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Osborn's Response To Yesner (Maritime Hunter-Gatherers: Ecology And Prehistory), Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

First two paragraphs:

Yesner's paper reiterates a major concern of the symposium "Man the Hunter" (Lee and DeVore 1968a)-the need to develop generalizations which accommodate the behavioral variability exhibited by hunter-gatherers, past and present. Much of the literature, Yesner reemphasizes, fails to deal adequately with groups characterized by "atypical" variations in energy flow, technological complexity, population density, sociopolitical organization, and so forth. He focuses on a subset of foragers and collectors (Binford 1980) that appears to be among the most aberrant- "maritime" hunter-gatherers.

While Yesner provides insight into the recent literature on exploitation of marine environments and expresses ephemeral concern …