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Historical Contingencies, Issues of Scale, and Flightless Hypotheses: A Response to Hildebrandt et al.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Terry L. Jones  and
Brian F. Codding
Terry L. Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 (Tljones@calpoly.edu)
Brian F. Codding
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Building 50, Stanford, CA 94305-2034 (bcodding@stanford.edu)
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Abstract

Hildebrandt et al. offer this rather vitriolic challenge to our conclusions on the Diablo Canyon fauna in order to recast the data in favor of their view that major diachronic trends in western North American prehistory are the product of an increase in men's prestige hunting over time. Here we respond, first by discussing our view of the relationship between historical contingencies and behavioral ecological models, second by showing that the patterns they find in a regional faunal dataset result only from inappropriate aggregation of bone counts, third by questioning the potential prestige value of highly vulnerable species, and finally by making the case that standard behavioral ecological models, punctuated by historical contingencies, provide more parsimonious, albeit less fanciful, explanations for patterning in the western North American faunal record. We conclude by suggesting that when practitioners attempt to explain away empirical variability in order to support a favored hypothesis, it might be time to acknowledge that the hypothesis has failed to take flight.

Resumen

Resumen

Hildebrandt y colegas ofrecen este desafío bastante mordaz a nuestras conclusiones en la fauna de Cañón de Diablo para refundir los datos a favor de su vista que tendencias diacrónicas mayores en la prehistoria norteamericana occidental son el producto de un aumento en el prestigio de hombres que caza con el tiempo. Aquí respondemos, primero discutiendo nuestra vista de la relación entre contingencias y modelos históricas ecológicos conductistas, segundo mostrando que las pautas ellos encuentran en un resultado regional de dataset de faunal sólo de agregado inadecuada de condes de hueso, el tercero preguntando el valor potencial de prestigio de la especie sumamente vulnerable, y por último haciendo el caso que modelos ecológicos, conductistas y estándar, puntuado por contingencias históricas, proporciona más parco, aunque menos imaginario, Las explicaciones para modelar en el registro norteamericano occidental de faunal. Concluimos sugiriendo cuándo facultativos procuran justificar la variabilidad empírica para apoyar una hipótesis favorecida, quizás sea tiempo de reconocer que la hipótesis ha fallado de huir.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 689 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2010

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