Main Points
Food getting: may be the most important activity to our survival
Predicts other aspects of culture, such as:
Community size
Permanence of settlement
Type of economic system
Degree of inequality
Type of political system
Will look at how and why societies vary in food getting strategies
How Humans Practice Subsistence
Five categories
NOT THAT DISTINCT
Societies practice a blend of different strategies
NO CORRELATION between subsistence and capacities of people
Human Subsistence Practices
Foraging/collecting - collecting what is available; hunting of game, fish
Horticulture - simple agriculture, hand tools only on small plots of land
Intensive agriculture - intensive application of labor to land using technology
Pastoralism - raising of animals, usually cattle, sheep/goat; live off animal products but not usually meat
Industrialization - application of machines to farm; manufacturing
Number of Hours Worked Per Day/Per Person
Hunter-gatherers: 3
Horticulturalists: 6
Intensive agriculturalists: 11-12
Increasing inefficiency in terms of energy used
Industrialized societies: 8-9
Hunter-gatherer and horticultural are the most efficient in terms of meeting needs
Foraging vs. Farming Strategies
Foraging (“Hunter-Gatherer”)
Fewer hours worked per person per day
Requires less energy to produce one calorie of food
Supports lower population density
Farming
Less energetically efficient
More manipulation of environment - creates disequilibrium
Doesn’t improve quality of life
More caloric production per unit of land
Forager-Collector Societies
Also known as hunter-gatherer
Least common today
Consists of and is dependent on naturally occurring resources
Small communities in sparsely populated territories
Nomadic
Highly Egalitarian
Typically quite utopian, and adapt to the changing world just like other societies
Examples:
Pedestrian
Paiutes & California Indians (North America), Pygmies & San (Africa), Australian Aborigines (Australia)
Equestrian
Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, & others (North America), Tehuelche (South America)
Aquatic
Kwakiutl (Northwest Coast of North America)
Forager-Collector Society Egalitarianism
No individual land rights
Few material possessions
Very few to no social classes
No private property
Taboos built in for those who acquire too much wealth
Leveling mechanisms: social mechanisms that prevent one person gaining power over others (assures equality)
No political hierarchies
Forager-Collector Society Roles of Women
Bride service - groom goes to live with parents of bride to provide hunting services
Divorce is very common, women are allowed to choose this and monogamy is not sacred
No sexual double standards, taboos, stigma regarding sexual relationships
Women own their own arrows*
*Both women and men have power in the society, as whoever’s arrow kills the animal is in charge of the meat
Territories are controlled by lineages - females can own (control access) territories
Forager-Collector Population Size
Carrying capacity: maximum population that environment will support given the level of technology
Population control through:
Infanticide
Postpartum sex taboos
Extended periods of breastfeeding which suppresses ovulation
Low-fat diet tends to decrease fertility
Tend to practice monogamy - helps reduce birth rate
Horticulture
Live on small plots of land
No complex technology
ONLY hand tools; no animals, ploughs, or irrigation
Grow just what they need for small family or community
Produce more food than hunter-gatherers, can support a slightly larger population
Examples:
Amazon Basin (Yanomami), Congo Basin (Birom), Sumatra, Borneo, Melanesia, & Philippines (Hanunoo)
Horticultural Societies
“Slash and burn” or swidden farming
Tropical areas with acidic soil (not enough nutrients to extensively cultivate it) are left untouched and for wild plants, then burned for more nutrients for a short period of time
Supplement crops with hunting or fishing
More sedentary than hunter-gatherers
Social organization
Slightly larger population sizes, which means social and political systems are needed
Social differentiation
Political leaders
Can lead to war for territory and property between neighboring populations of societies
Yanomami, Brazil
Horticultural society that developed in a rainforest with a slightly larger population size
Practices slash and burn
80% gardening, 15% hunting
Not very specialized (grow what they can)
Live in barricaded villages arranged in a circle
One of the most violent societies on Earth in terms of death by warfare
30% of men die by warfare
Often due to raiding villages for women
All members of a village are related by birth or marriage, so to prevent inbreeding they raid other villages
All of this is to say that there is a sense of private property - there is a fight to maintain it
Intensive Agriculture
Intensive use of technology and labor for farming
Produce extremely large quantities
Larger population size
Towns and cities
High degree of craft specialization
Complex political organization
Large differences in wealth and power
Work more: men avg. 9 hours of work 7 days a week, women avg. 11 hours
Also more likely to face famines & food shortages
Associated with individual ownership of land resources, but not always
Partly a subsistence issue, partly a political/social one
Pastoralism
Subsistence on raising domesticated animals
Don’t eat meat but live off products from animals
Also gather plants
Often nomadic, depending on land and water resources (very conditional)
Low population density
Very specialized way of life
Work fewer hours
Practice polygyny
One man and many wives
Bride wealth - a system in which each time a man marries, his wife comes to live with him and he gives her family livestock
Serves not just as a form of subsistence, but a form of wealth, currency, resources, and solidifies social relationships
Political organization
Not a single head (less stratification than agricultural), but livestock have symbolic value in addition to financial value
Whoever has more “cattle” has both a certain amount of wealth but also the ability to foster social relationships and good will
Land is viewed as communal - no private property
Whoever has more livestock gets more land, but there are incentives against owning too many
Certain land is off limits
Less warfare because they are more nomadic and less sedentary
Examples:
Masai, Kikuyu, & Zulus (Africa), Saami (Europe), Mongols (Asia)
Industrialism
The use of machines and manufacturing to convert food and other goods into resources
Opportunity to obtain a particular technology is not universal
Other necessary resources are also privately owned
Access to means of survival is very complex, exists through specialists
Not everyone can control, access, or contribute
Very different than all other societies
Gas, roads, trading, purchasing
Energetically expensive
Individuals are typically very removed from resources
Was very unusual and rare until about 1850, and the origin is Western Europe ca. 1725, then spread to North America ca. 1790-1860
Changes Brought by the Industrial Revolution
Cities begin to dominate the western world
Creates a new social order with the rise of an influential middle class
Poor working conditions for lower classes eventually lead to new social and political movements
Need for markets and resources force Europeans to take over foreign lands (imperialism)