Historical and functional ecology of rainforest foragers

This dissertation examines the behavioral and physiological adaptations employed by modern humans to subsist in tropical rainforests. I employ various theoretical and methodological approaches to test hypotheses using empirical data from African and Southeast Asian foragers. Chapters 1-3 document human tree climbing behavior, focusing on its ecological importance and physiological mechanisms. The implications for drawing form-function inferences in paleoanthropology are noted. Chapter 4 adopts a locomotor perspective on the adaptive significance of the pygmy phenotype, which has independently evolved in several rainforest hunter-gatherer populations. I develop and test the hypothesis that walking in dense rainforest habitats imposes stature-dependent energetic costs. Chapter 5 uses the tools of foraging theory to examine how groups of nomadic rainforest foragers arrive at collective movement decisions in relation to the depletion of local resources. I conclude that the biology of rainforest peoples hold broader lessons for human evolution that extend beyond the confines of the rainforest biome.