Optimal foraging group size for a human population: The case of bari fishing

Abstract

The Bari of the Maracaibo basin obtain most of the meat in their diet by spearfishing, usually in stretches of river which they dam off before fishing them. As the number of men in a fishing party increases, the time to build a dam decreases in approximately the same way that the catch per man decreases. The decrease in catch per manhour, as more men are added to a fishing party, is thus quite shallow. The interrelationship of these variables permits a prediction of the optimal number of men in a fishing party, based on the principle that below a certain number of participants, the addition of more men to the fishing party gains each individual more in time than it costs him in returns per man-hour. Data so far available indicate that the optimal number of men in a fishing party is about the same as the average number of adult men residing in a Bari longhouse. © 1983 by the American Society of Zoologists.