ANT2000 9 15 16 HUNTER GATHERER PAST AND PRESENT Hunter Gatherer Diversity o Societies whose economies are based largely or exclusively on the exploitation of wild plant and animal foods o Forms of human adaptation with great time depth and enormous geographical expanse Represents over 95 of human prehistory From arctic to deserts from mountains from mountains to coasts From simple to complex from mobile to sedentary Today s groups but a small fraction of those of the past How do We Explain the Diversity o Perspectives have changed over time Ethnocentric bias of life without food protection Hobbs s view Natural Man closer to nature than the civilized world Julian Stewart Original affluent society THIS SHOWS UP ON THE QUIZ THIS WEEK IT MEANS COLLECT DATA ON WHAT HUNTERS AND GATHERERS DO FOR A LIVING AND ON THEIR HEALTH HAD EVERYTHING THEY NEEDED BECAUSE THEY DID NOT NEED MUCH AND HAD EVERYTHING THEY WANTED BECAUSE THEIR WANTS WERE LIMITED Victims of colonialism Professional Primitives None of the above All of the above Archeological evidence shows even greater diversity among H Gs than in ethnographic present Calls into question the role of analogy as a method Ecological Perspectives o H G diversity understood in ecological terms Availability of resources Plants v animals Structure of resources Patchy v widespread Timing of resources Perennial v seasonal Reliability of resources Predictable v unpredictable But Whose Ecology o Indigenous beliefs about the animation of nature are highly influential in what people eat how they eat it where they live how long they stay put and so much more And such beliefs are often in sync with nature and thus highly sustainable Social Typological Problems o Common features of band level societies Small population size and density Extensive not intensive land use Mobile settlement Egalitarian social relationship Lack of property beyond personal tools ornaments Labor divided only by age and sex Fission to resolve dispute or crisis Leadership is situational nonpermanent o But not as common as once thought The mid 20th century idea of band society overlooked connections to other societies and dismissed deviations as anomalies Connections o H G bands part of larger units macrobands o H Gs partnered with food producers o H Gs involved in large scale political economies 2 Anomalies o Complex H Gs tribes chiefdoms o H Gs worldwide with technologies and practices common to food producers Sedentism village life monuments pottery storage environmental management irrigation hunting and fishing infrastructure and more o Archaeology shows that anomalies were not so anomalous in the ancient past o What are we to make of all of this Mode of sustenance does not determine cultural complexity or scale of society Sure nature sets limits but nature itself is affected by history culture and belief It is true that no state level society arose in the absence of food production but absence of food production does not limit human societies to the category of band or to the social ethos of egalitarianism Many of the ways non food producing people interact with nature DOMESTICATION AND THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION A Neolithic Revolution o Term used by V Gordon Childe to describe the origins of agriculture as an event that affected every aspect of human society Humans lifted from the vagaries of nature Productivity increased so that time and energy could be devoted to making civilization writing pottery monumental architecture etc Contained connotations of progress 3 4 o Largely unsupported by current data but food production did indeed change the course of history Domestication o Process whereby humans modify the genetic makeup of a population of wild plants or animals o Results in loss of reproductive fitness and increased dependence on humans o End point of a gradual process Foraging and unintentional tending THIS IS ON THE QUIZ Cultivation Domestication Archaeological Evidence of Domestication o Compare archaeobotanical data with modern data Prehistoric range extensions Relative abundance Morphological change only unequivocal evidence for domestication Morphological Traits of Domestication o Flower cluster compaction o Loss of natural shatter mechanism of seed dispersal o Uniform maturation of fruit o Increased seed mass o Reduced seed coat thickness Origins of Agriculture Mesopotamia o Mesopotamia The Cradle of Civilization o By 6 000 years ago the first state level society Sumer evolved from a 4000 year process of plant domestication Centered on the Fertile Crescent the rich alluvium of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers Process began as by product of exploiting wild plants Natufian H Gs o From 12 000 to 10 000 years ago h g population known as Natufian inhabited the western flanks of the Zagros Mountains o Collected wild wheat and barley for food 5 o Maintained mobile settlement utilizing wild plant resources seasonally Limiting Properties of Wild Wheat and Barley o Brittle axis or rachis o Thick husks o Only two row kernels o Dispersed occurrence Intensification o Wild plants increased in importance as climate grew increasingly drier and less predictable o Natufians sought the densest stands of wheat and barely and came up with tech innovations to improve returns Sickles and containers for harvesting Storage facilities Grinding basins o Due to these innovations and growing sedentism populations grew and budded off Gradual Domestication KNOW FOR QUIZ o Transported kernels into areas that were marginal for the natural propagation of wild wheat and barley o Created genetic drift effect by introducing only kernels with tough rachis o Also exposed plant to new conditions new selective factors o Eventually people recognized favorable traits and begun cultivating o Final step was deliberate planting Questioning the Neolithic Revolution How Revolutionary was it o Sweeping effects of agriculture are undeniable Increased carrying capacity population Sedentary existence Technological innovation Social differentiation o Adoption of agricultural lifestyle was always a process never an event o All of these advancements also found among H Gs Questioning the Neolithic Revolution Does Agriculture equal progress o Decline in overall health o Increase in infectious disease o Did not free people from vagaries of nature o Not a better life for everyone only for nonproducers o Not proven sustainable Why Farm o Many theories for the origins of agriculture Demographic pressure Environmental change