ABSTRACT
Thus, population and resource theories tend to concentrate on interdependent factors: risk and population-resource imbalances. Apart from environmental change, all environments involve some form of risk for hunter-gatherer societies: drought cycles; long, cold winters; or unpredictable floods, to mention only a few possibilities. People respond to these risks by moving, by developing new food storage technologies, and by drying foods like powdered bison meat or salmon. A straightforward solution to rising populations, resulting food shortages, or risk factors may be to go one step farther: to cultivate familiar plants and to domesticate common prey so that people can draw on familiar “stored” resources in scarce months (B. Smith, 1998).
