Demography of the Dobe !Kung (Population and Social Structure, Advances in Historical Demography) - Hardcover

Howell, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0123573505 ISBN 13: 9780123573506

Publisher: Academic Press, 1979

Synopsis

First published in 1979, this is a classic study of the population of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. Using methods that are simple and fully illustrated, the author presents empirical descriptions of the fertility, mortality, and marriage patterns of the famous !Kung hunter-gatherers.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy Howell is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Toronoto.

Review

“Howell spent 24 months during the period 1967-69 in demographic research with the !Kung. She learned their San language, collected the massive data necessary, and has thus produced a stimulating study.... This excellent demographic study brings the reader face to face with the appalling realization that it is the only one which has ever been based on information collected from hunter-gatherer peoples. Demographic fragments of data exist for other populations, but they are insufficient to provide a coherent picture. Certainly, such a study is no longer possible among aboriginal Australians. Indeed, the only surviving population with sufficient numbers, yet living in a relatively undisturbed economic pattern, is probably to be found among the negritic peoples of rainforest Central Africa.”

—Joseph B. Birdsell, American Ethnologist

 “Nancy Howell has here produced an impressive book with some important findings. It is certainly the most thorough published account of the demography of any African hunter-gatherer group; and, indeed, this reviewer is unaware of a better study of any hunting and gathering society elsewhere. The book presents a model to any anthropologists on how to gather and fully analyze demographic data from a local-view setting. It has few equals among the growing number of works in the field of anthropological demography.”

—T. Dyson, Population Studies

“Hunter-gatherers who number only 455 and who do not reckon age would seem to defy demographic analysis. But in this book Howell orchestrates longitudinal censusing, stable population modeling, and simulation to overcome these hurdles in a generally convincing study of these noted Kalahari desert dwellers. The undertaking will interest anthropologists, demographers, and human biologists because of its methods, its uncovering of one of the lowest known levels of natural fertility without contraception, and its implications for hunter-gatherer existence, once prevalent but rapidly disappearing in the late 20th century.”

—George A. Collier, Science

“The !Kung of the Kalahari desert are one of the few surviving hunter-gatherer populations. Living in small seminomadic groups, they differ markedly from the large national populations which are the usual subjects of demographic study. Nonetheless, Howell shows how the assumption of an underlying uniformity in patterns of mortality and fertility based on experience with these better known populations leads to a coherent description of !Kung demography.... This combination of detailed presentation of data and comprehensible discussion of assumptions and methods makes the book more than a source of information on !Kung demography; it is also a useful methodological guide for students of small populations.”

—Alan G. Fix, American Scientist

“Nancy Howell’s Demography of the Dobe !Kung deserves great attention as a model for population studies of simple societies. Equally important, however, is the wealth of information this study provides in the specific mechanisms of population maintenance at work among the !Kung.”

—Marco Bicchieri, American Anthropologists

Edition details

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0123573505
• ISBN 13: 9780123573506
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 389