Ache at the settlement: Contrasts between farming and foraging

The Northern Ache comprise a small continuously interacting population with a shared community history. Full-time hunter-gatherers until recently, they now divide their time between mobile foraging and settled farming. Here we describe adult time allocation at the settlement and contrast it with our previous descriptions of time allocation during foraging periods. We report that at the settlement men and women work fewer hours each day than they do in the forest, people eat less, women do more work apart from their children, and men invest more in direct parental care. Explanations for differences in time allocation between foragers and farmers should apply to the variation in work effort, production goals, division of labor, and parenting strategies reported here, and conversely.