| Title |
Historical Tropical Forest Reliance amongst the Wanniyalaeto (Vedda) of Sri Lanka: an Isotopic Perspective
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Human Ecology, April 2018
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10745-018-9997-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Patrick Roberts, Thomas H. Gillingwater, Marta Mirazon Lahr, Julia Lee-Thorp, Malcolm MacCallum, Michael Petraglia, Oshan Wedage, Uruwaruge Heenbanda, Uruwaruge Wainnya-laeto |
| Abstract |
Headland and Bailey (1991) argued in Human Ecology that tropical forests could not support long-term human foraging in the absence of agriculture. Part of their thesis was based on the fact that supposedly isolated 'forest' foragers, such as the Wanniyalaeto (or Vedda) peoples of Sri Lanka, could be demonstrated to be enmeshed within historical trade networks and rely on crops as part of their overall subsistence. Yet, in the same volume and in the years that followed scholars have presented ethnographic and archaeological evidence, including from Sri Lanka, that counter this proposition, demonstrating the occupation and exploitation of tropical rainforest environments back to 38,000 years ago (ka) in this part of the world. However, archaeological and ethnohistorical research has yet to quantify the overall reliance of human foragers on tropical forest resources through time. Here, we report stable carbon and oxygen isotope data from historical Wanniyalaeto individuals from Sri Lanka, in full collaboration with the present-day members of this group, that suggest that while a number of individuals made use of agricultural resources in the recent past, others subsisted primarily on tropical forest resources as late as the 1800s. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 17 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 4 | 24% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 12% |
| Hong Kong | 1 | 6% |
| Japan | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 9 | 53% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 10 | 59% |
| Scientists | 6 | 35% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 6% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 37 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 37 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 8 | 22% |
| Researcher | 5 | 14% |
| Student > Bachelor | 4 | 11% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 2 | 5% |
| Other | 2 | 5% |
| Other | 7 | 19% |
| Unknown | 9 | 24% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 10 | 27% |
| Social Sciences | 6 | 16% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 4 | 11% |
| Environmental Science | 3 | 8% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 1 | 3% |
| Other | 3 | 8% |
| Unknown | 10 | 27% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 41. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 May 2018.
All research outputs
#1,036,481
of 25,852,155 outputs
Outputs from Human Ecology
#45
of 837 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#22,334
of 341,243 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Human Ecology
#4
of 11 outputs
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