Mistassini Hunters of the Boreal Forest: Ecosystem Dynamics and Multiple Subsistence Patterns

Abstract

This thesis applies an ecosystem analysis in a hunting and gathering culture for the first time. It shows how ecosystem analysis makes possible the resolution of long standing debates unresolved by previous cultural ecological analyses over the aboriginality of the family hunting territory system, and over what were the primary bases of subsistence before contact with fur traders. On the basis of an extensive review of current biological knowledge on the boreal forest ecosystem an attempt is made to reconstruct the pre-contact strategy of adaptation of Mistassini Indians of the sub-arctic boreal forest of Quebec, with particular stress on mechanisms for maintaining human population density equilibrium.