AbstractsAnthropology

In recent years, heated debates about the definition and evolutionary role of simple, egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies have assumed a central place in hunter-gatherer studies. Since household dynamics are bound to be fundamental in arguments about these issues, the present study examines social change in terms of household integration in Air Bah, a resettlement village of newly sedentary Lanoh hunter-gatherers and forest collectors of Peninsular Malaysia. The Lanoh have accepted inequality more readily than cooperation and binding relationships. Household integration has remained partial because, even in households of self-aggrandizers, younger men retain their individual autonomy. This incomplete household integration, in turn, continues to affect kinship group and village integration, preventing Air Bah from developing into a centralized "village community." These findings suggest substantial revisions in our understanding of the sociality and evolutionary significance of the "simplest" hunter-gatherer societies.