Global process and local ecology: how should we explain differences between the Hadza and the !Kung?

In this chapter we discuss explanations for the diversity of behavior of contemporary forager populations. Other contributors document variation among southern African savanna Bushman groups, and central African forest Pygmies. We confine ourselves to trying to explain some differences between two savanna groups who have been studied quantitatively, the Hadza and the !Kung. We further confine ourselves to discussing two kinds of explanation that are currently considered to be opposed to one another, behavioral ecology (Smith and Winterhalder 1992), and political economy/historical revisionism as presented to hunter-gatherer researchers by Wilmsen (1989).