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What Can Be Learned by Estimating Human Energy Costs?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Robert D. Drennan
Robert D. Drennan
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
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Abstract

Archaeologists have estimated the human energy costs of various undertakings. Confusion has arisen about the notion of energy “profits”–what must be included in their calculation and what we can learn from such calculations. When it comes to assessing the contribution to sociopolitical hierarchy building of energy profits derived from long-distance transport of food staples, it is the energy expended (both in transport and acquisition of the food staples) that matters. The source of the food that produces the human energy so expended is immaterial. What may be learned from such calculations is whether attempts to understand certain behaviors in terms of economic “rationality” succeed or not.

Type
Articles
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Fall 1994 , pp. 209 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

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