Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 62 (2021) 101276 Available online 17 February 2021 0278-4165/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Literal niche construction: Built environments of hunter-gatherers and hunting architecture Ashley Lemke University of Texas at Arlington, United States A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Hunter-gatherers Hunting architecture Drive lanes Niche construction ABSTRACT Built structures to aid hunting activities, such as drive lanes and hunting blinds, have been documented on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. This global phenomenon dates to at least 12,000 years ago and is found across time, space, environments, and cultures. While there is increasing study and documentation of such sites, they are prone to destruction and are not always recognized, resulting in a lack of large-scale comparative studies. However, this widespread pattern deserves greater attention as it can reveal unique facets of social and economic life, particularly in the context of hunter-gatherer societies. Such constructions are literal niche con- struction, created to increase the yield and predictability of wild animal resources. They represent an investment in the landscape, organization of communal labor, a detailed knowledge of animal behavior, all the while creating socioeconomic tensions concerning permanent facilities and who owns them and the resources they generate among otherwise egalitarian populations. This paper presents a global overview of such features, and the anthropological theory and archaeological method to systematically study such sites. This methodology will be applied to a brief case study, analyzing some of the oldest hunting architecture on the planet, those submerged beneath Lake Huron. 1. Introduction The use of built stone, wood, or dirt hunting structures has been documented on every continent except Antarctica and dates as far back as 12,000 years ago 1 . This widespread hunting tactic is a global phe- nomenon that is most often used to hunt hoofed and herd animals, ar- tiodactyls such as bison, elk, bighorn sheep, antelope, deer, caribou, camelids, and many others. Structures such as drive lanes and corrals represent an effective hunting technique found across cultures, time, space, and environments. Similar behaviors among species such as caribou, bison, guanacos, antelope, and gazelles have been exploited by diverse cultures such as Sami reindeer herders, the Inka practice of chaccu, ancient bison hunters on the North American plains, and Me- dieval red deer hunters in Scotland. Such hunting features, similar to fsh weirs (e.g. Connaway 2007) and other landscape modifcations (Smith 2011) are cooperative con- struction efforts designed to increase the yield and predictability of natural resources. As such, they play a large role in the economy of small-scale societies (Smith 2013). Most of these structures are designed to target specifc species and rely on sophisticated knowledge of both animal behavior and the local environment to channel and capture an- imals in predictable places (Lemke 2015a). Such features include drive lanes, fshing weirs, and hunting blinds and are permanent or semi- permanent built structures used to aid hunting activities. These structures can be collectively termed: hunting architecture. Hunting architecture is defned as any human-made modifcation to the natural landscape or built stationary structure with the primary goal of procuring animal resources to obtain meat for subsistence and other materials for clothing, etc. In this way hunting architecture can be differentiated from herding architecture, such as shearing pens for example, where animals are captured temporarily within a structure and released. While hunting structures have been utilized across time and space by groups with diverse sociopolitical formations, the discussion of hunting architecture here is focused on those used by hunter-gatherers, peoples without formal agriculture most often characterized as band societies (see Kelly 1995, 2013; Lemke 2018a). Social and economic ramifcations which occur with the use of built hunting architecture are particularly signifcant for hunter-gatherer populations. For example, while foragers are generally considered to be highly mobile, permanent hunting structures anchor them to certain places on the landscape and E-mail address: ashley.lemke@uta.edu. 1 Dating hunting architecture sites is challenging (see below), however, arroyo traps which functioned similar to drive lanes are at least 12,000 years old. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101276 Received 30 June 2020; Received in revised form 14 December 2020;