Population control among hunter/gatherers

This paper reaffirms that population levels in hunter/gatherers are closely tied to resource levels, although density is characteristically maintained at a fraction of carrying capacity. This is shown to be a function of physiological and cultural controls acting within the framework of natural selection between groups. Apparent differences between cultural population control mechanisms in apes and hunter/gatherers are noted, and a limited reconstruction of probable control mechanisms in Australopithecus is made. The maintenance of population control vis‐à‐vis resources is shown to be a dominant factor in natural selection. It is argued that among early hominids, at a time when pressures keeping individuals in large groups were being annulled, social traits such as extended kinship roles, ritual obligations, strict sexual division of labour, and warfare, were of selective advantage to groups adopting or elaborating them because: (a) they maintained large‐group population control mechanisms; and (b) because population control mechanisms were ineffective in early hominid nuclear family groups.