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sense to predict evolutionary trends of ‘ complexity ’ on the basis of small sets of
synchronic data, especially when the two groups being compared exist only as theo-
retical constructs. A proper appreciation of the ethnobiological knowledge of a
people can only be gained by investigating not hierarchies of lexemes, but what
Ellen calls the people’s depth of knowledge , which might include knowledge of the
basic biology of individual organisms, ( utilitarian ) knowledge of the natural world
that enables humans to gain a fi tness advantage, knowledge of general principles
learnt through observation, and accumulated over several generations, and fi nally,
systematic encyclopaedic knowledge that connects individual observations of
natural phenomena into a single system. Such an investigation, presented in this
chapter, has shown that the Solega clearly have a deep understanding of bee natural
history, in spite of—as Berlin would have it—their perceptually disadvantaged sta-
tus as gatherers of honey.
7 Honeybee Lore