Analyzing 632 vernacular water supply records from eHRAF World Cultures, the author identified twelve different ecological wisdom (EW) strategies that she believes have the potential to conserve socio-ecological water systems, repair the negative effects of climate change, and hopefully lead to long-term resilience. In this chapter she focuses on two of these strategies in particular; matching sources and uses, and using soil and vegetation to preserve water quality. The chapter posits that these two strategies may prove to be especially useful solutions for an array of highly impacted regions.

This survey chapter discusses the use of ash and other fire-generated materials in Ancestral Pueblo settlements in the northern Rio Grande region. The author begins by surveying ethnographic reports of ash use among indigenous groups in the Southwest and Great Basin regions to understand the potential reasons for ash use in prehistoric contexts beyond just cooking. He then turns to archaeological data to explore the extensive use of fire, ash, and other pyrotechnic products across indigenous communities in the region, focusing on excavated architectural and mortuary contexts from the northern Rio Grande, especially the Taos and Picuris areas. The author argues that these fire-related actions and products show that ash plays two major roles -- it is used as a part of major transition ceremonies and as an instrument for healing. The author concludes that these ethnographic observations inform and illuminate archaeological contexts that contain ash, charcoal, and fire.

Do hunter-gatherers show concern for animals? Through an assessment of six types of concern across 28 hunter-gatherer groups, the author of this article finds that concern for animals is multifaceted. Feelings of overall indifference and callousness towards animals were exhibited in all hunter-gatherer groups; however, high levels of concern were shown towards animals regarded as pseudo-humans or pseudo-spirits.

In this article, the authors seek to understand the predictors of land privatization by empirically testing defendability and resource stress theory. By drawing on previous research they are able to test these theories in more expansive and nuanced ways. They conclude that they have found strong support for defendability theory.

To understand transmission of knowledge and its impact on human evolution history, this study explores the research question: "How do hunter-gatherer children learn subsistence skills?". The authors use meta-ethnography methods on 34 cultures from five continents discussing these topics. The results show that the learning process starts early in infancy when their parents take them to the excursions. In middle childhood, they already acquired gathering skills. Only in the start of adolescence, adults begin teaching how to hunt and to produce complex tools. The learning process continues into adulthood.

This book chapter builds on Horton's 1943 psychoanalytical study of drunkenness. The author tests an overall theory that drunkenness, which facilitates personal and uninhibited interactions, is more acceptable, and therefore prevalent, in societies with loose, rather than rigid, social relationships. Indicators of social rigidity, such as strict socialization or male dominance through patrilocality, are tested for relationships to drunkenness.

This book is concerned with explaining variation in the status of women. The author, after measuring over 50 aspects of status, first concludes that status is not a unitary concept. Therefore the author looks at 10 different domains of status. Many traditional explanations are not supported; most support is found for the influence of social complexity which generally lowers female status.

Researchers examine the ethnographic record, sampling 82 hunter gatherer societies from the HRAF World Cultures database, for cross-cultural patterns of archaeological evidence of knowledge of astronomy and constellations. Surveying the data, researchers identified many patterns in the upper paleolithic, noting the importance of further examination of this topic.

This study seeks to shed light on the practice of entomophagy (insect consumption) across human population and seeks to explain the variability in its practice. The author explore potential ecological predictors for insect consumption (climate, subsistence practices, other available food resources, dietary needs) as well as cultural predictors (social transmission, cultural norms, evolution, and shift). Ultimately, the author concludes that entomophagy may be a useful medium through which to examine the interaction between social learning, subsistence strategies, and modernization.

This article challenges ideas of cultural progressionism through an analysis of counting systems. Cultural adaptation in both biotic and abiotic environments is examined, and results suggest that culture adapts to both the human-made environment and the physical environment. The author asserts that “interpreting divergent and convergent behaviors as due to differences and similarities of local environments” is superior to a progressionist approach to cultural change (62).