HUNTING IN LOWLAND, TROPICAL RAIN-FOREST - TOWARDS A MODEL OF NONAGRICULTURAL SUBSISTENCE

It has recently been argued that hunter-gatherers do not, did not, and could not live in tropical rain forest without some access to agricultural produce. This opinion challenges models of past non-agricultural subsistence patterns that are based in analogies derived from modem rain forest-dwelling groups. In this paper, the socio-ecological bases of the hunting system of the Kubo people of lowland Papua New Guinea are described. It is argued that this system lacks necessary dependence upon the agricultural system with which it co-occurs and, in fact, can be connected with a system of carbohydrate procurement that is not agricultural The hypothesized connection provides the basis of a model of non-agricultural subsistence in lowland tropical rain forest.