Ziker Article Abstracts

 

2009.  David Anderson, Evgeny Ineshin and John P. Ziker.  “Prostranstvennaia Demografia 'Dal'nei Taigi' Doliny Reki Zhuii v Vostochnoi Sibiri.” Reports of the Laboratory of Ancient Technology, Issue 7, pp. 224-246. Irkutsk: Irkutsk State Technical University Press.

This paper documents the work of an international, interdisciplinary team at documenting the current identity and social and economic structure of a group of Evenki-lakut hunters and reindeer herders in living in the Zhuia River Valley, Bodaibo District, Irkutsk oblast'.  This region, which has been the focus of placer and hard rock gold mining for 150 years, has not been researched since the intensive demographic and economic work of I.I. Mainov in the XIX century and the Polar Census Expedition of 1927.  Combining together the existing sources on the economy and demography of the region, the authors argue that it is possible to identify a long-term continuity in the perception and the use of space. The use of 'river-valley' land tenure is demonstrated directly with ethnographic and historic work and indirectly through the analysis of anomalies in the primary record cards of the 1926-1927 Polar Census.  This paper is an authorized translation of an earlier English language manuscript which will be published in 2911 by Berghahn Books, Oxford.

2009. “Chronological insights, cultural change, and resource exploitation on the west coast of Sweden during the Late Palaeolothic/early Mesolithic transition.” With Lou Schmitt, Stephen Larsson, Jan Burdukiewicz, Krister Svedhage and Jen Zamon. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28(1): 1-27.

In this paper, we attempt to shed light on a probable cause of cultural change via a new avenue of approach. In brief, the paper represents a micro-study that addresses the Ahrensburgian culture group during the close of the Late Palaeolithic in north central Europe, and its relationship to the Hensbacka group found in central Bohuslän on the coast of western Sweden. Although we do not disagree that environmental conditions are a 'prime mover' of cultural change, we hold that it is not the only 'mover'. In addition, we also discuss the distinct possibility that the term 'microlithization' cannot be used as a synonym for the Mesolithic. The foundation of our micro-study is based on interdisciplinary concepts from the fields of archaeology, economic anthropology, geosciences, and marine zoology.

2009. “Stress, Alcohol, and Demographic Change in Northern Siberia.” Pp. 298-303 in Patricia Townsend and Ann McElroy (eds.) Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective: Fifth Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 significantly affected Taimyr economy. In Ust-Avam, most working-aged adults were laid off their jobs in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, I documented drastic decreases in fertility rates adn increases in mortality due to alcohol (Ziker 2002). native community members across Siberia blamed uncontrolled sales of alcohol and binge drinking for many of the deaths.

2009. Barr A, Wallace C, Ensminger J, Henrich J, Barrett C, Bolyanatz A, Cardenas JC, Gurven M, Gwako E, Lesorogol C, Marlowe F, McElreath R, Tracer D, and Ziker J. “Homo Æqualis: A Cross-Society Experimental Analysis of Three Bargaining Games.” Oxford, Department of Economics Working Paper, Paper No. 422. (http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/research/WP/pdf/paper422.pdf)

Data from three bargaining games—the Dictator Game, the Ultimatum Game, and the Third-Party Punishment Game—played in 15 societies are presented. The societies range from US undergraduates to Amazonian, Arctic, and African hunter-gatherers. Behaviour within the games varies markedly across societies. The paper investigates whether this behavioural diversity can be explained solely by variations in inequality aversion. Combining a single parameter utility function with the notion of subgame perfection generates a number of testable predictions. While most of these are supported, there are some telling divergences between theory and data: uncertainty and preferences relating to acts of vengeance may have influenced play in the Ultimatum and Third-Party Punishment Games; and a few subjects used the games as an opportunity to engage in costly signalling.

2007. “Subsistence and Food Sharing in Northern Siberia: Social and Nutritional Ecology of the Dolgan and the Nganasan.” Ecology of Food and Nutrition 46: 445-467.

Traditional foraging activities and extensive food sharing are critical to the contemporary nutritional well-being of Dolgan and Nganasan people in the Taimyr Region, Russia. Despite recent economic transformations geared toward free-market capitalism in the post-socialist era, since 1991, a native communal resource-management regime has developed. This article outlines the social and nutritional significance of subsistence and food sharing within a remote indigenous community in Arctic Siberia. Empirical data on procurement processes and relationships, along with data on food distributions and rationales, are discussed. These data are relevant to questions about food sharing and its significance in hunting-and-gathering economies and the evolution of human sociality.

2006. “The Social Movement of Meat in Taimyr, Northern Russia." Nomadic Peoples 10(2): 105-133.

Continuities in social, economic, and religious organization of the formerly nomadic Dolgan and Nganasan in northern Russia are described, along with the process by which key values and norms are perpetuated. Kinship, communal property concepts, and delayed reciprocity are integral to local resource allocation and resource management. Benefits of sales to outsiders are funneled into local networks, a practice that should continue if traditional strategies are to thrive.

2006. Henrich J, McElreath R, Barr A, Ensminger J, Barrett C, Bolyanatz A, Cardenas JC, Gurven M, Gwako E, Henrich N, Lesorogol C, Marlowe F, Tracer D, and Ziker J. “Costly Punishment across Human Societies.” Science 312 (5781): 1767-1770.

Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and (iii) costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic behavior across populations. These findings are consistent with models of the gene-culture co-evolution of human altruism and further sharpen what any theory of human cooperation needs to explain.

2005. [In Russian] “The Central Taimyr Lowlands in 1926/27: Identity and Settlement Pattern of the Native Peoples.” Pp. 79-87 in David G. Anderson (ed.) Turukhanskaia Ekspeditsia Pripoliarnoi Perepisi: Etnografiia i Demografia Malochislennykh Narodov Severe. Krasnoyarsk: Krasnoyarsk Regional Studies Museum.

Эта глава основана на обзоре и предварительном анализе данных  Приполярной переписи 1926-27 гг. в обширном географическом районе, который я условно называю центральной Таймырской низменностью.  В этой статье я намерен показать,  как можно переконструировать данные Приполярной переписи, чтобы выявить долговремененные и стабильные формы адаптации человека к природе.

This chapter is based on a review and preliminary analysis fo data from the 1926/27 polar census in a wide geographic region, that can be conditionally considered the Central Taimyr Lowlands. In this review, I show how it is possible to reinterpret data from the polar census to elucidate longstanding and stable forms of human adaptation to the environment of the North.

2005. John Ziker and Michael Schnegg. “Food Sharing at Meals: Kinship, Reciprocity, and Clustering in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia .” Human Nature 16(2): 178-210.

The presence of a kinship link between nuclear families is the strongest predictor of household sharing in this indigenous, predominantly Dolgan, food-sharing network. Interhousehold attributes, such as the summed number of hunters in paired households, also account for much of the variation in sharing between nuclear families in regression analyses. Differences in the number of hunters in partner households, as well as proximity and producer/consumer ratios of households were investigated with relevance to cost-benefit models. The subset of households involved in reciprocal meal sharing is 26 of 84 household host-guest pairs. The frequency of reciprocal meal sharing between families in this subset correlated positively with average household relatedness. The evolution of cooperation through clustering may illuminate the relationship between kinship and reciprocity at this most intimate phase of food sharing.

2005. “Property, Hunting, and Food Sharing in the Taimyr Autonomous Region ( North-Central Siberia ).” Pp 98-101 in Chris Hann (ed.) Property Relations: the Halle Focus Group 2000- 2005.   Halle , Germany : Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

With the collapse of the planned economy in the 1990s, state-sponsored production in native communities in the Taimyr rapidly diminished. Local subsistence economies became the major emphasis for the indigenous population living in the tundra. Alongside the depression and emergent subsistence economy in remote communities, Presidential decrees and regional edicts favored a variety of property relations in the region. Those living in communities at a distance from Dudinka and in remote houses across the tundra were less likely to make formal land claims. Concomitantly, informal means of regulating access to and distribution of resources, such as cosmological injunctions on hoarding and cooperative hunting, were more important in the bush.

2004. "Anthropology of Eurasia, Postsocialism and Beyond." Reviews in Anthropology 33(2):163-175.

The paper discusses a range of studies and approaches dealing mainly with identity in postsocialist Russia , a growing trend in the anthropological literature on the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe . Within the current period of expansion of Western research in the region, anthropologists specializing in this geographical area have been initiating research on topics relevant to a wider audience, moving slowly away from postsocialist change per se. To varying degrees these four books digress from postsocialism and link up to mainstream anthropological topics.

2003. “Horseradish is No Sweeter than Turnips: Entitlements and Sustainability in the Taimyr Autonomous Region.” Pp. 363-390 in C. Hann (ed.) The Postsocialist Agrarian Question: Property Relations and Rural Condition. Münster: Lit Verlag.

This chapter uses an old Russian proverb as a metaphor to describe the equally depressing situation of two sets of indigenous hunters and herders: 1) those who have suspended their with state enterprises to form their own enterprises and, 2) those who have maintained employment with the successors to the Soviet-era state enterprises. The formal hierarchy of entitlements to natural resources in Taimyr is described, as well as local informal entitlements that are being employed in the post-Socialist era. The perpetuation of local systems of entitlement is discussed.

2003. “Assigned Territories, Family/Clan/Communal Holdings, and Common-Pool Resources in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia.” Human Ecology 31(3): 331-368.

This paper describes an indigenous hunting/fishing/trapping economy in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, northern Russia, and traces the continuities and developments in property since the collapse of the Soviet command economy in 1991. Indigenous relations to hunting grounds and renewable resources are discussed with ethnographic case material from Dolgan and Nganasan communities. Land tenure is analyzed in terms of inclusive and exclusive property and informal and formal resource management. The asymmetric growth and distribution of common-pool territories and private holdings is a central issue. A number of factors when examined together appear to favor common property and traditional management including ancestral frames of morality and access, crosscutting kin relationships, principles of ownership and mutual aid, cooperative hunting, sharing of meat and fish, as well as migration patterns of prey species and relative increases in the cost of freight transport since 1991. In addition, private holdings often make commercial sales and generally have better access to urban centers, while they are more closely regulated through land, tax, and environment offices of local government. 

2003. Kinship and Friendship in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia.” Sozialer Sinn 2003/1: 59-80.

Die bisherige ethnologische Forschung bietet Beschreibungen vielfältiger Strategien, der sich Menschen in postsozialistischen Gesellschaften bedienen um aus der Ungewissheit der Übergangssituation das Beste für sich herauszuholen. In der Taimyr-Region bieten Verwandtschaft und Freundschaft die soziale Sicherheit und die moralische Unterstützung, die so wichtig sind für viele indigene Haushalte in abgelegenen Siedlungen. Die hier vorgelegte Studie über Verwandtschaft und Freundschaft auf Taimyr basiert auf indigenen Interpretationen des Teilens, sowohl auf Grundlage einer Erhebung mittels Fragebogen als auch auf teilnehmender Beobachtung in Situationen des Teilens. Diese Formen der Dokumentation verfolgen die Lebensfähigkeit der auf das Teilen von Ressourcen angewiesenen Gemeinde.In einigen Fällen zeigt sich, dass das Teilen mit anderen Haushalten höchst assymetrisch verläuft und gründet sich auf Entwicklungszyklen innerhalb der Familie oder – seltener – auf Beziehungen zwischen nicht miteinander verwandten Personen. Der Autor beschreibt, wie verschiedene Haushalte sich gegenseitig bewirten und welche Schlüsse sich daraus über die Differenzierung zwischen Verwandtschaft und Freundschaft ziehen lassen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie unter Dolganen und Nganasanen legen nahe, dass eine kooperative Haltung wesentlicher sein mag für freundschaftliche denn für verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen.

Anthropologists have described a variety of strategies people are employing to make the best out of uncertain transition in postsocialist society. In the Taimyr Region kinship and friendship provide local social security and moral support important to the livelihood of many indigenous households in remote villages. This study of kinship and friendship in the Taimyr is based on indigenous understandings of sharing, responses to surveys, and participant observation of sharing events. These forms of documentation show how the viability of the resource sharing community works. In some cases, inter-household sharing is highly asymmetrical due to family development cycles and, more rarely, certain types of non-kin relationships. Reciprocal hosting at meals is described and the implications for differentiating kinship and friendship are proposed. Dolgan and Nganasan people suggest that a cooperative attitude may be more essential for friendship, while that may not be as essential among kin.

Schlagworte: soziale Organisation, Netzwerke, elterlicher/außerelterlicher Nepotismus, Reziprozität, Teilen von Nahrung, Nachhaltigkeit, Dolganen, Nganasanen, Völker Sibiriens.

Key words: Social organization, networks, parental/extraparental nepotism, reciprocity, food sharing, sustainability, Dolgan, Nganasan, Siberian peoples

Published by Leske + Budrich

2002. “Raw and Cooked in Arctic Siberia: Seasonality, Gender and Diet among the Dolgan and Nganasan Hunter Gatherers.” Nutritional Anthropology 25(2): 20-33.

This research on diet provides new information on indigenous dependency upon the Russian and global economies in a remote and climatically extreme region. Investigating the most recent changes and variation in the diet of indigenous householders through time and across locations in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia, a number of variables affecting diet choice were identified, including season, location, gender, and historical changes in settlement pattern. While grains and refined carbohydrates have been available in the Russian north for at least 200 years to varying extents, carbohydrates were supplied in abundance and sold at low prices in government-owned stores during the last 30 years of the Soviet era. During the 1990s, I documented a reduction in the consumption of non-local foodstuffs due, in part, to less frequent and robust supplies to remote indigenous communities, as well as loss of employment. This trend provides some evidence against models of social change involving increased integration with, and typical benefits of, the free market. Reduced availability of non-local foods, and what this means for nutrition and consumption strategies, is discussed.

2002.  “Land Use and Economic Change among the Dolgan and the Nganasan.” Pp. 191-208 in E. Kasten (ed.) People and the Land: Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia, Vol. 1, Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

This article analyzes changes in land use and tenure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and analyzes these changes in terms of infrastructure, relations of production, and relations of distribution in the Ust Avam community. The situation in this Siberian community contrasts significantly with those in many native and rural communities around the world, where contact and integration with the global economy is increasing. The fragmentation of post-Soviet Russia has left the native peoples of remote Taimyr settlements at the edge of a depressed economy, where local social processes encourage subsistence foraging, food gifts, and communal land tenure. The development of local institutions that regulate resource use among native hunters in the Taimyr, a process running counter to the global trend, is a topic of applied and fundamental importance to anthropology, native rights, and environmental policy.

2001.  “Traditsionnaia Pishcha i Pitanie Dolgan i Nganasan”  [“Traditional Food and Nutrition of the Dolgan and Nganasan.”] Pp. 152-156 in David G. Anderson (ed.) Sel’skoe Zdravookhranenie u Malochislennykh Narodov Severa Kanady i Rossii, Chast’ 2, Narodnaia Medistina. [Village Health Care among the Small-Numbering Peoples of the Canadian and Russian North, Part 2, Folk Medicine.] Novosibirsk: Sibprint Agency.

This article summarizes my initial findings on the nutritional traditions of the Dolgan and Nganasan, as well as some of their beliefs regarding food and health. English text.

2001.  “Land Use and Social Change among the Dolgan and Nganasan of Northern Siberia.” Pp. 47-66 in David G. Anderson and Kazunobo Ikeya (eds.) Parks, Property, Power: Managing Hunting Practice and Identity within State Policy Regimes. Senri Ethnological Studies No. 59. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.

This paper, originally presented at the 8th International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, explores changes in land use in the central Taimyr Autonomous Region. The strategies that native people in the Siberian Arctic are employing in response to the collapse of Socialism and the planned economy in Russia are described. Two types of households--those that maintained use-rights to state enterprise lands and those that claimed family/clan holdings--are compared. From the regional perspective, family/clan holdings, part and parcel of the newly developing capitalist economic system, involve the members in the regional economy as producers of traditional products and rational users of the tundra. Ironically, the other strategy--maintaining use-rights to state-enterprise lands--involves decreasing contact with the regional economy.

1999.  “Survival Economy and Core-Periphery Dynamics in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Russia.”  Anthropology of Eastern Europe Review 17(2):59-65.

This article discusses the return to a subsistence, or "survival economy," in which Dolgan and Nganasan hunters reduce risk by limiting their involvement in the emerging market economy of Russia. The ecological, economic, and political factors related to this recent change in a remote and strategically important region of the Russian Arctic, the Taimyr Autonomous Region, are discussed. I present the viewpoints of indigenous residents on recent changes in Russia, elaborate on their idea of survival economy, and develop ideas for the relationship between individual actors and the Russian economic transition.

1998a.  “Land Tenure and Economic Collapse in Northern Siberia.”  Arctic Research in the U.S.  Volume 12, pp. 73-80.  Arlington, VA:  National Science Foundation, Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee.

This article discusses how recent economic and political changes in Russia have affected indigenous peoples in Siberia. Ethnographers in the former Soviet Union have observed an expansion of self-interested strategies among a variety of groups, and have associated negative social effects with these behaviors. Despite the negative effects of rapid financial and infrastructure changes, as well as the lack of involvement in land claims, a large number of native Siberians are maintaining social and economic traditions. While the transition period is creating hardship, in some respects this hardship keeps the community together.

1998b. “Kinship and Exchange Among the Dolgan and Nganasan of Northern Siberia.” Pp. 191-238 in Barry Isaac (ed.) Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 19.  Greenwich, Conn.:  JAI Press.

This paper reviews theoretical perspectives on social change among indigenous northern peoples, provides data on changes in rural enterprise productivity in the Taimyr Autonomous Region (1981-1997), summarizes interview data on capital distribution and distribution of locally-produced flesh foods, and reports interview results for general socio-economic standing and various forms of exchange in a remote native community (79 heads of households). 

1997.  (in Russian with Ivan Shmetterling) “Robinzony i Pyatnisty, Odnako.” [“Robinsons and Fridays, You Don’t Say.”] Ekspert 48:82-85, 15 December 1997.

This article provides an overview, in Russian, of my research in the Taimyr Autonomous Region and reports interview results for socio-economic standing and various forms of exchange in a remote native community (79 heads of households). The article is my first attempt to make some of my research results available to the Russian public.

1996.  "Comments on the Draft Law of the Russian Federation on Fundamentals of Legal Status for the Native Peoples of the Russian North," Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie, Vol. 2, pp. 141-143 (In Russian).

I support the draft law of the Russian Federation on Fundamentals of Legal Status for the Native Peoples of the Russian North (F.L.S.).  The F.L.S. law attempts changes that should provide some basic protections for indigenous Siberians and the need for  ecological conservation in Siberia.  My approach to this discussion is one of sympathetic criticism. The draft law passed by the Duma twice, but President Yeltsin refused to sign it into law. For the entire English text, click here.

1996. "Problems of the North: Aboriginal Rights or Industrial Development in the Siberian Arctic," Michigan Discussions in Anthropology, Vol. 12, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

In many northern and rural areas of European Russia and Siberia, there are ethnically distinct aboriginal populations sometimes called "small-numbering" peoples (malochislenniye narody). Russian-speakers usually use this term to refer collectively to the aboriginal groups of the far north, Siberia, and the far east. Russian imperial expansion and, more recently, large-scale industrial development in Siberia have resulted in severe ecological and social problems undermining the future of these indigenous people, their traditions, and languages. Nevertheless, many native individuals and a growing native movement are striving to re-establish their rights regarding territory, renewable resources, and cultural development.
Click here for more information on MDIA vol. 12.

 

Conference Paper Abstracts

2010. "Reconstruction of Past Movements." Paper presented to the Workshop "What Would a Good Anthropological Model of Mobility Look Like?” University of Cologne, January 14.

Michael Jochim developed a basic model of mobility and showed how it was useful in interpreting European archaeological materials in his book Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence and Settlement (1976). His tripartite model links resource use schedules to demographic shifts and settlement pattern. This simple model is elegant but does not explicitly incorporate factors, such as trade and intergroup relations, that have affected movements among indigenous populations in the historic past, and thus, may have affected movements of human populations going further back in time. In addition, and even more significantly, for the majority of indigenous populations, landscape is a series of named places linked by paths and contextualized by narrative that represent local histories of human land use. These histories frame and put limitations on the interaction between people and landscape. Incorporating such factors into understandings of past behavior is one of the challenges of developing an anthropological model of mobility. This paper investigates continuities and changes in settlement pattern and resource movements of indigenous populations in northern Siberia based on recent ethnographic work and census material from the 1920s in order to determine how and the extent to which political, economic and cosmological changes imposed on the native population affected mobility.

2009. J. Ziker, A. Blake, and B. Venard. "Spousal Violence in Northern Siberia: Testing Hypotheses of Male Sexual Proprietariness."   Poster presented to the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, December 4.

Evolutionary adaptations are traits which persist because they effectively increase the fitness, reproductive success, of the individual over a lasting period of time, under a given set of environmental conditions. One phenomenon evolutionary behavioral theory seeks to understand is the role of violent behavior in human mating (Wilson and Daly 1993). It has been proposed that coercive violence represents an evolved trait in males which in past times may have effectively increased the likelihood of fidelity, and thus certainty of parentage. Avoiding cuckoldry, the unwitting investment in offspring that are not one’s own, is one possible fitness-related benefit of male sexual violence. The aim of this research was to test specific hypothesis relating to this theory. Information from two censuses (1997, 2007) and death registries gathered in Ust-Avam, an indigenous community of 500 individuals north of the Arctic Circle on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia (Russia), provided data on the reproductive success, age, and relative-relatedness of females who had died violently. Our findings showed younger women were more likely to be killed and that they had fewer offspring than women who died for other reasons. Relative youth and low number of offspring may serve as a cues for reproductive potential (RP), thus we fail to reject Daly and Wilson’s hypothesis that women with higher RV would be more susceptible to violent acts. Further, we found a trend of decreased local kinship ties for those women who died violently—also expected if increased kinship networks reduce female susceptibility to male perpetrated violence.

2009. "The Fire is Our Grandfather: Social Relations and Inferences of the Home-Hearth in Northern Siberia." Paper Presented to the 42nd Annual Chacmool Conference: Identity Crisis: Archaeology and Problems of Social Identity, University of Calgary, November 14.

The paper will discuss the social relations and cosmology of the home-hearth among the Dolgan and Nganasan peoples in a community in Northern Siberia. The paper will review briefly the historical ethnographic material on the home-hearth, and provide an update with ethnographic material from recent ethnographic fieldwork in the community. The social importance of the home-hearth will be described through an analysis of non-demonstrative inferences made in ethnographic materials, daily conversations, and interviews. Non-demonstrative inferences are a special class of syllogism that have play in establishing social norms and the symbolic importance of the hearth fire.

2009. "Toward an Integrated Theory of Social Norms, Part 1." Paper Presented to the BOREAS Final Conference: Environments, Movements and Narratives in the Circumpolar North, Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi, Finland, October 28.

In order to delve into the proximate causes of the perpetuation of social norms of sharing and reciprocity, I have the logic of traditional communication about virtuous practices. Two types of inferences are discussed in light of the promotion of social norms among the Dolgan and the Nganasan. The results show that limits on agency are not necessarily a template (or structure) existing in the culture, but that communicative processes employ positive examples of virtuous practices and negative examples of unvirtuous practices through non-demonstrative inferences. If the inferences are accepted, the effect of this type of communication is to bolster traditional authority and influence. This may feed into perpetuating social norms and the institutions that rely on these norms. Going back to the evolutionary level, there is evidence that our inferential abilities are shaped by evolutionary problems (i.e., cooperation in groups).

2009.  "Subsistence and Residence in the Putoran Uplands-Taimyr Lowlands in the 1920s - 1960s." Paper presented to the Workshop: The Role of the State in Population Movements: The Circumpolar North and Other Periphery Regions. Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi, Finland, October 26.

This paper explores the ecological and demographic history of the Putoran uplands and Taimyr lowlands as reflected in the hunting and migration strategies of a unique local community of Iakut and Tungus hunters and herders. Here I make extensive use of the primary materials of the 1926/27 Polar Census of Siberia, as well as my own ethnographic work in this region. This material helps us to refine ideas about indigenous settlement and subsistence patterns, travel, and economic and command relationships in the region. The paper will discuss major movements following the Communist Revolution and the effects of the closure of this community in 1968.

2009. "Violent Death in Northern Siberia: Application of Evolutionary Hypotheses." Poster presentation for Evolution of Human Aggression: Lessons for Today's Conflicts, The Barbara L. and Norman C. Tanner Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, February 25-27.
 

Ust-Avam is an indigenous community of 500 individuals north of the Arctic Circle on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia (Russia). The collapse of the USSR in the 1990’s significantly altered economic organization in Taimyr. In Ust-Avam the majority of working-aged adults were laid off their jobs in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, I documented decreased fertility rates and increased frequency of deaths due to unnatural (often violent) causes compared with the previous six years, when state-organized hunting was profitable (Ziker 2002). Since 2002, fertility rates have increased, but mortality rates have remained steady and unnatural deaths continue to account for up to 70 percent of all deaths. Native community members across Siberia pointed to uncontrolled sales of alcohol in the 1990s and binge drinking surrounding paydays for many of the deaths. Homicides accounted for 10 percent of violent deaths between 1986 and 1997, while drowning and suicide accounted for more than half. The poster will examine homicide and other violence in Ust’-Avam in light of hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory and current cross-cultural research. In particular, male sexual proprietariness and violence will be considered in light of variables representing women’s attractiveness to rivals, costs to husbands in using violence, intensity of intrasexual competition, and female choice (Wilson and Daly 1993). Interethnic homicides, homicides committed by females and children, and suicides also will be explored considering applicable variables.

2009. "A Knowledge Repatriation Project on Caribou-Skin Dwellings with Tlicho First Nation." With Patricia Nietfeld, Tom Andrews, John B. Zoe at the Society for Applied Anthropology 69th Annual Meeting, Sante Fe Convention Center, Sante Fe, March 17-21.

 

We aim to contextualize the primary symbol of circumpolar aboriginal people—the conical caribou-skin lodge—with indigenous perspectives of these dwellings and other mobile, and locally-sourced, constructions. The project is supporting a participatory research exchange with Tlicho First Nation, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Center to repatriate traditional knowledge about mobile dwellings and to inform ethnographic research. The paper will describe how the Tlicho are deepening their own existing knowledge of techniques for living on the land by examining artifacts purchased from them at a vulnerable time in their history. 

2008. “Kinship and Gender in Taimyr, Russia.” Workshop Gender Shift in Northern Communities of  Russia, Sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Cesvaine, Latvia, May 4.
 

This presentation explores the extent to which relations between men and women in Northern communities in Russia have changed from pre-Soviet to post-Soviet time periods. A related question has to do with historical changes in kinship and family structures and how these affect male/female relationships. I begin with information gleaned from the 1926/27 Polar Census materials from the Taimyr Peninsula with a focus on the territories in and around the Putorana Uplands. The census was one of the most detailed enumerations of indigenous people in Siberia with over 400 data points for each household. The material has become an important historical source of data on aboriginal demographics, economics, settlement pattern, and life during a critical period. The pre-Soviet historical analysis will focus on womens’ and mens’ work, along with other indicators of household and larger-scale economic activity. The Soviet period saw increasing integration of the native population with the large economy and society. As permanent settlements were constructed on the basis of single-family housing and salaried employment in vertically-integrated and state-owned organizations, changes in gender roles and kinship structures occurred. The Soviet period changes will be briefly discussed in light of oral history interviews conducted with native people on the Taimyr. The post-Soviet period saw a breakdown of state-owned organizations, high levels of unemployment, alcoholism, and unnatural death. Recent changes may be affecting gender roles and kinship structures further. These recent changes will be discussed in light of demographic studies of the contemporary population of one community on the Taimyr, as well as ethnographic interviews and participant observation there.

2008. Ziker, J. and C. Hill. “Global Change in Siberia: Past and Present Human-Caribou/Reindeer Interaction.” Poster presented to the BSU Focus the Nation Research Symposium, Boise, ID, January 31.
 

Climate change can alter the distribution and availability of animals that serve as important resources for human adaptations. This is illustrated by the past and present relationships of humans and Rangifer in Siberia. In collaboration with colleagues from Russia, a research team from Boise State University has conducted research in Northern and Southern Siberia in areas where humans have been connected with Rangifer for thousands of years.

2007. Gorrell, N., Arakchaa T., and J. Ziker. “The History and Economy of the Taimyr Lowlands.”  Paper presented to the 15th Arctic Conference Pocatello, ID, Nov. 2.
 

Working off the 1926-27 Polar Census materials for Turukhanskii Krai, this chapter develops a historic picture of aboriginal life in north-central Siberia focusing on community structure, division of labour, settlement pattern, and economic activities and exchanges in the larger economy. The Polar Census of 1926-27 is a robust source of empirical data on economic activities, demographics, and land and resource use. A reexamination of the census data can help to assess some of the development of current native Siberian identity and settlement. This information could be useful for the living descendants, as well as historical understandings of the development of minority ethnic groups in the Russian North.

2007. “Homes, Hearths, and Households in the Lena Goldfields and Taimyr Lowlands, Russia, and Rae-Edzo, Canada.” Paper presented to the 15th Arctic Conference Pocatello, ID, Nov. 2.

Circumpolar indigenous peoples hold their home hearths with special reverence. Developing this powerful idea through three focal metaphors—home, hearth, and household—the research investigates relationships to the environment and resources, social exchange, and demographics in indigenous communities. During summer 2007, the team observed the environmental imprints of native reindeer herding groups in Eastern Siberia. An international archaeological, ethnographic, and botanical research team traveled to Bodaibinskii District in northeastern Irkutsk Region (1000 km northeast of Irkutsk) to work at sites of Evenki and Yakut reindeer herders and hunters in an area known the Lena Goldfields. Ethnoarchaeology of contemporary use of space at and near reindeer camps will be discussed in light of questions of site formation and historical archival materials also being studied. Studies of the vernacular architecture of mobile dwellings were continued in July 2007 in a Dolgan and Nganasan community in Taimyr Region, along with continuing demographic work and food distribution studies. Earlier in 2007, a participatory research exchange with representatives of the Tlicho First Nation in Canada and
the National Museum of the American Indian and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre took place under the project. The repatriation of knowledge of a Tlicho caribou skin lodge is based around the study of a caribou skin lodge covering held by the National Museum of the American Indian. A Canadian team traveled to Washington in February to make a detailed photographic record of the cover and to create a pattern for comparison with the lodge in the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre collection. Integrating current ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological work with historical records and curated artifacts, the project aims to document local traditional knowledge of caribou skin lodges and other mobile dwellings of northern peoples, to support public access to important historical and ethnographic data
sets in local languages, and to inform academic efforts at understanding how residential patterns in the North have a long-term time signature.

2007. “Resource Distribution by Dolgan and Nganasan Hunters and their Families in Taimyr, Northern Russia.” The Ethnohistory and Archaeology of Northern Eurasia: Theory, Methods, and Practice, Irkutsk, Russia, May 19-25.

Ethnographic data on food procurement and distribution in an indigenous Siberian community are discussed in light of traditional social institutions of exchange and sociodemographics. Resource distribution in the Avam community, according to the author’s recent ethnographic studies, includes sharing within hunting parties, sharing with close and extended family members, other relatives, friends, neighbors and other people who ask. The perpetuation of key values and norms that support this safety net among the Dolgan and Nganasan is described in the paper. This process involves social relationships and the merging of economic, political, social and religious activities, such as described in Marcel Mauss’ concept of the “total social
movement” and Alan Barnard’s concept of the “foraging mode of thought.” Modes of production and access to resources (property) also play observable roles in the types of procurement and distribution strategies being employed in particular situations. This study of hunting and resource distribution in Northern Russia links local concerns to those of other hunter-gatherers in indigenous minorities in other countries and continents.

2007. “Food Distribution among Hunter-Gatherers in Northern Siberia: Tests of Evolutionary Hypotheses.” Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Invited Session: New Research in the Evolutionary Ecology of Food Transfer, Washington, DC, December 2.

 

Empirical data on food procurement and distribution combined with socio-demographic information on givers and recipients in a community of indigenous Siberians are used to test hypotheses of non-market food transfers derived from evolutionary theory, including: kinship, reciprocal altruism, tolerated scrounging, and costly signaling. The frequency and volume of food distributed are analyzed by considering independent variables including relatedness, age and sex differences, household proximity, hunter status, stated rationales for sharing, previous sharing and other aid, relative amounts of food on hand, hunting season, and storage capacity. The paper illustrates how the giving and receiving of food operates within the flexible strategies of hunter-gatherers in an uncertain environment: a remote Arctic community in postsocialist Russia. The development and continuation of non-market food transfers in Siberia provides additional perspective into discussions of the evolution of human social behavior. Non-market food transfers in this case study are embedded in kinship and other social institutions that aim to provide a social safety net for family and community members in ways analogous to those discovered among other hunter-gatherers. 

2007. Harter, K., and J. Ziker. “Latter-Day Saints Childcare Networks in Boise, Idaho.”  Poster presented to Human Behavior and Evolution Society annual meeting, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. June 29.
 

This study of Mormon childcare networks examines four evolutionary models that have been proposed to account for costs related to devout religious behavior: signaling, inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism, and tolerated theft. The project studies how the Mormon community has created a strong network of shared childcare. The goal of this project was to identify variables that influence women’s decisions to participate in these collectives. The methods used include key informant surveys and network analysis using a version of snowball sampling method called Respondent Driven Sampling. Over fifty women were interviewed and preliminary findings point toward reciprocal altruism. It appears that women who are close in age and who live in the same neighborhood are babysitting for each other several hours a few times a week. This allows the women to have breaks for personal activities including volunteering in elementary schools and shopping. 

2006. Ziker, J., Harter, K., Kennedy, E.C., and S. Sweat. “Trust, Reciprocity, and Resources: Using Experimental Games to Understand Perspectives of College Students.” Poster presented to Human Behavior and Evolution Society annual meeting, University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, Philadelphia, June 7-11.
 

Game theory contributes to evolutionary models of cooperation, the development of social norms and coalitions, bargaining, cheating, and monitoring. Following game theory models of cooperation, we conducted a series of experimental games at Boise State University in order to investigate student perspectives on trust, reciprocity, and common-pool resources. Introductory Anthropology students participated as research subjects. Participant choices were analyzed in light of independent data collected in the pre-game interview. Household size, self-reported payoffs to household cooperation (Likert scale), and age were among the most significant correlates of decisions, indicating the importance of micro-social environments on decision-making.  

2006. “Food Distribution in Northern Siberia and the Evolution of Cooperation.” Paper presented to Human Behavior and Evolution Society annual meeting, University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, Philadelphia, June 7-11.

 

This paper describes observations of new (non-meal) food distributions documented in Northern Siberia in 2001 and 2003 among hunter-fisher-wage laborers known ethnically as Dolgan and Nganasan. Using independent data on social relationships, household composition, location, hunter status, health, contingency, and self-report explanations, tests of prominent evolutionary models for food sharing and cooperation among hunter-gatherers are described. These results are compared with earlier results on sharing at meals in same population.

2006. “Ethnodemographics and Identity of Indigenous People in the Central Taimyr Lowlands.” International Workshop: Indigenous Identity in Demographical Sources, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, September 29–30.
 

This paper is based on a review and preliminary analysis of historic census materials and ethnodemographics for the Central Taimyr Lowlands, Northern Russia. Warren Hern has elaborated a set of standards for ethnodemographic research in small-scale societies that is particularly useful when the reliability of official census data is questioned or unavailable. These tools generate standardized information for comparative analysis of human societies. In addition
to standard age-sex statistics, Hern’s techniques include ways to estimate crude birth rate, crude death rate, crude rate of natural increase, and a variety of fertility and mortality indices. I will
review these standards in the paper and the results for the study community in the Central Taimyr Lowlands. Using such information, it is possible to make comparisons with other indigenous peoples and larger national and regional populations, and to develop a picture of
relative demographic health. Hern has no suggestions about the ethnodemographics of identity markers, and I have used a combination of official data from local registry books and results of interviews to describe dynamics in community ethnic identities. Additional research on the data from the 1926/27 polar census suggests historic fluidity of ethnic identity in the region.

2005. “Darwinian evolutionary theory and social behavior: Analysis of cooperative networks among indigenous Siberian minorities in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug , Russia .” Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Association of Politics and Life Sciences, Washington DC , August 31-September 4.

How well does Darwinian evolutionary theory predict behavioral outcomes in tribal and state societies? Following Napoleon Chagnon, empirical research in anthropology has focused on hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies in order to address this question. My research adds to examinations of a number of models derived from evolutionary theory to explain and predict variation in social behavior. Kinship (i.e., generalized reciprocity), reciprocal altruism, (i.e., risk buffering or by-product mutualism), tolerated scrounging (i.e., community goods or marginal costs of defense), and costly signaling (i.e., Zahavi effect) are the 4 major hypotheses. I have analyzed a food-sharing network of indigenous, predominantly Dolgan, nuclear families observed at 466 meals for a number of independent variables. The strongest consistent predictor of household sharing is the presence of a consanguineal kinship link between households. Other attributes, such as the summed number of hunters in paired households, also account for much of the variation in sharing in the network. Differences in the number of hunters in partner households, as well as proximity and producer/consumer ratios of households were investigated with relevance to cost-benefit predictions of the models above. The subset of households involved in reciprocal meal sharing in this network is 26 of 84 household host-guest pairs. The frequency of reciprocal meal sharing between families in this subset also correlated positively with average consanguineal relatedness between households. The evolution of cooperation through clustering may illuminate the relationship between kinship and reciprocity at this most personal phase of food sharing.

2005. “An Evolutionary Analysis of Indigenous Siberian Food-Sharing Networks.” Paper to be presented to the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Austin , Texas , June 1-5.

 Among the Dolgan in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, Russia , meals often include members of a number of families. A food-sharing network was derived from participant observation of 814 meals in 1995 and 1996. Coupled with sociodemographic and genealogical data, multivariate matrix regression showed that the strongest consistent predictor of household sharing at meals was a consanguineal kinship link between households. The summed number of hunters in paired households also accounted for much of the variation in the network. Additional indices were investigated with reference to a series of cost-benefit models in studies of hunter-gatherer food sharing. The frequency of reciprocal meal sharing between families within this network subset correlated positively with average consanguineal relatedness between households. The evolution of cooperation through clustering may illuminate the relationship between kinship and reciprocity at this most personal phase of food sharing.

2005. “The Social Context of Fairness and Rational Choice in Siberia .” Paper presented to the Roots of Human Sociality Conference. Pasadena , California , April 15-17.

Generosity is encouraged among the Dolgan and Nganasan through kinship and common property traditions, including maxims and cosmological ideas that reward sharing and emphasize negative outcomes of examples of selfishness. It appears that these norms of sharing manifest in the pattern of experimental game offers in Ust’-Avam. Those players who make more money generally gave higher portions of their allotment. Those who lived in larger households gave less, as did players who listed more capital-wealth items. These results suggest that economic need and integration with the greater economy are important variables in sharing behavior. Moderate incidence of low offers and moderate levels of punishment occurred in a second game, which may reflect some risk-taking in the community and a complementary level of willingness to punish egoists. These results are consistent with Ust’-Avam’s subsistence hunting-and-gathering lifestyle, common-pool territories, and common sharing with kin, as well as entitlements to aid for community members.

2005. John Ziker and Karen Wadley. “Demographic Health and the Community Well-Being in the Taimyr Lowlands, Northern Russia .” Paper Presented to the Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. Santa Fe , New Mexico , April 9.  

The paper reviews local concerns about high rates of mortality in an indigenous (Dolgan and Nganasan) community. Alcohol sales in the 1990s free market economy, lay-offs, and periods of inactivity are related to the mortality pattern. Changing fertility patterns are noted and tested against the changing economic and political context in the Taimyr Autonomous Region. To abandon drinking for periods of up to 1 year, some community members are using a medical treatment called “coding”—a kind of hypnosis.

2005. “Land Tenure and Game-Management Strategies Among the Dolgan of Northern Siberia : Points for Comparison.” Paper presented to the 41^st Annual Meeting of the Idaho Chapter of the Wildlife Society, Boise , Idaho , March 10.

Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union , a range of land tenure arrangements have developed in rural and remote areas. The land and waters of northern Siberia provide important biotic resources for indigenous people and local economies, as is the case in other Arctic regions. Access to these resources among the Dolgan is imperative for local communities and is usually defined both through land claims, historic use, and titles, as well as through kinship identities, and traditional knowledge of the resources and how to use them. The particulars vary, but one common recent influence on property relations across the Arctic is state-level society and development. State concepts and procedures for administering access to land and resource management may be superimposed upon local concepts and practices, which are longstanding local strategies of access and allocation. How these two levels of land tenure and resource management operate together is one of the major questions I addressed in my research.

2004. “Rational Choice and Limits on Agency in Siberia .” Workshop: Rational Choice and the Limits of Individual Agency, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) Germany, September 16-18.

The paper discusses research on rational choice and limits of individual agency among indigenous Dolgan and Nganasan community members in Northern Russia . Ethno-experimental games conducted in Siberia in 2003. The preliminary analysis of results are contextualized in terms of wider traditions of sharing in the community. Concepts of fairness and willingness to punish egoists appear to vary cross-culturally depending on the socio-economic and political contexts. In the case of the Avam tundra Dolgan and Nganasan ancestors and elders play important cosmological (and explanatory) roles in defining "proper" (moral) and " improper" (amoral) behavior. Such ancestral strategies are one of the fields where agency operates to encourage certain cooperative behaviors, such as sharing among kin. Agency in such cases is an expression of authority (mainly of elders), and thus, limits on individuals may make sense in local frames of reference, where costs are paid beyond the economically rational choice.

 2004. “Hunter Status and Reproductive Success in Northern Siberia .” Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.  Berlin , Germany , July 21-25.

The results of this preliminary investigation indicate that individual hunters' reproductive success is correlated with perceptions of the hunters’ ability in the local community. This result makes it difficult to rule out the costly signaling hypothesis, although alternative explanations may also account for the variation.Whether benefits from being a good hunter go directly to offspring or are distributed through the community with reciprocal or indirect benefits remains to be investigated.

2004. “The Social Movement of Meat in Taimyr, Northern Russia .” Paper presented to the 5^th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences. Fairbanks , Alaska , May 19-23.

This paper describes the modes by which meat and other bush products are transferred and exchanged in an indigenous community in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia . In the 1990s, social connections and non-market exchanges became increasingly important within the remote community described here.

2003. “Tradition and the Conflict between Generations in Taimyr: The Logic of Conformity and Dialectic of Learning.” Siberian Studies Center Workshop: Everything is Still Before You: Being Young in Siberia Today, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) Germany, November 15-17.

This paper expands on ideas about how various logical arguments or formulations are used to promote values and social goods in relation to access and entitlements to resources. Focusing more generally on intergenerational relationships in indigenous communities in Siberia, two competing processes are described: 1) the “channeling” by elder generations and ancestors of younger generations’ social behavior, and 2) the abandonment or contesting of such traditional strategies. 

2003. “Sharing in Siberia: Social Networks and Explanatory Hypotheses.” The Human Behavioral Ecology Workshop: Future Questions, Approaches, and Applications for a Second Generation, Cooperation and Competition, University of Maine, Department Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, May 8-11.

This paper describes the relative importance of kinship, location, and household status in food sharing at meals among indigenous, settled hunter-gatherers in the Siberian Arctic. Explanatory hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory are pitted against the data gathered in the socio-ecological context of a remote community within a collapsing state economy. Multivariate analysis is used. This research has implications for the types of food sharing developing among contemporary indigenous hunter-gatherers experiencing extreme economic hardship. Such a context exposes the prosocial nature of decision-making in small-scale human society.

2002. "The Food Sharing Debate: A Case Study From Siberia." Ninth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 9.

This paper examines theoretical assumptions and expectations about hunter-gatherer food sharing in light of material from the Siberian Arctic. Theoretical assumptions and predictions of three models, each with relevance to evolutionary and socio-cultural ecology, are examined: a) kinship cooperation, b) reciprocity, and c) producers, seekers, and circumstantialists. The flow of hunted and gathered resources was documented among the Dolgan and Nganasan, indigenous peoples in north central Siberia with a complex history in czarist Russia and the Soviet Union. In the post-Socialist era, diminishing economic subsidies to remote communities has favored subsistence hunting and gathering, non-market distribution, and common-pool resource use. Considering systematic information on a number of relevant variables with food distribution, this research identifies the strategies through which and why the Dolgan and Nganasan are implementing non-market sharing patterns. This is significant for interpretation of human natures and anthropological economics of big-game hunting.

2002. "Socio-Ecological Contests of Livestock Theft." Collective and Multiple Forms of Property in Land and Animals, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) August 21.

This paper explores livestock theft and its social and ecological context as a tool to examine the boundaries and limits of multi-level ownership. Especially relevant to portable property, such as livestock, theft occurs where implicit or explicit property relations are recognized. An examination of theft may refine our discussions of property relations which allow for imprecise membership criteria and for gradations of membership, or where rights to use and rights to dispose are vested in multiple individuals. Particularly important to this discussion is a cross-cultural comparison, where livestock theft is institutionalized, and in what ways. An intriguing possibility is that livestock stealing is part of a system of communication about use of common pastures relevant to political or military relations. On the other hand livestock theft can be a symptom of the breakdown of common property regimes. Comparisons between pastoral societies in Africa and Siberia are made.

2002. Ziker, J. and A. Venstel. Reindeer Herding and Hunting Among the Dolgan: A Comparative Study of Property Relations in the Russian Far North. European Association for Social Anthropology, 7th Biennial Conference, Copenhagen, August 14-17.

Here, we summarize our research on changes in forms of property in the Russian far north, comparing two studies of the Dolgan, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority, living in two regions of Siberia. Across the Siberian north, we have described developments that counter expectations of formal economic models of social change. We identify conditions that favor these unexpected economic choices among the Dolgan, in particular understandings of common-pool resources and their locally developing management schemes.

2002. "Theoretical Approaches in the United States." Who Owns Siberian Ethnography? An International Workshop on Methods and Approaches to Ethnography in the Russian North, Halle/Saale, Germany, March 7.

The paper focuses on the American Siberianists and their theoretical approaches. Among Siberianists, we have overcome the simple dividing lines within American Anthropology to a large extent. I believe this has to do with the conditions of field research in Siberia, as well as the common problems experienced by Siberian peoples. Both are the result of years of Russian Imperial and Soviet rule.

2002. "Kinship, Friendship, and Public Goods in Native Siberian Food Sharing." Tagung: Verwandtschaft und Freundshaft. Zur Unterscheidung und Relevanz zweier Beziehungssysteme. Bielefeld, Germany, February 10.

The importance of kinship and friendship within indigenous communities in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia, is interpreted here through an anthropological study on sharing, in particular the sharing of food. Food sharing, or non-market distribution, is an integral part of the survival strategies people are employing at the geographic and demographic periphery of the Russian Federation. Sharing is one way people are creating and strengthening community in the face of uncertain transition. A distressing and demoralizing period of change, beginning with the 1991 dismantling of the Soviet Union's planned economy, has taken place in the communities where I studied. Kinship and friendship relationships are helping people to survive in a social context of unemployment, decreased availability of consumer goods, high cost of transportation, distance to markets, and minority ethnic status.

2001. “The Raw and the Cooked in Arctic Siberia: Seasonality, Gender and Diet among the Dolgan and Nganasan Hunter Gatherers.” Paper presented to the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, November 28.

This article investigates recent changes in the diet of indigenous Dolgan and Nganasan householders in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia. Representing two of Russia's thirty numerically small peoples of Siberia, the Dolgan and Nganasan have had several centuries of interaction with Russian and Soviet administrations and a complementary history of social change. While grains and refined carbohydrates have been available for at least 200 years, they were present in abundance during the last 30 years of the Soviet era, when large remote settlements were constructed. Services that were once easy to access during the Soviet era are now dwindling--the variety and quantity of imported food items has decreased in recent years and subsistence hunting and gathering now provides the Dolgan and Nganasan with almost all protein and fat in the study communities. The Dolgan and Nganasan have a full complement of traditional food-processing techniques, several of which require uncooked meat and fish (sometimes frozen). A typology of food preparation techniques will be presented. Raw protein is consumed widely, a traditional practice that provides vitamins where access to fresh vegetable foods is limited. The role of women in diet breadth is discussed, as well as the importance of location and season in food preparation.

2001. “The Dolgan of Northern Russia: Native Language in School and Community.” Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Alaskan Anthropological Association, Fairbanks, AK, March 23.

The Dolgan are one of Russia's numerically small indigenous peoples of Siberia. Their language is a form of Yakut (Sakha), a northern Turkic language, with admixtures of Evenk (Tungus) and Russian. The study community (population 670) is also home to the Nganasan, whose language is part of the Samoyedic branch of the Ural-Altaic family. Native language is taught in school, but core classes are taught in Russian. Mixed marriages have increased in frequency since settlement in the 1970s, and Russian has become the lingua franca, especially among young people. Native-language curricula could benefit by borrowing techniques from foreign language instruction.

2001. “Clan Holdings, Assigned Territories, and Common Pool Resources: Land Tenure Developments in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia.” Paper presented to the 40th Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association, Palm Springs, CA, February 28.

In the Taimyr Autonomous Region, an Arctic subunit of Krasnoyarskii Krai in central Siberia, a variety of property relations have developed since the fall of the Soviet Union. This article discusses three types of land tenure in indigenous communities in the Taimyr Region: assigned hunting territories maintained since the Soviet period, and clan holdings and common pool resources, two forms that have expanded in the 1990s.

2000. “Land Tenure and Economic Change among the Dolgan and Nganasan.”  Paper presented to the “Postsocialisms in the Russian North” workshop at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany, November 9.

This paper describes the interconnections between local social processes that encourage subsistence foraging and larger-level economic and political processes that make it difficult for native families in the rural Taimyr communities to pursue formal land claims.

2000. “Food Sharing among Indigenous Hunters of the Russian Arctic: Models and Preliminary Evidence.”  Paper presented to the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Human Behavioral and Evolution Society, Amherst, Massachusetts, June 11.

With the break-up of the Soviet command economy, the Dolgan and Nganasan, two of Russia's indigenous Siberian peoples, have returned to subsistence hunting, fishing, and trapping. Informal distribution of the prey is reflected in a number of behavioral ecological models. This paper provides preliminary evidence for three models based on focal follow observations and self-report explanations. The models are: kinship resource transfer, buffering exchange, and immediate-return cooperation. Buffering exchange and immediate-return cooperation appear to be connected diachronically and may depend, in part, on patterns of prey distribution and migration. In the Dolgan and Nganasan communities where this research was conducted, the people are relatively isolated from potential sources of trade. The development of non-market distribution strategies among indigenous north Siberians is evidence of a basic human social and economic adaptation.

2000.  “The Socio-Demography of a Native Siberian Village.”  Paper presented to the Arctic Forum, Washington, DC, May 18.

In Blair Ruble's multidisciplinary study Fragmented Space (2000), the effects of Russia's free market reforms have been described as a process of differentiation occurring on urban-rural continuums. Urban centers are where close to all of Russia's capital wealth has become concentrated. Vast territories of poverty and infrastructure decay surround these islands of prosperity. This process is intestified in remote areas of the Russian north where the larger Russian economy is so unpredictable that the Dolgan and Nganasan see little or no advantage in participating in it. I collected complete census information for the focal community of my research, Ust Avam, population 673. I also collected information on causes of death for registered mortalities in Ust Avam for the previous 11 years. These data provide a source of information about fertility and mortality in the community through time. I found a rapid drop in Ust Avam's fertility and a concomitant increase in mortality since 1993. Ust Avam's age-sex distribution shows many young people and fewer middle-aged and elderly people. In fact, one half of the population is under 19 years old. This pyramidal shaped distribution is typical for expanding populations or those with high adult mortality. In 1997, there were about one-half the number of 0-4-year olds than would be expected for the previous cohorts. Underlying Ust Avam's violent-death and fertility statistics are the fundamental problems of illegal alcohol distribution and unemployment (inactivity in the labor force).

2000.  Challenges to Self-Determination Among the Siberian Dolgan and Nganasan. Association for the Study of Nationalities Conference, Columbia, New York, April 14.

This paper identifies three key challenges to sustainable development among the Dolgan and Nganasan of north-central Siberia: transition to a subsistence economy; structure of poverty; and demographic consequences of the dismantling of the planned economy. The data presented in this paper are evidence of a rapid decline in the demographic health of this native Siberian settlement during the 1990s: death rates have increased within the community, and the causes of death have changed as well. Fertility rates have fallen. The article identifies social and economic context of this apparently critical situation. Individuals, once employed to make traditional products for the Soviet economy, are now struggling to feed their families with little or no money. While some in Ust Avam still receive small salaries for civil service work or state pensions, their purchasing power has diminished by an order of magnitude in less than a decade. This disruption of the formal economy has brought about a demoralizing and depressing setting.

1999.  “Survival Economy and Core-Periphery Dynamics in the Taimyr Autonomous Region.”  Paper presented to Soyuz-99, Bloomington, Indiana, April 10.

This paper reports on the ways the Dolgan, Nganasan, and Nenets of the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Krasnoyarskii Krai, are dealing with the dissolution of state socialism. The central Taimyr's native population shared in an intense period of development beginning in the late 1960s when state-organized hunting, fishing, trapping was encouraged over reindeer herding, and permanent settlements were constructed. Standards of living for native hunters and workers were relatively high throughout the 1980s. After the Soviet Union's collapse, reform programs and market forces increased the costs of production and lowered the value of goods native workers produce-reindeer meat, fish, and pelts. As a result, native rural communities were propelled into severe economic depression. A few households established family/clan holdings (semeino-rodovoe khoziaistvo) based on a 1992 presidential decree by Boris Yeltsin. During 18 months of field research in the Taimyr region, I developed data to characterize, compare, and contrast two types of households-those with state-owned hunting territories and those with recently allowed, private holdings. This paper reports on indigenous explanations of their land claims activity and land use. I found variability in involvement in the land-claims process. I explore this variability in an ecological and holistic analysis.

1998.  “Land Use and Social Change among the Dolgan and Nganasan of Northern Siberia.”  Paper presented to the Eighth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Osaka, Japan, October 29.

It appears that capital-intense strategies are not succeeding in the heart of the Taimyr tundra. Family/clan holdings can not operate under current conditions: high cost of transportation of products to urban areas; and the highly bureaucratic nature of making land claims. Rather, hunters and their families have reoriented to a foraging economy with supplemental exchange. As part of the subsistence economy, reciprocal-buffering exchange and altruistic gifting of meat and fish occurs under the tundra code: "Give it if you have it."

1998. “Land Tenure and Kinship in Northern Siberia.” Paper presented to the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Human Behavioral and Evolution Society, Davis, California, July 10.

At the turn of the century the Dolgan and Nganasan were semi-nomadic reindeer herders occupying adjacent territories. During the 1960s the government settled these two groups into ethnically mixed permanent villages. State-organized hunting, fishing, trapping and wage labor replaced reindeer herding. At the time of settlement, the state assigned hunting territories to brigades, many of which were nuclear and extended families, or sets of co-descendants. Since the break-up of the USSR in 1991, some native households have established what are called family/clan holdings. During one year of field research among the Dolgan and Nganasan of the Taimyr Autonomous Region of Northern Siberia I collected information to characterize, compare, and contrast two types of households--those with use rights to state farm holdings and those with recently allowed, family/clan (private) holdings. I conducted my analysis in terms of land-use, local economy and social organization, and relationships with the macro-economy. The main question for my research was why some households had created family/clan holdings and others have stayed with the state farms. In this paper I will analyze one community's land tenure patterns. The paper will address the following: Were larger lineages assigned larger territories, territories with better accessibility, or territories with certain resources? Or was state territory distribution equitable regarding kinship and ethnic affiliation? What is the role of kinship in creating the new family/clan holdings?

1997. “Kinship, Economy, and Ethnicity Among the Dolgan of Northern Siberia.” Paper presented to the Ninety-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 23.

This paper discusses how aboriginal Siberians are dealing with the dissolution of State socialism and subsequent economic collapse. Yesterday, in the session on Confronting Poverty in the 21st Century (Recent Ethnographies from Russia, The Transcaucasus and Central Asia), Kuehnast stated that introduction of the market economy led to black marketing and speculation, while privatization of enterprises led to a host of other social problems such as prostitution, drug trading, begging and homelessness. Dudwick stated that the dissolution of socialism has led to atomization of social and economic life bringing on mutually reinforcing poverty and isolation. And, complementing Ssorin-Chaikov's conclusion that certain individuals are held up as icons of authentic lifestyle differing from reality, I have found through meticulous surveys and observational research that aboriginal Siberians are maintaining social and economic traditions in the face of tremendous technological and financial changes over the past 80 years. These traditions are facilitating a social safety net for remote community members despite continuing problems of alcoholism and unemployment.

1997. (In Russian) “Rodstvo, Obmen, i Etnos v Taimyrskoi Tundre:  Rezultaty Issledovanii (1995-1997).” [“Kinship, Exchange, and Ethnicity in the Taimyr Tundra: Results of Investigations (1995-1997).”]  Paper presented to the 60th Anniversary Conference of the Taimyr Regional Territorial Studies Museum, Dudinka, Krasnoyarskii Territory, October 17.

For Aristotle, the focus of attention is observed phenomena, which are grouped into classes on the basis of common attributes. Lawfulness or regularity is conceived historically, in terms of frequency of occurrence . . . Moreover, concepts in Aristotelian science often have a valuative character. There is, for example, the highest form of motion - circular - that occurs only in the heavens

For Galileo, classification of observed phenomenon, historical frequency, and evaluative concepts are rejected in favor of dynamic, relational and empirical concepts. In Galilean science, "lawfulness is assumed to be, at once, more universal and more specific" (Batson 1991). Laws or relationships are invariant over different situations and apply to individual cases. These laws and relationships are defined by testing alternative, hypothesized, invariant relationships where exceptions are completely valid disproof.

With a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning, one translates and inducts real world phenomenon into logical theoretical models. The deductive process leads to formal hypotheses, and with interpretation, to operational hypotheses that are subject to empirical tests. Researchers then translate the test results into general terms and by induction modify theoretical models.

From the Aristotelian side, family and clan holdings in the Russian north could be described under the rubric of "neotraditionalism" as Pika and Prokhorov have done (1994). They use neotraditionalism to describe a revival of traditional economies occurring side-by-side with modern technological and informational awareness. From a Galilean perspective, I should develop a number of alternative empirically testable hypotheses about why native Siberians are forming "neotraditional" family and clan holdings. Are formal or substantive economic principles primary? Are the new holdings a result of separatist politics or policies of forced integration? The results from empirical tests of alternative hypotheses about family and clan economy can be used to develop better understandings of core-periphery dynamics and local responses to commercial globalization, along with a refined definition of neotraditionalism. Group identities and collective territorial strategies are "group-level" phenomenon. But is analysis and explanation in the same terms the most fertile?

1997. Chagnon, N.A., Ziker, J., Thompson, B., Price, M. & Eerkens, J.  “The Density of Kinship in Tribal and Peasant Communities.”  Ninth Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, June 5.

The senior author has been quantifying kinship relationships within and between communities of Yanomamö Indians using genealogical data and a computer program called KINDEMCOM. Given relatively complete genealogies of a 'group,' KINDEMCOM searches for and quantitatively documents detectable kinship relatedness among community members and makes possible the comparison of what kinds of kinship relationships exist in the community. Contact with missionaries has resulted in a conspicuous diminution of Yanomamö 'kinship density' due to the influx of new members. Recent studies of Siberian tribesmen, Cree Indians of the James Bay area, and Haitian peasants will be compared to Yanomamö data and the issue of "tests of kin selection theory" discussed.

1995."Siberian Native Self-Determination: Neotraditionalism in a rapidly changing plural society." San Diego State University Social Science Graduate Student, March 25.

With the end of Communist Party rule in 1991, economic and social transformation in the Russian Federation has been rapid and uneven. Monetary and privitization policies have resulted in socio-economic depression among minority groups, as well the low-income classes. Accompanying this depression subsistence economies have gained significance and indigenous leaders from thirty or so different aboriginal groups across the Russian north and Siberia have formed a political confederacy. This confederacy is pursuing legislative affirmation of land claims and rights to cultural, economic, and political self-determination based on traditional lifestyles and ethnicities.

1995. "Ethnocentrism and Detection of Ethnicity." Seventh Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, June 28-July 1.

Ethnocentrism is a facultative adaptation operating within human sociality. In this paper I propose necessary conditions for the activation of ethnocentric motivations and for the calibration of ethnicity detection. That ethnocentrism can utilize hierarchical and rapidly changing definitions of ethnicity is the main problem in developing ultimate- and proximate-level hypotheses. In our evolutionary past, what we classify as ethnocentrism probably served to motivate individuals with common genetic interests in coalitional aggression and defense. Although ethnocentrism probably does not function to increase inclusive fitness when coalitions comprise non-relatives, it still can play a role in motivating individuals for warfare, conflict, sport and other factional ventures. I suggest that the role of kinship cooperation is not adequately considered in existing explanations of the ontogeny of ethnic representations.

1995. "Post-Soviet Siberia." Ninth Annual National Graduate Student Cultural Studies Conference, UC Santa Cruz, April 17.

The Russian bureaucratic and industrial core, along with Western corporations now, continues to penetrate and exploit peripheral regions and non-Russian peoples of the Russian Federation. Resistance to these exploitative powers is growing with local and regional cultural and political movements. As seen in Chechnya, these conflicts of interest can lead to war. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, cooperation with Russia on human rights, native rights, and environmental conservation has taken a back seat to U.S. and G-7 agendas of economic reform and monetary policy. Russia, a colonial power throughout its history, has become the object of Western capitalist colonization. This position is hard to take for many Russians and may be one of the fundamental reasons for current social and political instability in the Russian Federation.

1996. "Risk, Relatives, and Revolution: The Dulgaattar of Northern Siberia." The Brown Bag Lecture Series in Anthropology, UCSB, January 27.

I analyse the proposition that Siberian peoples are becoming more integrated with the Russian and global market economy. Although microeconomic theory and ethnographic reports support this hypothesis for many regions of the Russian Federation, there is reason to question it for the Siberian north. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, native people across Siberia are instituting what they call "family/ clan holdings". The Russian president decreed the family/clan land-use classification in 1992 in order to protect the traditional economic activities and living spaces of aboriginal Siberian peoples. I am researching whether family/clan farms are in fact focused on traditional economic activities or whether they are more like entrepreneurial enterprises. In addition, my research includes the many families still working in the State Farm system to characterize the economic and social changes they experienced in recent years.

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