STONE AGE ECONOMICS BY MARSHALL SAHLINS M4 1m ALDINE- ATHERTON, INC. CHICAGO & NEW YORK aeonThe Author ‘Marshall Salilins is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, He received his Ph.D. from in 1954 and has taught there of Paris at Nanterre. Professor Study in Behavioral Sciences in 1963-64 and in 1967-68 he held a Guggenheim Fellowship. His many ature include Social Moala: Culture and Nature and many articles in Stratification ton a Pi professional journals. © 1972 by Marshall Salling All sights reserved. No part of this publication may ted in any form or by any ge and zetrieval From the publisher 529 South Wabash Avenue Chisago, Hlinois 6060 ISBN 0.202.01098-8, Library of Congress Catalog Number 75-159506 the United Su ted For JULIA, PETER, AND ELAINEAcknowledgments 1 thank especially two institutions, and the excellent staff associated with them, for the aid and faci provided during of my research and writing. In 1963-64 I held a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto), in 1967-69 an office and the run of the Laboratoire d’ Anthropologie Sociale du Collége de France (Paris). Although I had no official position in the Laboratoire, M. Claude Lévi-Strauss, the director, received me with a courtesy and generosity I should have difficulty reciprocating, were he ever in turn to visit my village. ‘A John Simon Guggenheim fellowship during my first year in Paris (1967-68) and a Social Science Research Council Faculty Research Fellowship (1958: ‘0 contributed important support during the gestation period of these essays. “That period has been so long and so fi ‘encounters that it would be impossible to list all the colleagues and students who have, in one way or another, influenced the course of the work. Out of long years of friendship and discussion, however, T make three exceptions: Remo Guidieri, Elman Service, and Eric Wolf. ‘Their ideas and criticisms, always accompanied by encouragement, have been of inestimable value to me and to my work. Several of the essays have been published in whole, in part, or in translation during the past several years. “The Original Affluent Soci- ety” appeared in abbreviated form as “La premiére société d’abon- dance” in Les Temps Modernes (No. 268, Oct. 1968, 641-80). The