title: Present-day African analogue of a pre-European Amazonian floodplain fishery shows convergence in cultural niche construction.
abstract: Erickson [Erickson CL (2000) Nature 408 (6809):190-193] interpreted features in seasonal floodplains in Bolivia's Beni savannas as vestiges of pre-European earthen fish weirs, postulating that they supported a productive, sustainable fishery that warranted cooperation in the construction and maintenance of perennial structures. His inferences were bold, because no close ethnographic analogues were known. A similar present-day Zambian fishery, documented here, appears strikingly convergent. The Zambian fishery supports Erickson's key inferences about the pre-European fishery: It allows sustained high harvest levels; weir construction and operation require cooperation; and weirs are inherited across generations. However, our comparison suggests that the pre-European system may not have entailed intensive management, as Erickson postulated. The Zambian fishery's sustainability is based on exploiting an assemblage dominated by species with life histories combining high fecundity, multiple reproductive cycles, and seasonal use of floodplains. As water rises, adults migrate from permanent watercourses into floodplains, through gaps in weirs, to feed and spawn. Juveniles grow and then migrate back to dry-season refuges as water falls. At that moment fishermen set traps in the gaps, harvesting large numbers of fish, mostly juveniles. In nature, most juveniles die during the first dry season, so that their harvest just before migration has limited impact on future populations, facilitating sustainability and the adoption of a fishery based on inherited perennial structures. South American floodplain fishes with similar life histories were the likely targets of the pre-European fishery. Convergence in floodplain fish strategies in these two regions in turn drove convergence in cultural niche construction.
authors.affiliation: Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive UMR 5175, CNRS Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France; doyle.mckey@cefe.cnrs.fr.|Institut Universitaire de France, 75231 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Doyle B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: McKey
authors.affiliation: Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive UMR 5175, CNRS Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Mélisse
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Durécu
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, UMR BOREA (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, l'Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, UMR 7208, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université de Caen Normandie), 75231 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pouilly
authors.affiliation: Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques et Environnements (UMR 7209), Sorbonne Universités, CNRS, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, CP 56, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Béarez
authors.affiliation: Earth System Science Center, National Institute for Space Research, 12227-010 São José dos Campos, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ovando
authors.affiliation: Mt. Makulu Central Research Station, Zambia Agricultural Research Institute, Chilanga, Zambia.
authors.forename: Mashuta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kalebe
authors.affiliation: Bangweulu Wetlands Project, African Parks Network, Mpika, Zambia.
authors.forename: Carl F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Huchzermeyer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology / Q000379:methods; D001838:Bolivia; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005398:Fisheries / Q000266:history*; D005399:Fishes; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D012621:Seasons; D012919:Social Behavior; D015024:Zambia
keywords: convergent evolution; cultural evolution; earthworks; historical ecology; tropical stream ecology