Vol. 5 · No. 2 · 2001 · pp. 89-103 (15)

Annette Hamilton

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Nomadic foraging peoples, with their varying life-ways, may be taken as representative of the kinds of human-ecological adjustment that was common prior to the development and spread of horticultural-agricultural systems. This is not to claim that existing 'nomads' should be seen as relics, or leftovers, in a framework of evolutionary development.1 Nomadic forms of reproduction may, for example, arise where peoples are excluded from sharing in common resources by enemies, and may in response withdraw from cultivation or 'settled' forms of life into remote areas, where foraging economies offer the only mode of existence possible. The case of the Tasaday in the Philippines may be one such example, although the existence of the Tasaday is sometimes claimed to be a hoax (see Nance 1975, but see also Duhaylungsod 1993). It seems likely that at various times and places nomadic forms of social reproduction were pursued in parallel with other kinds of human-ecological adjustments, including horticulture and agriculture.