"Garden hunting" in the American tropics

Abstract

Using faunal analysis, this article outlines a coastal mammalian harvesting pattern involving a few terrestrial mammals whose biomass appears to have been greater when associated with man than under "natural" conditions. Archeological evidence suggests that these animals fed regularly on cultivated crops and were hunted in house gardens and cultivated fields. By concentrating the supply of both carbohydrates and animal protein, "garden hunting" may have eliminated seasonality and scheduling problems. And because it artificially increased the biomass of selected animals, it may have functioned as a substitute for animal domestication. © 1976 Plenum Publishing Corporation.