 However, it is not certain whether this practice is typical Ik tradition or merely triggered by unusual famine conditions.Joseph Tainter proposes this fragmentation to be an artifact of the dire circumstances where each person must depend on their own resources alone to find food and the age peers band together primarily to protect themselves from older stronger children who would take their food.He also argues that the present social fragmentation is the result of extreme deprivation on a more complex and functional culture, an argument also made by Colin Turnbull.