals, and one deeply rooted in our hunter-gatherer ancestry. Who said anthropology has lost its relevance or edge?

Our ‘Benefit of Foresight’ feature returns after a long lapse with Mathias Guenther’s retrospective on his forty years as an anthropologist in a discipline that, in his own words, shines a ‘flood light perspective on matters human’. An amalgam of holism with eclecticism makes the anthropologist a rarity to be treasured in an age of specialisation.

The first issue of the new volume – our 9th – will be following this one soon and we look forward to welcoming you back to the relevant, eclectic, controversial and thriving world of hunter-gatherer studies.

The Editor
Liverpool, June 2010