Let's go fishing: A quantitative analysis of subsistence choices with a special focus on mixed economies among small-scale societies.

ABSTRACT: The transition to agriculture is regarded as a major turning point in human history. In the present contribution we propose to look at it through the lens of ethnographic data by means of a machine learning approach. More specifically, we analyse both the subsistence economies and the socioecological context of 1290 societies documented in the Ethnographic Atlas with a threefold purpose: (i) to better understand the variability and success of human economic choices; (ii) to assess the role of environmental settings in the configuration of the different subsistence economies; and (iii) to examine the relevance of fishing in the development of viable alternatives to cultivation. All data were extracted from the publicly available cross-cultural database D-PLACE. Our results suggest that not

SUBMITTER: Ahedo V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8336859 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature