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Resumo

Mbuti bands in eastern Zaire differ in their hunting use of the spreadnet and the bow, a variation previously attributed to historical contacts with different non‐Mbuti groups, population pressure, and differences in the floral diversity and abundance of the Ituri Forest. None of these factors, however, adequately explains a similar differentiation in the Sepik Basin of Papua New Guinea. Instead, the Sepik data indicate that the net and the bow may spread through historical contact and diffusion, but their adoption or rejection is ultimately determined by a conjunction of their technological properties and the horizontal and vertical densities of environmental vegetation. From this perspective, the essential determinants of Mbuti spreadnet and bow use may be spatial variations in the physiognomy of the Ituri.

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