Small prey hunting technology and zooarchaeological measures of taxonomic diversity and abundance: Ethnoarchaeological evidence from Central African forest foragers

Archaeological analyses of faunal assemblages often rely on rationale derived from the prey choice model to explain temporal and spatial changes in taxonomic measures of diversity and/or abundances. In this paper, we present analyses of ethnoarchaeological observations and bone assemblages created by Central African Bofi and Aka forest foragers which show that different small prey hunting technologies target specific suites of prey and that hunters vary their technological choice depending on their foraging goals. Analysis of ethnoarchaeological bone assemblages produced by the Bofi and Aka shows that variability in target prey can create spatially distinct, but contemporaneous, faunal assemblages with different diversity values and abundance indices. These data reveal important variation in how individuals within a contemporary human population rank prey and challenge current assumptions about the meaning of diversity and abundances measures in archaeological contexts. We argue that the use of diversity and abundance indices can obscure important intrasite variability in prehistoric foraging effort and suggest strategies that might enhance current techniques.