A non-cooperative repeated game for hunter-gatherers

José Luis Ferreira and Javier Ruiz-Castillo

UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía

Abstract: We study the mode of production of the first populations of Homo erectus about 2.5 million years ago. It is characterized by a dual strategy unprecedented in human history: (i) a division of labor into big game hunting and gathering, and (ii) the sharing of the food obtained from both sources. We view these two characteristics as a form of increasing productivity through individual specialization, and a form of insurance. When big game hunters fail to capture a large piece –a highly frequent event–, they rely on the food collected by gatherers. In turn, a successful hunter who could only consume in situ a portion of a large kill, shares the catch with the rest of the group. We present a simple mathematical model of the situation, consisting of a non-cooperative repeated game whose equilibria exhibit the two innovations just mentioned. A sufficient condition for a sexual division of labor where women gather and men hunt is that men are relatively more productive than women in hunting. We compare this model with a number of alternatives found in the literature, and discuss its main shortcoming: the failure to include a third key feature of the hunting-gathering mode of production, namely, the specific study of intergenerational food transfers that may involve three types of agents –children, adults, and grandparents.

Keywords: Homo; Erectus; Hunter-Gatherers; Division; Of; Labor; Food; Sharing; Insurance; Specialization; Non-Cooperative; Repeated; Games; Subgame; Perfect; Nash; Equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-24
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