McKey D. B. auteur aut IRD Durécu M. auteur aut IRD Pouilly Marc auteur aut IRD Bearez P. auteur aut IRD Ovando A. auteur aut IRD Kalebé M. auteur aut IRD Huchzermeyer C. F. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access 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 dryseason 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. specialized convergent evolution cultural evolution earthworks historical ecology tropical stream ecology AFRIQUE AMERIQUE DU SUD BOLIVIE AMAZONIE ZAMBIE ZONE TROPICALE 040 036 082 113 52 14938-14943 2016 0027-8424 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010068817 10.1073/pnas.1613169114 0027-8424 [F B010068817] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010068817 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2017/01/010068817.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2017-02-06 2024-09-16 fdi:010068817 fre