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Forest people who lead ‘primitive’ lives hunting and gathering to survive
are not the relics of the Stone Age they are believed to be. Many of their
habits and behaviours are a legacy from sophisticated ancestors who were
forced to abandon their way of life and revert to hunting and gathering.

Anthropologists should not look on these people as models of prehistoric
mankind, warns Anna Roosevelt of the Field Museum of Natural History in
Chicago.

The biggest change in the way Indians lived followed the Spanish Conquest
at the end of the 15th century. Before the Spanish arrived, there was a
complex mosaic of cultures in South America, says Steve Beckerman of Pennsylvania
State University. The people left today are those who survived in isolation.

The Guaja, who live in Maranhano state in Brazil, are one of the last
exclusively foraging societies in lowland South America. ‘They are often
seen as representing the original condition of humanity,’ says William Balee
of Tulane University. ‘But historical events, not evolutionary events, are
responsible for the relationship between these people and their environment.’
They are descended from people who had a fairly advanced form of agriculture.
Their language includes words for maize, yams and sweet potatoes. Balee
believes the Guaja regressed slowly from a settled life growing crops to
hunter-gatherers, perhaps passing through an intermediate stage as ‘trekkers’
subsisting on maize.

The reason for the Guaja’s regression was probably disease introduced
by white settlers. ‘Between the late 1700s and 1862 something happened –
it could have been an epidemic from the Old World. It drove some groups
extinct and the others were so reduced they could not maintain their agriculture.
Eventually they lost their domesticated plants.’ The Bororo of the Matto
Grosso suffered a similar fate. The Bororo were once considered the most
important hunter-gatherer group because they do not make pottery. ‘But they
are not like the ancients. Until the conquest they were maize growers and
they did have pottery,’ says Roosevelt.

Innovation in hunting techniques can also radically alter the nature
of a modern hunter-gatherer society, making them unreliable models for ancient
hunters. A cosmetic change such as painting arrow shafts a bright colour
to make them easier to retrieve ultimately has a large effect, because the
owner of the arrows can spend less time making replacements and more time
obtaining food.

‘There are subtle and not so subtle ways people have adapted to hunter-gathering
in modern times,’ says Roosevelt. Men of the Hiwi and Pume people collect
tubers – traditionally considered a woman’s task. This is because in recent
years their women have been raped by cattle workers as they collected food.
‘So if you wish to draw evolutionary conclusions about people you need to
know where they have been and where they are going,’ says Roosevelt.