ABSTRACT
As empirical field studies of hunting-gathering societies become increasingly available in the anthropological disciplines, the foundation for more comparative and generalized insights is laid. Although most social scientists have no personal experience of hunting-gathering, these societies are more than historical curiosities. The potential width of comparison is great as indicated by Sahlins Wilkinson’s challenging label on this form of society as the ‘original affluent society’. Food storage is not strongly pronounced among the simpler forms of hunting-gathering ecotechnology, and the free movement of groups among local areas, combined with the patterns of inter-group visits, tends to resolve conflicts through fission, i.e. larger groups breaking up into smaller ones. All places where individuals stop to act or interact with some other individual, organism or object are stations, which form the elements in the settlement system and the spatial bases for activity and interaction.
