Levy flights in dobe ju/'hoansi foraging patterns

We analyzed data on Ju/'hoansi hunter-gatherer foraging patterns and found that their movements between residence camps can be modeled as a Levy flight. The step lengths of their movements scale as a power law with an exponent mu = 1.97. Their wait times (residence times) at the camps also scale as a power law (mu = 1.45). A Levy flight with step lengths mu = 2 is an optimal search pattern for scarce, randomly located targets; thus, the Ju/'hoansi foraging pattern may approach an optimal search in this area of sparse plant and animal resources. These findings affect the application of optimal foraging theory to humans in anthropology and archaeology because they alter the way in which search and travel times should be quantified. These results may also carry implications for the study of other patterns of human movement, such as demic diffusion and migration.