The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania

Origins of Human Behavior and Culture

by Frank Marlowe

In The Hadza, Frank Marlowe provides a quantitative ethnography of one of the last remaining societies of hunter-gatherers in the world. The Hadza, who inhabit an area of East Africa near the Serengeti and Olduvai Gorge, have long drawn the attention of anthropologists and archaeologists for maintaining a foraging lifestyle in a region that is key to understanding human origins. Marlowe ably applies his years of research with the Hadza to cover the traditional topics in ethnography—subsistence, material culture, religion, and social structure. But the book’s unique contribution is to introduce readers to the more contemporary field of behavioral ecology, which attempts to understand human behavior from an evolutionary perspective. To that end, The Hadza also articulates the necessary background for readers whose exposure to human evolutionary theory is minimal.

Genres: Anthropology, Science, Nonfiction, Ethnography, Tanzania

468 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2010

Reviews

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing this review some years after having read the book.

This book is pretty much the ideal presentation to anthropology as a good scientific field. Instead of using the usual loose stories to explain things it uses numbers and clear observations. This also means that it's a neutral book they doesn't bring any ideology into the field which is a rare thing for anthropology. Judging the science gives it a 10/10. Anthropology doesn't get much more scientific than this and it's why it's such an adored book in the field.

On the other hand it makes it dry at times as there are no grand stories about the soul or spiritual events or meetings. He knows he doesn't need to convince anyone of anything. He just writes about facts of life in a tribe. Some of the anthropology books where the author made up claims or reasons for behavior were just more interesting to read. Even though many of the silly biased explanations those authors gave were impossible or insane according to modern science.

I guess anthropology is what you make it. And maybe this book is just a tad too science focused? You decide. If you want to keep one anthropology book it would be a book like this one. If you want to read a book for fun maybe a creative but biased book is more engaging.

[W.B. Habsburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great things about this book is the statistics are presented up front and make clear how particular traits and specific to just this tribe, or are common across other hunter gatherers. I'm not a note taker generally, but my copy of this book is littered with scribbles: endlessly fascinating.

[Ronda Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scholarly read, but so full of fabulous information. Marlowe brings a textbook to life with his vivid descriptions and obvious love and respect of the Hadza people.

[Lisa]

This was fascinating. I'm not an anthropologist so I don't know how it holds up with other scholarship. I also don't love the attempt to connect/compare humans to evolutionary ancestors--it felt forced and maybe insulting. But the close study of foragers was intimate and delightful. I don't know for sure what various arguments Marlowe was making--but it seemed like he was arguing that egalitarianism was an effect of the foraging (not a cause), and that life wasn't terrible for foragers--lots of freedom and certainly better treatment for women. He also was alert to that fact that that life was changing, even though it hadn't for almost 100 years since they were first studied in the 1920s. I always appreciate the reminder that women provide most of the food their families eat and aren't in huge need for men except as mates for raising more children.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

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Reviewed by Powell’s Review-a-Day