A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. Subsistence is the food necessary to sustain life The following is a list of subsistence techniques: Hunting and Gathering Foraging theory is a branch of Behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment in which the animal lives Hunting is the practice of pursuing Animals for Food, Recreation, or Trade. Domestication (from Latin domesticus) refers to the process whereby a Population of Animals The demarcation between hunter-gatherers and other societies which rely more upon domestication (see agriculture and pastoralism and neolithic revolution) is not a clear-cut one, as many contemporary societies use a combination of both strategies to obtain the foodstuffs required to sustain themselves. Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of Agriculture concerned with the raising of Livestock. The Neolithic Revolution was the first Agricultural revolution &mdashthe transition from hunting and gathering communities and bands to Agriculture and Food is any substance usually composed primarily of Carbohydrates Fats water and/or Proteins that can be eaten or drunk by an

Hunting and gathering was presumably one of the only subsistence strategy employed by human societies for more than two million years, until the end of the Mesolithic period. Homo is the Genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions The Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is chiefly defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. The Neolithic (from Greek νεολιθικός — neolithikos from νέος neos, "new" + λίθος lithos Agriculture originated and spread in several different areas including the Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica, and the Andes beginning as early as 12,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution was the first Agricultural revolution &mdashthe transition from hunting and gathering communities and bands to Agriculture and The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined The Andes form the world's longest exposed Mountain range. They lie as a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. Many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have perpetually declined partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Areas which were formerly unrestricted to hunter-gatherers were, and continue to be encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for land use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. Jared Diamond has also blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, particularly animal resources. TemplateInfobox writer --> Jared Mason Diamond (b 10 September, 1937) is an American Evolutionary biologist In North and South America, for example, most large mammal species had gone extinct by the end of the Pleistocene, according to Diamond, because of overexploitation by humans^[1], although the overkill hypothesis he advocates is strongly contested. The Pleistocene ('plaɪstəsin is the epoch from 18 million to 10000 years BP covering the world's recent period

As the number and size of many agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. This process of agriculture-driven expansion soon led to the development of complex forms of government in agricultural centers such as the Fertile Crescent, Ancient India, Ancient China, Olmec, and Norte Chico; and set in motion the impetus for further expansion through warfare and colonization. A system of government is a term that refers to the set of political Institutions by which a Government of a State is organized in order to exert its powers The Fertile Crescent is a Crescent -shaped region in the Middle East, originally incorporating the Levant and Ancient Mesopotamia, and often Chinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River ( valley in the Neolithic era The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the Tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states The Norte Chico civilization (also Caral or Caral-Supe civilization) was a complex Pre-Columbian society that included as many as 30 major population centers War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units Colonisation (also known as Colonization) occurs whenever any one or more species populates a new area

As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, the few contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures usually live in areas seen as undesirable for agricultural use. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic

Methods of study

Archaeological and paleontological evidence must be used to learn about prehistoric hunter-gatherers, and ethnographic studies, as well as historical information, provide information about living or historic hunter-gatherers. Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal. Stone Age Paleolithic See also Paleolithic, Recent African Origin, Early Homo sapiens, Early human migrations "Paleolithic" Ethnography ( Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing is a genre of writing that uses Fieldwork to provide a descriptive History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Interdisciplinary fields such as ethnohistory, ethnoarchaeology, human behavioral ecology, paleoanthropology and paleoethnobotany have also arisen in the search for insight into the hunter-gatherer past. Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. Ethnoarchaeology is the Ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons usually focusing on the material remains of a society rather than its Culture Human behavioral ecology (HBE or human evolutionary ecology applies the principles of Evolutionary theory and optimization to the study of Human Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of Paleontology and Physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in Fossil hominid Paleoethnobotany, also known as archaeobotany in European (particularly British academic circles is the archaeological sub-field that studies Plant remains from

Common characteristics

A San man from Namibia. The Bushmen, San, Sho, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe are indigenous people of southern Africa that spans most areas of South Africa Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast Fewer than 10,000 San live in the traditional way, as hunter-gatherers. Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has been trying to move San out of their lands. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. ^[2]

Habitat and population

Hunter-gatherer societies tend to be relatively mobile or "nomadic", given their reliance upon the ability of a given natural environment to provide sufficient resources in order to sustain their population and the variable availability of these resources owing to local climatic and seasonal conditions. Nomadic people, (from the νομάδες nomádes, "those who let pasture herds" also known as nomads, are communities of people that See also Nature The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a terminology that is comprised of all living and Natural resources are naturally occurring substances that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified ( natural) form Climate encompasses the temperatures humidity rainfall atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorogical factors in a given region over long periods of A season is one of the major divisions of the Year, generally based on yearly periodic changes in Weather. Their population densities tend to be lower than those of agriculturalists, since cultivated land is capable of sustaining population densities 60–100 times greater than land left uncultivated. Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture Population density (in agriculture standing stock and Standing crop) is a measurement of Population per unit area or unit volume Individual bands tend to be small in number (10-30 individuals), but these may gather together seasonally to temporarily form a larger group (100 or more) when resources are abundant. A band society is the simplest form of human Society. A band generally consists of a small kin group no larger than an Extended family or Clan. In a few places where the environment is especially productive, such as that of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, hunter-gatherers are able to settle permanently. The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America (the term refers to the land not the ocean

Hunter-gatherer settlements may be permanent, temporary, or some combination of the two, depending upon the mobility of the community. Mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available, while more settled communities build more durable structures. House generally refers to a Shelter or Building that is a Dwelling or place for Habitation by Human beings. For other kinds of building materials see Hardware, Biology, Star formation. A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or Cliff.

Social and economic structure

Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have non-hierarchical, egalitarian social structures. Social hierarchy is a multi-tiered pyramid-like social or functional structure having an apex as the centralization of power Egalitarianism (derived from the French word égal, meaning equal) is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have This might have been more pronounced in the more mobile societies, which generally are not able to store surplus food. Thus, full-time leaders, bureaucrats, or artisans are rarely supported by these societies. ^[3][4][5] In addition to social and economic equality in Hunter gatherer societies there is often though not always sexual parity as well. ^{[6] [3]} Hunter gatherers are often grouped together based on kinship and band (or tribe) membership. ^[6]

Others, such as the Haida of present-day British Columbia, lived in such a rich environment that they could remain sedentary, like many other Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest coast. The Haida (19th C-early 20th C Indigenous nation of the west coast of North America. British Columbia (ˌbrɪtɨʃ kəˈlʌmbiə ( BC) ( (la Colombie-Britannique C For indigenous peoples in the United States other than Hawaii and Alaska see also Native Americans in the United States. These groups demonstrate more hierarchical social organization. In Sociology, social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of Social classes Castes and strata within a Society.

War in hunter-gatherer societies is usually caused by grudges and vendettas rather than for territory or economic benefit. ^[6]

A vast amount of ethnographic and archaeological evidence demonstrates that the sexual division of labor in which men hunt and women gather wild fruits and vegetables is an extremely common phenomenon among hunter-gatherers worldwide, but there are a number of documented exceptions to this general pattern. Division of labour or specialization is the specialization of cooperative labour in specific circumscribed tasks and roles intended to increase the Productivity A study done on the Aeta people of the Philippines states, "About 85% of Philippine Agta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. The Aeta (pronounced as “eye-ta” Agta or Ayta are an Indigenous people who live in scattered isolated mountainous parts of Luzon, The Philippines ( Filipino: Pilipinas, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (fil ''Republika ng Pilipinas'' RP Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they combine forces with men: mixed hunting groups have a full 41% success rate among the Agta. "^[4]. It was also found that among the Ju'/hoansi people of Namibia that women helped the men during hunting by helping them track down quarry^[7]. Juǀʼhoan (also called Zhuǀʼhõasi Dzuǀʼoasi Zû-ǀhoa JuǀʼHoansi is a Khoisan language spoken in the Northwest District of Botswana by about 5000 people Tracking in Hunting and Ecology is the science and art of observing a place through animal footprints and other signs including tracks, beds Moreover, recent archaeological research done by the anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from the University of Arizona suggests that the sexual division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and developed relatively recently in human history. The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe Africa The sexual division of labor may have arisen to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. ^[8] It would, therefore, be an over-generalization to say that men always hunt and women always gather.

A 19th century engraving of an Indigenous Australian encampment. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it Indigenous Australians are descendants of the first known human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands.

At the 1966 "Man the Hunter" conference, anthropologists Richard Borshay Lee and Irven DeVore suggested that egalitarianism was one of several central characteristics of nomadic hunting and gathering societies because mobility requires minimization of material possessions throughout a population; therefore, there was no surplus of resources to be accumulated by any single member. Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937 is a Canadian Anthropologist. Lee has studied at the University of Toronto and University of California Berkeley Irven DeVore ( October 7, 1934) is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, and Curator of Primatology at Harvard University Egalitarianism (derived from the French word égal, meaning equal) is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have Other characteristics Lee and DeVore proposed were flux in territorial boundaries as well as in demographic composition. In the various subfields of Physics, there exist two common usages of the term flux, both with rigorous mathematical frameworks Demography is the statistical study of all Populations. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic population that is one that changes over At the same conference, Marshall Sahlins presented a paper entitled, "Notes on the Original Affluent Society," in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers living lives "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. Marshall David Sahlins (born December 27, 1930, Chicago, Illinois is a prominent American Anthropologist. The "original affluent society" is a Theory postulating that Hunter-gatherers were the original Affluent society. Thomas Hobbes (born 5 April 1588died 4 December 1679 was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Leisure or free time, is a period of Time spent out of work and essential domestic Activity. Their "affluence" came from the idea that they are satisfied with very little in the material sense. This, he said, constituted a Zen economy. Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, referred to in Chinese as Chan.

One way to divide hunter-gatherer groups is by their return systems. James Woodburn uses the categories "immediate return" hunter-gatherers for egalitarian and "delayed return" for nonegalitarian. Immediate return foragers consume their food within a day or two after they procure it. Delayed return foragers store the surplus food (Kelly^[9], 31). Some Marxists have theorised that hunter-gatherers would have used primitive communism and anarcho-primitivists elaborate the mechanics further by asserting it would have been a gift economy, (although this would not have applied for all hunter-gatherer societies. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Primitive communism is A term usually associated with Karl Marx, but most fully elaborated by Friedrich Engels (in The Origin of the Family 1884 and referring Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of Civilization. A gift economy is a Social theory in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future Quid pro quo. ) Mutual exchange and sharing of resources (I. e. meat gained from hunting) are important in the economic systems of Hunter gatherer societies. ^[6]

Problems with generalizing

There is far too much variability among hunter-gatherer cultures across the world to be able to illustrate a “typical” society in anything but the broadest strokes. The “hunter-gatherer” category roughly circumscribes an extremely diverse range of societies who happen to share certain traits. It is therefore important not to mistake common characteristics of hunter-gatherer societies for a universal description.

On the other hand, that hunter-gatherer societies seem to manifest significant variability as studies in relatively modern times clearly support, does not allow us to generalize about the extent of variability characteristic of the human Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA) that is so important to the development of evolutionary psychological theory. Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits ��such as Memory, Perception, Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits ��such as Memory, Perception, The hunter-gatherer cultures examined today have had much contact with modern civilization and do not represent to "pristine" original human culture (see succeeding paragraphs re: post-agricultural effect on original hunter-gatherers). ^[10] Much variability we now see in hunter-gatherers is also the result of this mode of living being carried into environmental conditions significantly divergent from our original habitat. Unlike other primates still living in warm climate conditions within Africa, the human primate has moved far beyond the realm of his original EEA ---the Inuit are a clear example of hunter-gatherers clearly divergent from the human EEA (understandably, there was little "gathering" of vegetation among the Inuit). Inuit (plural the singular Inuk, means "man" or "person" is a general term for a group of culturally similar Indigenous peoples inhabiting Yet it may well be that, like the more rigidly defined social structures of other primates, our original social behaviors did not diverge so significantly from one nomadic family to the next in the EEA. So the point of not generalizing until more data is forthcoming extends not only to the possible behavioral consistency of social patterns in the human EEA, but also to possible behavioral variability of such social patterns.

The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is not necessarily a one way process. It has been argued that hunting and gathering represents an adaptive strategy which may still be exploited, if necessary, when environmental change causes extreme food stress for agriculturalists. An adaptation is a characteristic of an Organism that has been favored by Natural selection and ^[11]

In fact, it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line between agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, especially since the widespread adoption of agriculture and resulting cultural diffusion that has occurred in the last 10,000 years. Many hunter-gatherers consciously manipulate the landscape through cutting or burning undesirable plants while encouraging desirable ones, some even going to the extent of slash-and-burn to create habitat for game animals. Slash and burn consists of cutting and burning of Forests or Woodlands to create fields for Agriculture or Pasture for Livestock, or These activities are on an entirely different scale than those associated with agriculture, but they are nevertheless domestication on some level. Today, almost all hunter-gatherers depend to some extent upon domesticated food sources either produced part-time or traded for products acquired in the wild. Some agriculturalists also regularly hunt and gather (e. g. farming during the frost-free season and hunting during the winter). Still others in developed countries go hunting, primarily for leisure. In the Brazilian rainforest, groups which recently or continue to rely on hunting and gathering techniques seem to have adopted this lifestyle, abandoning most agriculture, as a way to escape colonial control and as a result of the introduction of European diseases reducing their populations to levels where agriculture became difficult.

Modern context

Shoshoni tipis, circa 1900.

In the early 1980s, a small but vocal segment of anthropologists and archaeologists attempted to demonstrate that contemporary groups usually identified as hunter-gatherers do not, in most cases, have a continuous history of hunting and gathering, and that in many cases their ancestors were agriculturalists and/or pastoralists who were pushed into marginal areas as a result of migrations, economic exploitation, and/or violent conflict. The result of their effort has been the general acknowledgement that there has been complex interaction between hunter-gatherers and non-hunter-gatherers for millennia.

Some of the theorists who advocate this “revisionist” critique imply that, because the "pure hunter-gatherer" disappeared not long after colonial (or even agricultural) contact began, nothing meaningful can be learned about prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of modern ones (Kelly^[9], 24-29; see Wilmsen^[12]); however, most specialists who study hunter-gatherer ecology (see cultural ecology and human behavioral ecology) disagree with this conclusion. See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of Cultural ecology studies the relationship between a given Society and its natural environment - the life-forms and Ecosystems that support its Lifeways Human behavioral ecology (HBE or human evolutionary ecology applies the principles of Evolutionary theory and optimization to the study of Human As well, Lee and Guenther have refuted most of the arguments put forward by Wilmsen and currently the revisionist school has been largely discredited.

There are contemporary hunter-gatherer peoples who, after contact with other societies, continue their ways of life with very little external influence. One such group is the Pila Nguru or the Spinifex People of Western Australia, whose habitat in the Great Victoria Desert has proved unsuitable for European agriculture (and even pastoralism). The Spinifex people, or Pila Nguru, are an Indigenous Australian people whose traditional lands are situated in the Great Victoria Desert, in the The Spinifex people, or Pila Nguru, are an Indigenous Australian people whose traditional lands are situated in the Great Victoria Desert, in the Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. The Great Victoria Desert is a barren arid and sparsely populated Desert Ecoregion in southern Australia. Another are the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, who live on North Sentinel Island and to date have maintained their independent existence, repelling attempts to engage with and contact them. The Sentinelese (also Sentineli, Senteneli, Sentenelese, North Sentinel Islanders) are one of the Andamanese Indigenous The Andaman Islands are a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal, and are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's Oceanic divisions covering about 20% of the water on the Earth 's surface North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. They are different

Social movements

There are some modern social movements related to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle:

• Anarcho-primitivism, which strives for the abolishment of civilization and the return to a life in the wild. Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of Civilization.
• Freeganism involves gathering of discarded food (and sometimes other materials) in the context of an urban or suburban environment. Freeganism is an anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on "limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption
• Gleaning involves the gathering of food that traditional farmers have left behind in their fields. Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest
• Hunter-gatherer fitness, involves adopting a physically active lifestyle similar to that of ancient hunter-gatherer groups.
• Paleolithic diet, which strives to achieve a diet similar to that of ancient hunter-gatherer groups. The dietary regimen known as the Paleolithic diet (abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet) also popularly called the caveman diet,

See also

References

Further reading

• Barnard, A. J. , ed. (2004). Hunter-gatherers in history, archaeology and anthropology. Berg. ISBN 1-85973-825-7.  
• Bettinger, R. L. (1991). Hunter-gatherers: archaeological and evolutionary theory. Plenum Press. ISBN 0-306-43650-7.  
• Brody, Hugh (2001). The Other Side Of Eden: hunter-gatherers, farmers and the shaping of the world. North Point Press. ISBN 0-571-20502-X.  
• Lee, Richard B. and Irven DeVore, eds. (1968). Man the hunter. Aldine de Gruyter. ISBN 0-202-33032-X.  
• Morrison, K. D. and L. L. Junker, eds. (2002). Forager-traders in South and Southeast Asia: long term histories. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-01636-3.  
• Panter-Brick, C. , R. H. Layton and P. Rowley-Conwy, eds. (2001). Hunter-gatherers: an interdisciplinary perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-77672-4.  

External links

• African Pygmies Culture and photos of these African hunter-gatherers.
• Reconstructed bone flutes, sound sample and playing instructions.
• A wiki dedicated to the scientific study of the diversity of foraging societies without recreating myths