Hunter-gatherer#Social and economic structure

{{Short description|Peoples who forage or hunt for most or all of their food and life}}

{{Redirect|Hunting and gathering|other uses |Hunting and Gathering (novel)|and|Hunting and Gathering (film)}}

{{Redirect|Plant gathering|the hobby or academic activity|Plant collecting}}

File:Living on the rainforest.jpg hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin in August 2014]]

A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging,{{cite web |title = Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers) |date = June 2020 |url = https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/hunter-gatherers |access-date = 14 September 2022 |last1 = Ember |first1 = Carol R. }}{{cite book |author-first=Nicholas |author-last=Wade |title=Before the Dawn |location=London |publisher=The Penguin Press |year=2006 |isbn=1594200793|title-link=Before the Dawn (Wade book)}} that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially wild edible plants but also insects, fungi, honey, bird eggs, or anything safe to eat, or by hunting game (pursuing or trapping and killing wild animals, including catching fish). This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores. Hunter-gatherer societies stand in contrast to the more sedentary agricultural societies, which rely mainly on cultivating crops and raising domesticated animals for food production, although the boundaries between the two ways of living are not completely distinct.

Hunting and gathering was humanity's original and most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.Richard B. Lee & Richard Daly, “Introduction: Foragers & Others,” in: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters & Gatherers (Cambridge University Press, 1999), {{ISBN|052157109X|}}, pp. 1–20. Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change were displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world.{{Cite journal|last1=Stephens|first1=Lucas|last2=Fuller|first2=Dorian|last3=Boivin|first3=Nicole|last4=Rick|first4=Torben|last5=Gauthier|first5=Nicolas|last6=Kay|first6=Andrea|last7=Marwick|first7=Ben|last8=Armstrong|first8=Chelsey Geralda|last9=Barton|first9=C. Michael|date=2019-08-30|title=Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use|journal=Science|language=en|volume=365|issue=6456|pages=897–902|doi=10.1126/science.aax1192|pmid=31467217|bibcode=2019Sci...365..897S|issn=0036-8075|hdl=10150/634688|s2cid=201674203|hdl-access=free}} Across Western Eurasia, it was not until approximately 4,000 BC that farming and metallurgical societies completely replaced hunter-gatherers. These technologically advanced societies expanded faster in areas with less forest, pushing hunter-gatherers into denser woodlands. Only the middle-late Bronze Age and Iron Age societies were able to fully replace hunter-gatherers in their final stronghold located in the most densely forested areas. Unlike their Bronze and Iron Age counterparts, Neolithic societies could not establish themselves in dense forests, and Copper Age societies had only limited success.{{Citation

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In addition to men, a single study found that women engage in hunting in 79% of modern hunter-gatherer societies.{{Cite web |last1=Ocobock |first1=Cara |last2=Lacy |first2=Sarah |date=November 1, 2023 |title=The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/ |access-date=February 23, 2024 |website=Scientific American |language=en}} However, an attempted verification of this study found "that multiple methodological failures all bias their results in the same direction...their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies". Only a few contemporary societies of uncontacted people are still classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism.{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century|last=Greaves|first=Russell D.|display-authors=etal|publisher=School for Advanced Research, University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0826356963|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque|pages=241–62|chapter=Economic activities of twenty-first century foraging populations}}

Archaeological evidence

Hunting and gathering was presumably the subsistence strategy employed by human societies beginning some 1.8 million years ago, by Homo erectus, and from its appearance some 200,000 years ago by Homo sapiens. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in groups that consisted of several families resulting in a size of a few dozen people.{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/article/991/prehistoric-hunter-gatherer-societies/|title=Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Societies|last=Groeneveld|first=Emma|date=9 December 2016|website=World History Encyclopedia|access-date=9 April 2018}} It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago, and after this was replaced only gradually with the spread of the Neolithic Revolution.

File:Mammoth House (Replica).JPG people in the Baikal region of Siberia lived in dwellings built of mammoth bones, similar to those found in Upper Paleolithic Western Eurasia.{{cite journal |last1=Dolitsky |first1=Alexander B. |last2=Ackerman |first2=Robert E. |last3=Aigner |first3=Jean S. |last4=Bryan |first4=Alan L. |last5=Dennell |first5=Robin |last6=Guthrie |first6=R. Dale |last7=Hoffecker |first7=John F. |last8=Hopkins |first8=David M. |last9=Lanata |first9=José Luis |last10=Workman |first10=William B. |title=Siberian Paleolithic Archaeology: Approaches and Analytic Methods [and Comments and Replies] |journal=Current Anthropology |date=1985 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=361–378 |doi=10.1086/203280 |jstor=2742734 |s2cid=147371671 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2742734 |issn=0011-3204|quote="The Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of the European region spanned by France, Czechoslovakia, and the Ukraine led a hunting life resembling that of the people of Mal'ta and Buret' and built similar dwellings of matching construction from the bones of extinct large mammals"|url-access=subscription }}]]

The Late Pleistocene witnessed the spread of modern humans outside of Africa as well as the extinction of all other human species. Humans spread to the Australian continent and the Americas for the first time, coincident with the extinction of numerous predominantly megafaunal species.{{cite journal|last1=Sandom|first1=Christopher |last2= Faurby|first2=Søren|last3= Sandel|first3=Brody|last4= Svenning|first4=Jens-Christian|date= 4 June 2014|title=Global late Quaternary megafauna extinctions linked to humans, not climate change |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B |volume=281 |issue= 1787|page= 20133254|doi=10.1098/rspb.2013.3254|pmid=24898370 |pmc=4071532 }} Major extinctions were incurred in Australia beginning approximately 50,000 years ago and in the Americas about 15,000 years ago.{{cite journal |last1= Smith|first1=Felisa A.|display-authors=etal.|date=April 20, 2018 |title=Body size downgrading of mammals over the late Quaternary|journal=Science |volume=360 |issue=6386|pages=310–313|doi=10.1126/science.aao5987 |pmid=29674591|bibcode=2018Sci...360..310S |doi-access=free}} Ancient North Eurasians lived in extreme conditions of the mammoth steppes of Siberia and survived by hunting mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceroses.{{cite news |title=Genetic Analysis Reveals Previously Unknown Group of Ancient Siberians |url=https://www.sci.news/genetics/ancient-north-siberians-07267.html |work=Sci.News |date=7 June 2019}} The settlement of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers entered North America from the North Asian mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge.{{cite journal|last1=Koch|first1=Paul L.|last2=Barnosky|first2=Anthony D.|date=2006-01-01|title=Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate|journal=Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics|volume=37|issue=1|pages=215–250|doi=10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415|s2cid=16590668}}

During the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that early humans obtained food via scavenging, not hunting.{{cite journal | last1 = Binford | first1 = Louis | year = 1986 | title = Human ancestors: Changing views of their behavior | journal = Journal of Anthropological Archaeology | volume = 3 | pages = 235–57 | doi = 10.1016/0278-4165(84)90003-5 }} Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view, they used carcasses of such animals that had either been killed by predators or that had died of natural causes.{{cite book|title=The Last Rain Forests: A World Conservation Atlas|first1=Mark|last1=Collins|first2=David|last2=Attenborough|date=1990 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0195208366}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}} Scientists have demonstrated that the evidence for early human behaviors for hunting versus carcass scavenging vary based on the ecology, including the types of predators that existed and the environment.{{Cite journal |last=Domínguez-Rodrigo |first=Manuel |date=2008 |title=Conceptual Premises in Experimental Design and Their Bearing on the Use of Analogy: An Example from Experiments on Cut Marks |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40025314 |journal=World Archaeology |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=67–82 |doi=10.1080/00438240701843629 |jstor=40025314 |s2cid=55311378 |issn=0043-8243|url-access=subscription }}

According to the endurance running hypothesis, long-distance running as in persistence hunting, a method still practiced by some hunter-gatherer groups in modern times, was likely the driving evolutionary force leading to the evolution of certain human characteristics. This hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis: both subsistence strategies may have been in use sequentially, alternately or even simultaneously.

File:World in 2000 BC.svg

Starting at the transition between the Middle to Upper Paleolithic period, some 80,000 to 70,000 years ago, some hunter-gatherer bands began to specialize, concentrating on hunting a smaller selection of (often larger) game and gathering a smaller selection of food. This specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as fishing nets, hooks, and bone harpoons.Fagan, B. (1989). People of the Earth, pp. 169–81. Scott, Foresman.{{ISBN?}} The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is chiefly defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated as early as 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, and also independently originated in many other areas including Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, Mesoamerica, and the Andes.

File:ArchaeoGLOBE FHG.gif

Forest gardening was also being used as a food production system in various parts of the world over this period.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}}

File:World in 1000 BCE.png

Many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in the developing world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were formerly available 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. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, particularly animal resources. 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,{{cite book |author-first=Jared |author-last=Diamond |author-link=Jared Diamond |title=Guns, Germs and Steel |location=London |publisher=Vintage |year=1998 |isbn=0099302780|title-link=Guns, Germs and Steel }} one of several explanations offered for the Quaternary extinction event there.

File:Arri Raats, Kalahari Khomani San Bushman, Boesmansrus camp, Northern Cape, South Africa (20540522615).jpg man in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Many San still live as hunter-gatherers.]]

As the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. This process of agriculture-driven expansion led to the development of the first forms of government in agricultural centers, such as the Fertile Crescent, Ancient India, Ancient China, Olmec, Sub-Saharan Africa and Norte Chico.

As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, the few contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures usually live in areas unsuitable for agricultural use.

Archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility.{{cite journal | last1 = Blades | first1 = B | year = 2003 | title = End scraper reduction and hunter-gatherer mobility | journal = American Antiquity | volume = 68 | issue = 1| pages = 141–56 | doi=10.2307/3557037| jstor = 3557037 | s2cid = 164106990 }}{{Cite web|last=Verdolivo|first=Matthew|date=2020-11-04|title=Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201104194446/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 4, 2020|access-date=2020-11-19|website=National Geographic|language=en}}

Ethnobotany is the field of study whereby food plants of various peoples and tribes worldwide are documented.

Common characteristics

File:BuffaloHunters.jpg under the wolf-skin mask, George Catlin, {{circa|1832}}]]

=Habitat and population=

Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements. Mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available.

Some hunter-gatherer cultures, such as the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Yokuts, lived in particularly rich environments that allowed them to be sedentary or semi-sedentary. Amongst the earliest example of permanent settlements is the Osipovka culture (14–10.3 thousand years ago),{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dIuADwAAQBAJ&dq=Osipovka+culture+%2814%E2%80%9310.3+ka+BP%29&pg=PA346|title=Climate Changes in the Holocene : Impacts and Human Adaptation|first=Eustathios|last=Chiotis|year= 2018|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-1351260237|via=Google Books}} which lived in a fish-rich environment that allowed them to be able to stay at the same place all year.{{Cite web|url=http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/cooking-secrets-of-the-neolithic-era-revealed-in-groundbreaking-scientific-tests/|title=Cooking secrets of the Neolithic era revealed in groundbreaking scientific tests|website=siberiantimes.com}} One group, the Chumash, had the highest recorded population density of any known hunter and gatherer society with an estimated 21.6 persons per square mile.{{cite journal |url=https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/brine-revolution/ |title=The Brine Revolution |journal=Hakai Magazine |first=Heather |last=Pringle |date=22 April 2015 |access-date=24 June 2019 |publisher=Tula Foundation and Hakai Institute}}

=Social and economic structure=

Hunter-gatherers tend to have an egalitarian social ethos,{{cite book |last1=Widlok |first1=Thomas |last2=Tadesse |first2=Wolde Gossa |title=Property and Equality |date=2006 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1845452131 |pages=ix–x |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3b6uo2ZLz_EC&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |access-date=6 July 2019 |language=en}}Erdal, David; Whiten, Andrew; Boehm, Christopher; Knauft, Bruce (April 1994). "On Human Egalitarianism: An Evolutionary Product of Machiavellian Status Escalation?" ([http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/erdal.pdf PDF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031131752/https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/erdal.pdf |date=2021-10-31 }}). Current Anthropology. 35 (2): 175–183. although settled hunter-gatherers (for example, those inhabiting the Northwest Coast of North America and the Calusa in Florida) are an exception to this rule.{{cite book |last1=Lourandos |first1=Harry |title=Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521359467 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tTy-I8no1MwC&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |access-date=6 July 2019 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Fitzhugh |first1=Ben |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FLH-fMsjyM8C&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |title=The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific |date=2003 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0306478536 |pages=4–5, 242 |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Singh |first=Manvir |title=Beyond the !Kung |url=https://aeon.co/essays/not-all-early-human-societies-were-small-scale-egalitarian-bands |access-date=2023-06-23 |website=Aeon |language=en}} For example, the San people or "Bushmen" of southern Africa have social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods.{{cite journal |last=Cashdan |first=Elizabeth A. |title=Egalitarianism among Hunters and Gatherers |journal=American Anthropologist |date=1980 |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=116–20 |jstor=676134 |issn=0002-7294 |doi=10.1525/aa.1980.82.1.02a00100}} Karl Marx defined this socio-economic system as primitive communism.Scott, John; Marshall, Gordon (2007). A Dictionary of Sociology. US: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0198609872}}.{{page needed|date=January 2022}}

File:Mbendjele meat sharing.jpg

The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by paleoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.{{cite journal | last1 = Erdal | first1 = D. | last2 = Whiten | first2 = A. | year = 1994 | title = On human egalitarianism: an evolutionary product of Machiavellian status escalation? | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 35 | issue = 2| pages = 175–83 | doi=10.1086/204255| s2cid = 53652577 }}Erdal, D. and A. Whiten 1996. "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution". In, P. Mellars and K. Gibson (eds), Modelling the early human mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs.{{ISBN?}}Gintis, Herbert. 2013. “The Evolutionary Roots of Human Hyper-Cognition.” Journal of Bioeconomics 15 (1): 83–89.Gintis, Herbert, Carel van Schaik, and Christopher Boehm. 2019. “Zoon Politikon: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Socio-Political Systems.” Behavioural Processes, Behavioral Evolution, 161 (April): 17–30. {{doi|10.1016/j.beproc.2018.01.007}}.

Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers do not have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed.{{cite book |last=Gowdy |first=John M. |title=Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment |publisher=Island Press |year=1998 |isbn=155963555X |location=St Louis |pages=xv}}{{cite book |last=Dahlberg |first=Frances |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eTPULzP1MZAC&q=Gathering+and+Hominid+Adaptation&pg=PA120 |title=Woman the Gatherer |location=London |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1975 |isbn=0300029896}}Erdal, D. & Whiten, A. (1996) "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian Intelligence in Human Evolution" in Mellars, P. & Gibadfson, K. (eds) Modelling the Early Human Mind. Cambridge MacDonald Monograph Series. {{ISBN?}}

File:Group of Andaman Men and Women in Costume, Some Wearing Body Paint And with Bows and Arrows, Catching Turtles from Boat on Water.jpg hunting {{circa|1903}}]]

Within a particular tribe or people, hunter-gatherers are connected by both kinship and band (residence/domestic group) membership.{{cite web |url=http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |title=Anthropology E-20 |access-date=2008-03-11 |author-first=Thomas M. |author-last=Kiefer |date=Spring 2002 |work=Lecture 8 Subsistence, Ecology and Food production |publisher=Harvard University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410021259/http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |archive-date=2008-04-10 |url-status=usurped }} Postmarital residence among hunter-gatherers tends to be matrilocal, at least initially.{{cite journal | last1 = Marlowe | first1 = Frank W. | year = 2004 | title = Marital residence among foragers | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 45 | issue = 2| pages = 277–84 | doi=10.1086/382256| s2cid = 145129698 }} Young mothers can enjoy childcare support from their own mothers, who continue living nearby in the same camp.{{cite journal | last1 = Hawkes | first1 = K. | last2 = O'Connell | first2 = J. F. | last3 = Jones | first3 = N. G. Blurton | last4 = Alvarez | first4 = H. P. | last5 = Charnov | first5 = E. L. | year = 1998 | title = Grandmothering, Menopause, and the Evolution of Human Life-Histories | url = http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=biol_fsp| journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 95 | issue = 3| pages = 1336–39 | doi=10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336 | pmid=9448332 | pmc=18762| bibcode = 1998PNAS...95.1336H | doi-access = free }} The systems of kinship and descent among human hunter-gatherers were relatively flexible, although there is evidence that early human kinship in general tended to be matrilineal.Knight, C. 2008. "Early human kinship was matrilineal". In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds.), Early Human Kinship. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 61–82.{{ISBN?}}

The conventional assumption has been that women did most of the gathering, while men concentrated on big game hunting. In recent years, however, this assumption has been challenged by new research findings. Women in many hunter-gatherer societies hunted small game and, in some cases, even participated in big-game hunting.{{Cite news |last=Aizenman |first=Nurith |date=July 1, 2023 |title=Men are hunters, women are gatherers. That was the assumption. A new study upends it. |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i }} An illustrative account is Megan Biesele's study of the southern African Ju/'hoan, 'Women Like Meat'.{{cite book|last=Biesele|first=Megan|year=1993|title=Women Like Meat. The folklore and foraging ideology of the Kalahari Ju/'hoan|location=Witwatersrand|publisher=University Press|isbn=0253315654}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}} A 2006 study suggests that the sexual division of labor was the fundamental organizational innovation that gave Homo sapiens the edge over the Neanderthals, allowing our ancestors to migrate from Africa and spread across the globe.{{cite news |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210022722/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 10, 2006 |title=Sex-Based Roles Gave Modern Humans an Edge, Study Says |work=National Geographic News |author-first=Stefan |author-last=Lovgren |date=December 7, 2006}}

A 1986 study found most hunter-gatherers have a symbolically structured sexual division of labor.{{cite book|last=Testart|first=Alain|year=1986|title=Essai sur les fondements de la division sexuelle du travail chez les chasseurs-cueilleurs|location=Paris|publisher=Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales|lang=fr|lccn=86146185|oclc=14099593}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}} However, it is true that in a small minority of cases, women hunted the same kind of quarry as men, sometimes doing so alongside men. Among the Ju'/hoansi people of Namibia, women help men track down quarry.{{Cite journal |first1=Megan |last1=Biesele |first2=Steve |last2=Barclay |title=Ju/'Hoan Women's Tracking Knowledge And Its Contribution To Their Husbands' Hunting Success |journal=African Study Monographs |volume=Suppl. 26 |pages=67–84 |date=March 2001 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32171204}} In the Australian Martu, both women and men participate in hunting but with a different style of gendered division; while men are willing to take more risks to hunt bigger animals such as kangaroo for political gain as a form of "competitive magnanimity", women target smaller game such as lizards to feed their children and promote working relationships with other women, preferring a more constant supply of sustenance.{{Cite journal|title = Why women hunt: risk and contemporary foraging in a Western Desert aboriginal community|journal = Current Anthropology|date = 2008-08-01|issn = 0011-3204|pmid = 19230267|pages = 655–93|volume = 49|issue = 4|first1 = Rebecca Bliege|last1 = Bird|first2 = Douglas W.|last2 = Bird|doi=10.1086/587700|s2cid = 22722107}} In 2018, 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter along with a toolkit of projectile points and animal processing implements were discovered at the Andean site of Wilamaya Patjxa, Puno District in Peru.{{Cite web|last=Wei-Hass|first=Maya|date=2020-11-04|title=Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217213250/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 17, 2021|access-date=2021-06-13|website=National Geographic|language=en}} A 2020 study inspired by this discovery found that of 27 identified burials with hunter gatherers of a known sex who were also buried with hunting tools, 11 were female hunter gatherers, while 16 were male hunter gatherers. Combined with uncertainties, these findings suggest that anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters were female. A 2023 study that looked at studies of contemporary hunter gatherer societies from the 1800s to the present day found that women hunted in 79 percent of hunter gatherer societies. However, an attempted verification of this study found "that multiple methodological failures all bias their results in the same direction...their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies".{{cite journal|title=Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter|vauthors=Venkataraman et al|date=May 7, 2024|journal=Evolution and Human Behavior|volume=45 |issue=4 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513824000497|doi=10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.04.014|bibcode=2024EHumB..4506586V |url-access=subscription}}

File:Native Encampment by Skinner Prout, from Australia (1876, vol II).jpg of an Indigenous Australian encampment.]]

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, no surplus of resources can be accumulated by any single member. Other characteristics Lee and DeVore proposed were flux in territorial boundaries as well as in demographic composition.

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 lives as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. 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. Their "affluence" came from the idea that they were satisfied with very little in the material sense.Sahlins, M. (1968). "Notes on the Original Affluent Society", Man the Hunter. R.B. Lee and I. DeVore (New York: Aldine Publishing Company) pp. 85–89. {{ISBN|020233032X}}. See also: Jerome Lewis, [http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf "Managing abundance, not chasing scarcity"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513015838/http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf |date=May 13, 2013 }}, Radical Anthropology, No. 2, 2008, and John Gowdy, [http://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy "Hunter-Gatherers and the Mythology of the Market"], in Lee, Richard B (2005). Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work on average, about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.Sackett, Ross. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles. via [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Time%2C-energy%2C-and-indolent-savage-%3A-a-quantitative-Sackett/d9bafd90f1443433556068dc6b5f92d20283052c#paper-header Semantic Scholar Corpus ID: 146347757] Sahlins' theory has been criticized for only including time spent hunting and gathering while omitting time spent on collecting firewood, food preparation, etc. Other scholars also assert that hunter-gatherer societies were not "affluent" but suffered from extremely high infant mortality, frequent disease, and perennial warfare.{{cite book |author=Lawrence H. Keeley |url=https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/war-before-civilization-9780195119121?cc=us&lang=en& |title=War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |isbn=9780195119121 |pages=272}}{{cite web |title=Hunter-gatherer mortality |date=28 February 2007 |url=http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/aging_evolution/hill_2007_hiwi_mortality.html |publisher=}}

Researchers Gurven and Kaplan have estimated that around 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. Of those that reach 15 years of age, 64% continue to live to or past the age of 45. This places the life expectancy between 21 and 37 years.{{cite journal |last1=Guenevere |first1=Michael |last2=Kaplan |first2=Hillard |year=2007 |title=Longevity amongst Hunter-gatherers |url=https://gurven.anth.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.anth.d7_gurven/files/sitefiles/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=33 |issue=2 |page=326 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x}} They further estimate that 70% of deaths are due to diseases of some kind, 20% of deaths come from violence or accidents and 10% are due to degenerative diseases.

Mutual exchange and sharing of resources (i.e., meat gained from hunting) are important in the economic systems of hunter-gatherer societies. Therefore, these societies can be described as based on a "gift economy".

File:AinuBearSacrificeCirca1870.jpg Iomante ceremony (bear sending). Japanese scroll painting, {{circa|1870}}]]

A 2010 paper argued that while hunter-gatherers may have lower levels of inequality than modern, industrialised societies, that does not mean inequality does not exist. The researchers estimated that the average Gini coefficient amongst hunter-gatherers was 0.25, equivalent to the country of Denmark in 2007. In addition, wealth transmission across generations was also a feature of hunter-gatherers, meaning that "wealthy" hunter-gatherers, within the context of their communities, were more likely to have children as wealthy as them than poorer members of their community and indeed hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate an understanding of social stratification. Thus while the researchers agreed that hunter-gatherers were more egalitarian than modern societies, prior characterisations of them living in a state of egalitarian primitive communism were inaccurate and misleading.{{cite journal |last1=Smith |last2=Alden |first2=Eric |last3=Hill |first3=Kim |last4=Marlowe |first4=Frank W. |last5=Nolin |first5=David |last6=Wiessner |first6=Polly |last7=Gurven |first7=Michael |last8=Bowles |first8=Samuel |last9=Borgerhoff Mulder |first9=Monique |author-link9=Monique Borgerhoff Mulder |last10=Hertz |first10=Tom |last11=Bell |first11=Adrian |year=2010 |title=Wealth transmission and inequality among hunter-gatherers |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=19–34 |doi=10.1086/648530 |pmc=2999363 |pmid=21151711}}

This study, however, exclusively examined modern hunter-gatherer communities, offering limited insight into the exact nature of social structures that existed prior to the Neolithic Revolution. Alain Testart and others have said that anthropologists should be careful when using research on current hunter-gatherer societies to determine the structure of societies in the paleolithic era, emphasising cross-cultural influences, progress and development that such societies have undergone in the past 10,000 years.{{cite journal |title=Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers [and Comments and Reply] |first1=Alain |last1=Testart |author1-link=Alain Testart |first2=Bernard |last2=Arcand |author2-link=Bernard Arcand |first3=Tim |last3=Ingold |author3-link=Tim Ingold |first4=Dominique |last4=Legros |first5=Antje |last5=Linkenbach |first6=John |last6=Morton |first7=Nicolas |last7=Peterson |first8=D. R. |last8=Raju |first9=Carmel |last9=Schrire |author9-link=Carmel Schrire |first10=Eric Alden |last10=Smith |first11=M. Susan |last11=Walter |first12=Marek |last12=Zvelebil |author12-link=Marek Zvelebil |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=1 |date=February 1988 |pages=1–31 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |doi=10.1086/203612 |jstor=2743319 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2743319 |s2cid=42136717 |language=en|url-access=subscription }}

Diet

File:Journal of a second voyage for the discovery of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific - performed in the years 1821-22-23, in His Majesty's ships Fury and Hecla, under the orders of (14801456013).jpg seal hunters, {{circa|1821}}]]

As one moves away from the equator, the importance of plant food decreases and the importance of aquatic food increases. In cold and heavily forested environments, edible plant foods and large game are less abundant and hunter-gatherers may turn to aquatic resources to compensate. Hunter-gatherers in cold climates also rely more on stored food than those in warm climates. However, aquatic resources tend to be costly, requiring boats and fishing technology, and this may have impeded their intensive use in prehistory. Marine food probably did not start becoming prominent in the diet until relatively recently, during the Late Stone Age in southern Africa and the Upper Paleolithic in Europe.{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139176132 |pages=45–46 |edition=2nd}}

Fat is important in assessing the quality of game among hunter-gatherers, to the point that lean animals are often considered secondary resources or even starvation food. Consuming too much lean meat leads to adverse health effects like protein poisoning, and can in extreme cases lead to death. Additionally, a diet high in protein and low in other macronutrients results in the body using the protein as energy, possibly leading to protein deficiency. Lean meat especially becomes a problem when animals go through a lean season that requires them to metabolize fat deposits.{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139176132 |page=74 |edition=2nd}}

In areas where plant and fish resources are scarce, hunter-gatherers may trade meat with horticulturalists for carbohydrates. For example, tropical hunter-gatherers may have an excess of protein but be deficient in carbohydrates, and conversely tropical horticulturalists may have a surplus of carbohydrates but inadequate protein. Trading may thus be the most cost-effective means of acquiring carbohydrate resources.{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139176132 |page=75 |edition=2nd}}

Variability

File:Pume 1b.tif couple on a hunting and gathering trip in the llanos of Venezuela. The man carries a bow, three steel-tipped arrows, and a hat that resembles the head of a jabiru stork as camouflage to approach near enough to deer for a shot. The woman carries a steel-tipped digging stick and a carrying basket for collecting wild tubers.]]

Hunter-gatherer societies manifest significant variability, depending on climate zone/life zone, available technology, and societal structure. Archaeologists examine hunter-gatherer tool kits to measure variability across different groups. Collard et al. (2005) found temperature to be the only statistically significant factor to impact hunter-gatherer tool kits.{{cite journal |last1=Collard |first1=Mark |last2=Kemery |first2=Michael |last3=Banks |first3=Samantha |year=2005 |title=Causes of Toolkit Variation Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Test of Four Competing Hypotheses |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |issue=29 |pages=1–19 |url=http://www.ceacb.ucl.ac.uk/ceacb_files/misc/Collard_et_al_2005.pdf}} Using temperature as a proxy for risk, Collard et al.'s results suggest that environments with extreme temperatures pose a threat to hunter-gatherer systems significant enough to warrant increased variability of tools. These results support Torrence's (1989) theory that the risk of failure is indeed the most important factor in determining the structure of hunter-gatherer toolkits.{{cite book |last=Torrence |first=Robin |chapter=Retooling: Towards a behavioral theory of stone tools |pages=57–66 |editor-last=Torrence |editor-first=Robin |title=Time, Energy and Stone Tools |date=1989 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521253505 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rEE9AAAAIAAJ}}

One way to divide hunter-gatherer groups is by their return systems. James Woodburn uses the categories "immediate return" hunter-gatherers for egalitarianism 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.{{cite book |last=Kelly |first=Robert L. |author-link=Robert Laurens Kelly |title=The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Life ways |page=31 |location=Washington |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |year=1995 |isbn=1560984651}}{{Cite journal |last=Woodburn |first=J |date=1982 |title=Egalitarian Societies |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801707 |journal=Man |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=431–451 |doi=10.2307/2801707 |jstor=2801707 |via=|url-access=subscription }}

Hunting-gathering was the common human mode of subsistence throughout the Paleolithic, but the observation of current-day hunters and gatherers does not necessarily reflect Paleolithic societies; the hunter-gatherer cultures examined today have had much contact with modern civilization and do not represent "pristine" conditions found in uncontacted peoples.{{cite journal|author1=Portera, Claire C. |author2=Marlowe, Frank W. |title=How marginal are forager habitats? |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=59–68 |date=January 2007 |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2006.03.014 |bibcode=2007JArSc..34...59P |url=http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/how%20marginal%20are%20forager%20habitats.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227022654/http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/how%20marginal%20are%20forager%20habitats.pdf |archive-date=February 27, 2008 }}

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.{{cite book |editor1=Lee, Richard B. |editor2=Daly, Richard |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521609194 }} 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.{{Cite journal|last=Hayes-Bohanan|first=Pamela|year=2010|editor-last=Birx|editor-first=H. James|title=42: Prehistoric Cultures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fsF1AwAAQBAJ&q=42%3A+Prehistoric+Cultures++PAMELA+HAYES-BOHANAN&pg=PT435|journal=21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook|volume=1|pages=409–18|via=Gale Virtual Reference Library|isbn=978-1452266305|doi=10.4135/9781412979283.n42|url-access=subscription}}

Nowadays,{{when|date=September 2024}} some scholars speak about the existence within cultural evolution of the so-called mixed-economies or dual economies which imply a combination of food procurement (gathering and hunting) and food production or when foragers have trade relations with farmers.{{cite journal | last1 = Svizzero | first1 = S. | last2 = Tisdell | first2 = C. | year = 2015 | title = The Persistence of Hunting and Gathering Economies | url = http://www.sociostudies.org/journal/articles/363702/ | journal = Social Evolution & History | volume = 14 }}

Modern and revisionist perspectives

File:Shoshoni tipis.jpg encampment in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, photographed by Percy Jackson, 1870]]

Some of the theorists who advocate this "revisionist" critique{{Clarify|reason=What revisionist critique?|date=July 2021}} 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,{{cite journal |last=Kelly |first=Raymond |title=The evolution of lethal intergroup violence |doi= 10.1073/pnas.0505955102 |journal=PNAS|volume=102 |date=October 2005 |pages=15294–98 |pmid=16129826 |issue=43 |pmc=1266108|doi-access=free }} 24–29; see Wilmsen{{cite book |last=Wilmsen |first=Edwin |title=Land Filled With Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1989 |isbn=0226900150 |url=https://archive.org/details/landfilledwithfl00wilm_0 }}

)

Lee and Guenther have rejected most of the arguments put forward by Wilmsen.{{cite journal |last1=Lee |first1=Richard B. |last2=Guenther |first2=Mathias |year=1995 |title=Errors Corrected or Compounded? A Reply to Wilmsen |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=298–305 |doi=10.1086/204361|s2cid=144885091 }}{{cite journal |last=Lee |first=Richard B. |year=1992 |title=Art, Science, or Politics? The Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=94 |pages=31–54 |doi=10.1525/aa.1992.94.1.02a00030|hdl=1807/17933 |hdl-access=free }}{{cite book |last=Marlowe |first=Frank W. |title=Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers and the 'Other' |year=2002 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |page=247 |url=https://archive.org/stream/WhyTheHadzaAreStillHunter-gatherers#page/n0/mode/2up}}{{Clarify|reason=What are these arguments?|date=July 2021}} Doron Shultziner and others have argued that we can learn a lot about the life-styles of prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers—especially their impressive levels of egalitarianism.{{cite journal |last=Shultziner |first=Doron |title=The causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial: A multi-disciplinary perspective |journal=Biology and Philosophy |year=2010 |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=319–46 |url=https://www.academia.edu/416145 |doi=10.1007/s10539-010-9196-4|s2cid=21340052 }}

File:Bathurst Island men.jpg on Bathurst Island in 1939. According to Peterson (1998), the island population was isolated for 6,000 years until the 18th century. In 1929, three-quarters of the population supported themselves on bush tucker.{{cite journal |title=Demographic transition in a hunter-gatherer population: the Tiwi case, 1929–1996 |last1=Peterson |first1=Nicolas |last2=Taylor |first2=John |year=1998 |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies |url=https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-21167358/demographic-transition-in-a-hunter-gatherer-population |journal=Australian Aboriginal Studies |volume=1998}}]]

There are nevertheless a number of contemporary hunter-gatherer peoples who, after contact with other societies, continue their ways of life with very little external influence or with modifications that perpetuate the viability of hunting and gathering in the 21st century.{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-first Century|editor-last=Codding|editor-first=Brian F.|editor-last2=Kramer|editor-first2=Karen L.|publisher=School for Advanced Research, University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0826356963|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque}} One such group is the Pila Nguru (Spinifex people) of Western Australia, whose land in the Great Victoria Desert has proved unsuitable for European agriculture (and even pastoralism).{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}} 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.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9UzX63tCpXQC&pg=PA357|title=In the Forest: Visual and Material Worlds of Andamanese History (1858–2006)|last=Pandya|first=Vishvajit|date=2009|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0761842729|page=357|oclc=673383888}}Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/kJQuYKYxdVI Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20140107175922/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQuYKYxdVI&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQuYKYxdVI|title=North Sentinel Island: A Glimpse Into Prehistory|date=15 September 2013 |via=YouTube|access-date=30 May 2017}}{{cbignore}} The Savanna Pumé of Venezuela also live in an area that is inhospitable to large scale economic exploitation and maintain their subsistence based on hunting and gathering, as well as incorporating a small amount of manioc horticulture that supplements, but is not replacing, reliance on foraged foods.{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century|last1=Kramer|first1=Karen L.|last2=Greaves|first2=Russell D.|publisher=School for Advanced Research Press and University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0826356963|editor-last=Codding|editor-first=Brian F.|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque|pages=15–42|chapter=Diversify or replace: what happens when cultigens are introduced into hunter-gatherer diets.|editor-last2=Kramer|editor-first2=Karen L.}}

Americas

{{See also|Aboriginal peoples in Canada#Paleo-Indians period|Lithic period in Mesoamerica}}

File:Glyptodon old drawing.jpg hunting a glyptodon]]

Evidence suggests big-game hunter-gatherers crossed the Bering Strait from Asia (Eurasia) into North America over a land bridge (Beringia), that existed between 47,000 and 14,000 years ago.{{cite web

|title=Atlas of the Human Journey-The Genographic Project

|publisher=National Geographic Society.

|date=1996–2008

|url=https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003

|access-date=2009-10-06

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501094643/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003

|archive-date=2011-05-01

}} Around 18,500–15,500 years ago, these hunter-gatherers are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.{{cite web |url=http://www.physorg.com/news169474130.html |title=The peopling of the Americas: Genetic ancestry influences health |work=Scientific American |access-date=2009-11-17}} Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America.{{cite journal |title=Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America |journal=American Antiquity |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=55–69 |series=1 |date=January 1979 |jstor=279189|last1=Fladmark |first1=K. R. |doi=10.2307/279189 |s2cid=162243347 }}{{cite journal |last1=Eshleman |first1=Jason A. |last2=Malhi |first2=Ripan S. |last3=Smith |first3=David Glenn |title=Mitochondrial DNA Studies of Native Americans: Conceptions and Misconceptions of the Population Prehistory of the Americas |journal=Evolutionary Anthropology |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227659833 |publisher=University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |pages=7–18 |year=2003 |access-date=2009-11-17|doi=10.1002/evan.10048 |volume=12|s2cid=17049337 }}

Hunter-gatherers would eventually flourish all over the Americas, primarily based in the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, with offshoots as far east as the Gaspé Peninsula on the Atlantic coast, and as far south as Chile, Monte Verde.{{citation needed |reason=Removed previous citation to a non-expert's personal website; a reliable source should be cited in its place. |date=March 2014}} American hunter-gatherers were spread over a wide geographical area, thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the individual groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making knapping styles and progress identifiable. This early Paleo-Indian period lithic reduction tool adaptations have been found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 25 to 50 members of an extended family.{{cite web |title=Paleoindians in Tennessee |first=John |last=Broster |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1033 |publisher=Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. Tennessee Historical Society. Online Edition provided by: The University of Tennessee Press |year=2002 |access-date=2009-11-21}}

The Archaic period in the Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more arid climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna.{{cite web |title=Blame North America Megafauna Extinction On Climate Change, Not Human Ancestors |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011025072315.htm |publisher=ScienceDaily |year=2001 |access-date=2010-04-10}} The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers. Individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally, however, and thus archaeologists have identified a pattern of increasing regional generalization, as seen with the Southwest, Arctic, Poverty Point, Dalton and Plano traditions. These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, with a more mixed economy of small game, fish, seasonally wild vegetables and harvested plant foods.{{cite book |title=Prehistory of the Americas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yrhp8H0_l6MC&q=Paleo-Indians%20tradition&pg=PA151 |first=Stuart J. |last=Fiedel |page=151 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0521425445 |access-date=2009-11-18}}{{cite book |title=The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas|first=Frank Salomon |last=Stuart B. Schwartz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqEQWch7woQC&q=Formative%20stage%20in%20the%20americas&pg=PA256 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=2009-11-17 |isbn=978-0521630757 |date=1999}}

File:Índios em uma fazenda.jpg {{circa|1824}}]]

Scholars like Kat Anderson have suggested that the term Hunter-gatherer is reductive because it implies that Native Americans never stayed in one place long enough to affect the environment around them. However, many of the landscapes in the Americas today are due to the way the Natives of that area originally tended the land. Anderson specifically looks at California Natives and the practices they utilized to tame their land. Some of these practices included pruning, weeding, sowing, burning, and selective harvesting. These practices allowed them to take from the environment in a sustainable manner for centuries.{{Cite book|last=Anderson|first=Kat|title=Tending the Wild|year=2013|isbn=978-0520280434|pages=1–10|publisher=Univ of California Press |language=English}}

California Indians view the idea of wilderness in a negative light. They believe that wilderness is the result of humans losing their knowledge of the natural world and how to care for it. When the earth turns back to wilderness after the connection with humans is lost then the plants and animals will retreat and hide from the humans.

=Modern hunter-gatherer groups=

=Social movements=

Anarcho-primitivism, which strives for the abolishment of civilization and the return to a life in the wild.
Freeganism involves gathering of food (and sometimes other materials) in the context of an urban or suburban environment.
Gleaning involves the gathering of food that traditional farmers have left behind in their fields.
Paleolithic diet, which strives to achieve a diet similar to that of ancient hunter-gatherer groups.

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline|Hunter-gatherers}}
[https://ishgr.org/ International Society for Hunter Gatherer Research (ISHGR)]
[https://chags.univie.ac.at/history/ History of the Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS)]
[http://www.foragers-association.org The Association of Foragers: An international association for teachers of hunter-gatherer skills.]
[http://foragers.wikidot.com/start A wiki dedicated to the scientific study of the diversity of foraging societies without recreating myths]
{{Cite web|last=Balmer |first=Yves |title=Ethnological videos clips. Living or recently extinct traditional tribal groups and their origins |publisher=Andaman Association |year=2013 |url=http://www.andaman-video.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111014239/http://andaman-video.org/ |archive-date=January 11, 2014 }}
[https://hgcosmos.org/ Hunter-gatherer bibliographic site (HGCOSMOS)]