An Anthropological View of Political Systems
https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/political/default.htm
Bands and Tribes
The simplest political systems are found in bands and tribes. To the
casual observer from the outside, these kinds of societies do not seem to
have leaders in the sense that we commonly expect. Political power is
essentially diffused throughout the society. Subsequently, they have been
referred to as being acephalous (Greek for "without a head").
Bands
Bands have been found primarily among foragers, especially self-sufficient pedestrian foragers. The total number of people within these societies rarely exceeds a few dozen. Bands are essentially associations of families living together. They are loosely allied by marriage, descent, friendship, and common interest. The primary integrating mechanism for these societies is kinship. Bands are extremely egalitarian--all families are essentially equal. There is no economic class differentiation. However, there are often clear status differences based on gender and age.
There is a horizontal status and power relationship in bands between all adults of the same gender. They are more or less equal as far as community decision making is concerned. However, some individuals in a band stand out for their skills and knowledge. These often are the people who have the best memories, are the best hunters, most successful curers, most gifted speakers, or have some other special ability. Such people become informal leaders. Most often they are given authority by community consensus arrived at through casual discussion without the need for a formal vote. This is possible because the entire society is small and everyone knows everyone else intimately as a result of living and working together throughout their lives. Band leaders generally have temporary political power at best, and they do not have any significant authority relative to other adults. They can give advice and propose action, but they do not have the formal authority to force others to accept their decisions.
The principle goal of politics in most bands is making sure that people get along with each other. This is not easy given human nature. There is always the potential for social disruption brought about by individuals failing to share food, sexual competition for the same mate, or other personal conflicts. Given the small size of bands and the fact that everyone is involved in the lives of everyone else, quarrels quickly become community problems that have the potential for splitting the band along family lines. In fact, band fissioning apparently has been a common occurrence. As the number of people in a society increases, the potential for disruptive interpersonal conflicts inevitably rises. Subsequently, the likelihood of families deciding to leave and form their own bands increases. Richard Lee has referred to this process as social velocity. He observed that among the ju/'hoansi of southwest Africa, fissioning often occurred before a community reached the full carrying capacity of the environment. In other words, it was not food scarcity but, rather, social discord that was the cause of the break-up.
Typically, there is no leadership position in bands that has the authority to conclusively settle disputes, punish criminals, prevent families from leaving, or represent the entire community in dealings with outsiders. Decisions are made by community consensus, but people who don't agree with the consensus generally do not have to accept it. During the late 19th century, this highly democratic diffused political system of bands made it difficult for the U.S. government to create binding treaties with some Native American societies in the West. It was naively assumed by the federal government that when "spokesmen" for a band agreed to a treaty that it legally bound all members of their society to its terms. From the perspective of the band members, it really only obligated those specific individuals who agreed to the treaty. If others in the band failed to follow the terms of the agreement, the federal government assumed that they were going back on a legal agreement. This cultural misunderstanding on both sides was the consequence of having radically different kinds of political systems as well as profound ethnocentrism.
Ethnographic accounts suggest that the political power and status of women in many pedestrian foraging bands was surprisingly high, especially compared to pastoralist and agricultural societies. Since forager women in all but the cold polar regions usually provided most of the food calories consumed, they performed economically critical roles for their families and society as a whole. Men generally hunted for meat. This was often the most desirable but usually the least dependable food source. The central economic role for women in providing vegetable foods, along with traditions of diffused political power in bands, allowed women to voice their opinions at important community meetings. Clearly, women in some types of foraging societies had significantly less political clout. The status and authority of women in aquatic and equestrian foraging societies was usually far lower than that of men. This may be due to the fact that men generally provided most of the food in these societies that depended on meat as their principal source of calories. In addition, the passionate military focus of equestrian foraging societies put men in a position to dominate political decision making.
No band level societies survive today with their traditional form of political organization intact. However, they did until the last half of the 19th century in out-of-the-way regions of northern Siberia, the desert and sub-arctic regions of North America and Greenland, the tropical lowlands of Central and South America, the Australian desert interior and tropical north, as well as a few isolated areas of Southeast Asia. While it is easy to think of these people and their traditional way of life in the past as oddities, it is important to keep in mind that the distant ancestors of all people on earth lived in bands at one time. Before the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago, it is likely that very few societies had more complex levels of political integration.
Tribes
A tribe is a somewhat more complex type of acephalous society than a band. As the population size increases with a shift in subsistence pattern from foraging to horticulture or pastoralism, it eventually reaches a point at which kinship ties and friendship are no longer sufficient to hold society together. This is especially the case when there are hundreds of people and multiple communities. Tribes also are characteristic of some large equestrian and rich aquatic foraging societies. Regardless of the subsistence base, new forms of societal integration become a necessity in tribes to settle disputes and prevent the society from disintegrating.
The new integrative mechanisms of tribes are referred to by anthropologists as pantribal associations or sodalities. These are groups that cross-cut the society by bringing together a limited number of people, typically at least one from each family. Pantribal associations often are in the form of councils, groups of elder men or women who are members of the same age set, warrior societies, religious cults, or secret societies. While these groups have specific purposes, they also serve to create order and a sense of unity for a tribe.
In a number of tribal societies of New Guinea, all men traditionally lived together communally in a "big house," while women lived with their daughters and young sons in their own individual houses close to the gardens where they farmed. Older boys went through an initiation ceremony in order to become a man, move into the "big house", and learn the religious secrets kept by men. In these societies, men made the important political decisions. The group of men living in the big house acted as the pantribal association that cross-cut society. Even in New Guinea societies that did not have a tradition of "big houses", the important pantribal associations were most often made up of men as they are in most tribal societies. Subsequently, men had more political power and prestige than women.
Tribes commonly have village headmen who perform leadership roles, but these individuals have relatively limited authority. Political power stems largely from their senior position within kin groups and their ability to persuade or harangue others into doing what they want. In New Guinea and many of the neighboring islands of Melanesia, these leaders are called "big men." In the past, there often were competing "big men" who vied with each other for status and nominal authority over a number of villages. They worked for years to accumulate pigs and other items of high value in order to give them away in large, very public formal ceremonies. This functioned to not only enhance their status and political influence but to also redistribute wealth within their societies. A similar ritualized economic redistribution was orchestrated by the leading men among the Kwakiutl and some other rich fishing societies on the northwest coast of North America. Their principle goal was also to increase their status and power.
Like bands, most tribal societies are still essentially egalitarian in that no one family or residential group is politically or economically superior to others. All families are basically alike, including those of the headmen. They are for the most part self-sufficient in regards to food and other basic necessities. However, tribes differ from bands in the way that they are integrated. They are also larger societies.
Tribal societies have suffered the same consequence of contact with the large-scale societies. There no longer are any tribes that have been able to maintain their traditional political systems unaltered by outside influences.
The next section of this tutorial describes societies that eventually departed from the age-old egalitarian systems of bands and tribes and developed chiefdoms and states. These were political systems that had progressively more centralization of power.
NOTE: Native American societies have been commonly referred to as tribes. They have been lumped into this category without regard to their actual level of political integration. In western North America and the sub-arctic north, they most often had bands. This was especially true in the desert regions where population densities were low. Tribes were common among the agricultural peoples of the Southwest (Pueblo Indians). In the eastern woodlands, tribes and more complex chi efdoms were widespread. During the 20th century, Native American societies throughout the U.S. changed their political systems to what are now usually referred to as "tribes." However, these new political systems generally reflect more the European concept of representative democracies with written charters, elected tribal chairmen, and councils. The same kinds of political changes occurred among the indigenous populations of Canada, but there they are referred to as "first nations."
This page was last updated on Monday, July 10, 2006.
Copyright © 2004-2006 by Dennis O'Neil. All rights reserved.
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Political Organizationl: Political Levels of Integration
Chiefdoms and States
Some horticultural societies of the past developed more intensive agricultural subsistence patterns when their populations grew into the thousands. As this interrelated economic and populational transition occurred, they were forced to create a new level of political integration in order to maintain unity and order. This was the chiefdom and ultimately the state. This marks the beginning of centralized, fulltime leadership and nonegalitarian societies. Before examining the nature of chiefdoms and states, it is important to keep in mind that the political systems in many societies do not clearly fit either category completely. They are essentially in transition from tribes to chiefdoms or from chiefdoms to states.
Chiefdoms
Chiefdoms are similar to bands and tribes in being mostly classless societies. However, chiefdoms differ in having a more or less permanent, fulltime leader with real authority to make major decisions for their societies. These leaders are usually referred to by anthropologists as chiefs. Sometimes there is an advisory council as well, but there is no bureaucracy of professional administrators. The government is essentially just the chief. Some of the more advanced chiefdoms in Africa are an exception in that they have a paramount chief and lesser chiefs who perform administrative functions. The Baganda and Bunyoro of Uganda are examples of this. The chiefdoms of ancient Hawaii and elsewhere in Polynesia were similar in having several levels of chiefs. Chiefdoms also are known historically from Europe, Asia, the southeastern United States, the Caribbean islands, Panama, Colombia, and the Amazon Basin of Brazil.
Seniority in kin groups is usually the primary basis for individual status within chiefdoms. The chief is at the top of the kinship hierarchy. Other people are commonly ranked in terms of their genealogical distance from the chief. Subsequently, there is a keen interest in maintaining records of descent from important family ancestors.
Chiefs and their families generally have a higher standard of living than ordinary people. What makes this possible is that chiefs usually perform a society-wide economic redistribution function that, in some cases, is cloaked in the guise of ritual gift giving. This essentially siphons off surplus agricultural products from farmers and then redistributes them throughout the society. In the process, a small amount is held back in order to support the chief's more lavish lifestyle. The ritualized redistribution of surplus food and other commodities in chiefdoms is, in a sense, the rudimentary beginnings of a taxation system. It is probably tolerated by people because of the economic advantages that it can provide in addition to social stability. The larger territorial size of chiefdoms often encompasses diverse environmental zones with somewhat different products. The redistribution of surpluses can serve as a method of providing security in times of crop failures as well as greater food variety for the populace as a whole. For instance, a farmer may give up some of his crop but get different kinds of food in return along with enhanced status.
The larger populations of chiefdoms generally means that the people have less in common than do those in the smaller societies of bands and tribes. Disputes inevitably arise that cannot be settled by informal means based on kinship and friendship. A chief usually functions as an arbitrator and judge in these cases. In some of the kingdoms of West Africa, the paramount chiefs still today "license" official truth testers to deal with contradictory testimony in legal cases. They often use an ordeal to determine the truth. In the hot knife ordeal, only someone telling the truth is thought to not be burned when a red hot knife blade is stroked across his leg.
An important advantage that chiefdoms have over band and tribal level societies when conflicts arise between them is that chiefdoms are usually more effective in warfare. This is due to the fact that chiefdoms have two important advantages. They have larger populations so they can assemble larger military forces. In addition, the chief can provide centralized direction which potentially allows more decisive action. Some chiefdoms in Western South America had in excess of 100,000 people. The Chibcha of Colombia was one of them. They became a militarily powerful force in the mountain regions that made up their homeland.
Once functioning, the position of the chief usually becomes essential to the functioning of society. Chiefdoms cannot go back to a tribal level unless their population drops significantly.
States
State level political systems first appeared in societies with large-scale intensive agriculture. They began as chiefdoms and then evolved into more centralized, authoritarian kingdoms when their populations grew into tens of thousands of people. While chiefdoms are societies in which everyone is ranked relative to the chief, states are socially stratified into largely distinct classes in terms of wealth, power, and prestige.
Around 5,500 years ago, the early kingdoms of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) developed such state levels of political integration. Shortly thereafter, states evolved in the Indian subcontinent and China. By 4,500 years ago, states were developing in Mesoamerica and the central Andean mountain region of western South America. The early states in these six regions became the well known ancient civilizations.
While these six centers of early civilization had major cultural and historical differences, they created remarkably similar political solutions for dealing with the problems of feeding and controlling large complex societies. These new political systems had a pyramid of authority with a small hereditary elite class at the top headed by a king and royal family. At the bottom were the commoners who were the bulk of society. They were mostly the food producing farmers upon whom the entire society ultimately depended. In between was a small middle class consisting of two groups. First, there were professional craftsmen and traders who mainly produced or acquired luxury items for the elite. Second, there were professional bureaucrats who administered the state religion and government on a daily basis.
Pyramid of power in ancient states
As independent kingdoms within each of the geographic regions of the ancient civilization competed for land, water, and other important resources, warfare became more frequent and larger in scale. Professional armies were created along with more efficient weapons. In the Old World, these included horse drawn chariots, war ships, and metal swords, arrow, and spear tips. The consequence of these wars of conquest was powerful kingdoms destroying and annexing weaker ones. Eventually the victors ruled enormous multi-city, multi-cultural, and multi-language empires with millions of people living over vast areas. These super-states required even more centralization of authority and larger permanent armies.
All of the ancient civilizations were preindustrial agricultural societies with the majority of their populations living in hamlets and small villages. Most of these essentially rural societies only had one or a few small cities of about 5,000-50,000 people. These urban areas were primarily centers for the elite ruling class along with the state government bureaucracy and the majority of the fulltime craft specialists and traders who worked for them. In addition, cities were the locations of major temples of the state religions. At the top of the religious, political, and military hierarchies were key members of the ruling elite. There was not the separation of church and state that is characteristic of the U. S. and many other large nation states today. For instance, a prince could serve as an army general, a province governor, and a head priest at the same time. This was not viewed as a conflict of interest.
Ancient states were far from being egalitarian. There were a few rich, politically powerful people and many more comparatively poor commoners who had little political influence and almost no possibility of acquiring it. As single-city kingdoms became multi-city empires with vast territories, the political systems generally became more rigid. Not uncommonly, the ruler became a god-king with absolute authority. The Pharaohs of Egypt are a prime example of this. They were thought to be not just mortals but god-kings. As living gods, their authority was absolute.
Most ancient states had slavery. The conquest of competitor states usually provided most of them. Slaves were not always at the bottom of the pyramid of power in these societies. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, women slaves were often integrated into the households of wealthy, powerful men as servants and concubines. Slave children fathered by their owner sometimes acquired freedom and far higher status, wealth, and power than that of commoners.
NOTE: It is a common misconception that slavery no longer exists in the world today. Despite the fact that it is now illegal in all nations, the institution of slavery continues in the third world and even in modern industrialized nations in various forms. Millions of people are still being bought and sold, forced to work, physically constrained, and threatened with abuse if they don't comply with the wishes of their owners. At least 20 million people are "bond laborers" who must work long hours at unpleasant jobs for the person to whom they are financially indebted. In India and some other parts of South Asia, people often work their entire lives and fail to pay off their debt. It is passed on to the next generation. Their children continue as de facto slaves under this system without a realistic hope of escape. There is massive trafficking of Eastern European, African, and South Asian women and children who are tricked into emigrating "to better their lives" only to end up as unpaid servants or prostitutes. More traditional forms of slavery have also continued into the 21st century. In Sudan and some other parts of Africa, people are kidnapped from their homes to become life-long slaves, transported to other countries, bought, sold, inherited, and even given as gifts. Astonishingly, the price of these African slaves is now significantly cheaper than it was in the United States prior to the Civil War of the 1860's.
To learn more about slavery today, visit the following websites: 21st-Century Slaves, Anti-slavery International, and Abolish. For a map showing the number of slaves coming into and going out of each country in the world see: "The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery" by Kevin Bales, Scientific American, April 2002.
Why Did We Give Up Bands?
The transition from acephalous bands and tribes to chiefdoms and finally states mostly began after the end of the last ice age, 8,000-10,000 years ago. Archaeologists and historians have wondered why this occurred. After all, our ancestors had lived for hundreds of thousands of years as foragers. They most likely had band and tribal level societies over this vast amount of time. It would seem illogical to give up a successful egalitarian way of life for social, political, and economic inequality. A persuasive explanation is that this political and social transition was unavoidable given economic choices that were being made by our ancestors in response to major environmental changes and growing population pressure.
The dramatically altered climate at the end of the last ice age was largely responsible for the disappearance of many large mammal species that humans hunted at the time. In some regions, the animals became extinct and in others they were reduced in numbers to the point that they were no longer a dependable source of food. Human over-exploitation may have been a contributing factor as well. At the same time, vast lowland areas were being flooded by sea levels rising 300-400 feet as a consequence of massive continental glaciers melting. These changes did not occur over night. The climate had been warming for several thousand years. Unfortunately for our ancestors, all of these changes were occurring at the same time that the human population was growing.
Our ancestors were faced with a dilemma. Where could food be found to feed the ever larger number of mouths? In the arid river valleys that were to become the centers of the majority of ancient civilizations, this crisis was probably the most acute. The first response was to shift the focus of foraging to small game and wild plant foods, especially cereals. This was a stop-gap solution that allowed human populations to continue growing. Inevitably, plant and animal domestication were necessary to increase the food supply and make it more dependable. Horticulture and pastoralism were successful as long as the population density did not increase much. However, many of these societies continued to get bigger. Chiefdoms became a common solution to the problem of continued societal growth. The next evolutionary step was the development of intensive agriculture. This made the creation of the ancient states almost inevitable.
Why Did We Develop States?
A number of theories have been suggested to explain why states appeared. Most of them are what have been called "prime mover" theories. That is, they assume that there is a single key factor responsible for state formation. The most well known ones are the voluntaristic theory , the hydraulic theory, and the coercive theory. All three attempt to summarize the primary forces that were responsible for state formation in most, if not all, of the early civilizations.
In 1936, the British archaeologist V. Gordon Childe first proposed the voluntaristic theory. This assumed that people made rational economic decisions that led them inevitably to develop the first states. Childe suggested that food surpluses created by early agriculture allowed some individuals to spend increasing time in developing more sophisticated weaving, pottery, and other manufactured products, while some others became full-time traders to distribute surplus food and luxury items. Markets appeared to facilitate trade and some individuals became wealthier than others. In order for this to happen the strong social pressure of the earlier egalitarian societies that forced people to share had to be replaced by the acceptance of individuals accumulating wealth. These changes created the need to develop new political solutions to the problem of mediating the differences between the various occupational and economic groups within society. A more centralized and less democratic political system was the outcome of this process in most cases. According to Childe, informed self-interest led people to accept the new political organization.
During the 1950's, the German historian Karl Wittfogel and the American archaeologist Julian Steward created an ecological explanation for state formation that has come to be known as the hydraulic theory. This proposed that state level political systems arose out of the need to construct and manage large-scale irrigation systems necessary for intensive agriculture within arid river valleys. Elaborate irrigation systems required leadership to organize the labor needed for this purpose. Wittfogel and Steward argued that once that leadership had come into existence, local control would increasingly pass to a permanent centralized ruling class. That elite class would be able to control farmers by denying water to those who resisted their authority.
In 1970, the American anthropologist Robert Carneiro developed the coercive theory of state formation. This proposed that states developed as a means of mobilizing armies to conquer competitive neighboring peoples. Carneiro suggested that increasing population pressure in early agricultural societies would have resulted in intensive competition with other societies for scarce resources such as land, water, salt, and wood. This would have triggered wars of conquest. Centralized state governments would have developed to mobilize and direct armies. According to Carneiro, those armies would continue to exist as tools for controlling conquered peoples, collecting tribute, and allocating resources.
All three of these prime mover theories of state formation have merit. Each one describes a piece of the puzzle. It is probably more realistic to think of the evolution of ancient states as having multiple causes that were intertwined with the unique set of environmental, social, and historical circumstances of each region. Just such a multi-cause explanation was proposed by the American archaeologist Robert Adams in the 1960's for the origin and evolution of early states in Mesopotamia. He observed that changes in a society, its culture, and the environment are always interrelated in complex ways like the organs of a human body. Different developments in evolving states would have triggered further developments which in turn would have affected the direction and rate of the initial developments. Eventually, some emerging states in Mesopotamia were more successful than others. Adams suggested that was usually because they had better resource bases and were able to control agricultural production over larger areas. This in turn gave them advantages in waging war. Once they began conquering their neighbors, they would have gotten tribute from the defeated states which would have reinforced the advantages of the successful conquerors. Adams suggested that all of these changes were inevitable due to the continued growth of the human populations.
Nation States Today
Modern nation states ultimately replaced kingdoms and empires ruled by royal dynasties. However, there remain many crucial similarities. Nations today still are marked by social, political, and economic inequality. There is poverty for some while others are rich. Social mobility between classes is generally much easier now, but there remains a pyramid shaped distribution of economic and political power in all modern nations. Hereditary rulers have been almost entirely replaced by democratically elected leaders. However, those elected politicians still are at the top of the pyramid of power. One major difference between ancient and modern states is that the latter have far larger permanent bureaucracies. Their political power is centered in cities that dwarf most of those in the early states.
The Future
While the ancient civilizations are long gone, the process that led our ancestors from small acephalous societies to chiefdoms and states did not stop. The world human population keeps on growing and most of our societies are becoming progressively more complex and interconnected globally. We constantly need to produce more food, fiber, and other materials in order to satisfy the growing demand generated by the additional people each year. Over the 21st century, much of the world very likely will face severe shortages, including those of food (especially protein rich meat), drinking water, arable land, and petroleum based fuels. We will be forced to be ever more creative in using them efficiently and to make hard decisions about their distribution in society. Those decisions probably will involve new political solutions in addition to technological ones.
This page was last updated on Monday, July 10, 2006.
Copyright ©
2004-2006 by Dennis O'Neil.
All rights reserved.
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https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/political/pol_3.htm
https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/
Carol R. Ember
June 1, 2020Abstract
The hunter-gatherer way of life is of major interest to anthropologists because dependence on wild food resources was the way humans acquired food for the vast stretch of human history. Cross-cultural researchers focus on studying patterns across societies and try to answer questions such as: What are recent hunter-gatherers generally like? How do they differ from food producers? How do hunter-gatherer societies vary and what may explain their variability? In this revised summary, we focus on what cross-cultural researchers have found about hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
Table of Contents
- Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers)
- What We Have Learned
- What Are Hunter-Gatherers of Recent Times Generally Like?
- Complex Hunter-Gatherers
- Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods
- Other Hunter-Gatherer Differences
- Are Hunter-Gatherers More Peaceful Than Food Producers?
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How and Why do Hunter-Gatherers Vary?
- Variation in Environment and Subsistence Practices
- Division Of Labor By Gender
- Marital Residence
- Territoriality
- Warfare
- What We Do Not Know
- Exercises Using eHRAF World Cultures
- Credits
- Citation
- Glossary
- Additional Cross-Cultural Studies of Hunter-Gatherers
- References
Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers)
In the quest to explain human culture, anthropologists have paid a great deal of attention to recent hunter-gatherer, or forager, societies. A major reason for this focus has been the widely held belief that knowledge of hunter-gatherer societies could open a window into understanding early human cultures. After all, it is argued that for the vast stretch of human history, people lived by foraging for wild plants and animals. Indeed, not until about 10 thousand years ago did societies in Southwest Asia (the famous Fertile Crescent) begin to cultivate and domesticate plants and animals. Food production took over to such an extent that, in the past few hundred years, only an estimated 5 million people have subsisted by foraging. But while the numbers of recent hunter-gatherers may be relatively small, that does not mean that food production inevitably becomes the dominant economic strategy. Many such societies continue to forage (Kramer and Greaves 2016, 15).
What can we infer about our distant ancestors by looking at a few well-known hunter-gatherer societies of recent times? To draw reliable inferences, we would need to believe that pockets of human society could exist unchanged over tens of thousands of years—that hunter-gatherers did not learn from experience, innovate, or adapt to changes in their natural and social environments. Even a cursory look at the ethnographic record, however, reveals that many foraging cultures have changed substantially over time. Both in the archaeological record and more recently, hunter-gatherers have not only interacted with food producers through trade and other exchanges, but many have also added cultivated crops to their economies that integrate well foraging wild resources (Kramer and Greaves 2016, 16). Moreover, recent hunter-gatherer cultures share some traits but are also quite different from one another.
How can we draw better inferences about the past? Cross-cultural researchers ask how and why hunter-gatherer societies vary. By understanding what conditions predict variation and also using the paleoanthropological record to make educated guesses about past conditions in a particular place, anthropologists may have a better chance of inferring what hunter-gatherers of the past were like (Hitchcock and Beisele 2000, 5; Ember 1978; Marlowe 2005).
Because cultures change through time, we cannot simply project ethnographic data from the present to the past
Below we summarize the cross-cultural literature in the last half century on hunter-gatherers. We generally restrict the discussion to statistically supported hypotheses based on samples of 10 or more cultures. We also discuss what is not yet known and questions that invite further research.
But before we turn to what we know from cross-cultural research, let us first talk briefly about the term “hunter-gatherers”. Hunter-gatherers has become the commonly-used term for people who depend largely on food collection or foraging for wild resources. Foraged wild resources are obtained by a variety of methods including gathering plants, collecting shellfish or other small fauna, hunting, scavenging, and fishing. This is in contrast to food production, where people rely on cultivating domesticated plants and breeding and raising domesticated animals for food. Unfortunately, the common term hunter-gatherers overrates the importance of hunting, downplays gathering, and ignores fishing. Yet, in one cross-cultural sample of hunter-gatherers (foragers), fishing appeared to be the most important activity in 38 percent of the societies, gathering was next at 30 percent, and hunting was the least important at 25 percent (Ember 1978). So, if we were being fair, such societies should be called “fisher-gatherer-hunters” or, more simply, “foragers.” But because the term “hunter-gatherers” is so widely used, we will use it here.
What We Have Learned
We know about hunter-gatherers of recent times from anthropologists who have lived and worked with hunting and gathering groups. Some of the recent and frequently discussed cases are the Mbuti of the Ituri Forest (central Africa), the San of the Kalahari Desert (southern Africa) and the Copper Inuit of the Arctic (North America). These hunter-gatherers live in environments that are not conducive to agriculture.
What Are Hunter-Gatherers of Recent Times Generally Like?
Based on the ethnographic data and cross-cultural comparisons, it is widely accepted (Textor 1967; Service 1979; Murdock and Provost 1973) that recent hunter-gatherer societies generally
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are fully or semi-nomadic.
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live in small communities.
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have low population densities.
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do not have specialized political officials.
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have little wealth differentiation.
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are economically specialized only by age and gender.
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usually divide labor by gender, with women gathering wild plants and men fishing and almost always doing the hunting.
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have animistic religions—that is, believe that all natural things have intentionality or a vital force that can affect humans (Peoples, Duda, and Marlowe 2016).
Complex Hunter-Gatherers
Not all hunter-gatherers conform to this list of traits. In fact, ethnographers of societies in the Pacific Coast of North America (largely northwestern U.S. and southwestern Canada) have given us a very different picture. These hunting-gathering societies, many of whom depended largely on fishing in their traditional economies, had larger communities, stationary villages, and social inequality. For a long time, many scholars thought of them as anomalous hunter-gatherers. But the picture is rapidly changing, largely as a result of archaeological research on the Upper Paleolithic period, prior to the emergence of agriculture. During this period hunter-gatherers in many areas of the globe appear to have developed inequality. Such complex hunter-gatherers were found in North America in the Interior Northwest Plateau, the Canadian Arctic, and the American Southeast, as well as in South America, the Caribbean, Japan, parts of Australia, northern Eurasia, and the Middle East (Sassaman 2004, 228). Archaeologists infer inequality from the presence of prestige items such as ornamental jewelry, or major differences in burials indicative of “rich” and “poor” individuals (Hayden and Villeneuve 2011, 124–6).
Complex hunter-gatherer societies, in contrast to simpler hunter-gatherers generally have the following traits (Hayden and Villeneuve 2011, 334–35):
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higher population densities (.2 to 10 people per square mile)
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fully sedentary or seasonally sedentary communities
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more complex sociopolitical organization primarily based on economic production
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significant socioeconomic differences
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some private ownership of resources and individual storage
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competitive displays and feasts
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elites try to control access to the supernatural
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while almost all hunter-gatherers have some kind of astronomical system, complex hunter gatherer groups generally exhibit some solstice observation or calendars.
Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods
In a number of ways, childhood in hunter-gatherer societies appears to be more relaxed and easy-going compared with most food-producers. And, hunter-gatherer children appear to receive more warmth and affection from parents (Rohner 1975, 97–105).
Children in hunting and gathering societies generally have fewer chores assigned to them, such as subsistence work and baby-tending, compared with other societies (Ember and Cunnar 2015). This means that kids have more time to play and explore their environment. But play does not mean that children are not learning about subsistence. In fact, much of their play involves playing at doing what adults do—boys often “hunt” with miniature bows and arrows and girls commonly “gather” and “cook.” In some hunter-gatherer groups, a lot of real work goes on with these activities. For example, Crittenden and colleagues (2013) report that among the Hadza of Tanzania, children 5 years of age and younger may be getting half their food on their own and by 6 years of age, 75 percent of their food. At 3, boys receive their first small bow and arrow and hunt for little animals. Perhaps to the amazement of many parents in North America, children as young as 4 build fires and cook meals on their own in their childhood groups. Kids in many hunter-gatherer groups do not do as much as the Hadza though, perhaps because other environments in other places are more dangerous. Dangers may include the presence of large predators, little water, or few recognizable features to help children find their way back home. Children also learn more directly from parents when they accompany them on trips—watching, participating when they can, and receiving explicit instruction. Hunting is one of the most difficult skills to learn and usually requires more direct instruction (Lew-Levy et al. 2017).
Sharing with others is widely agreed to be an important hunter-gatherer value which parents begin to instill as early as infancy; later this teaching is taken up by older children. In some groups, teaching to share begins as early as 6 weeks to 6 months (Lew-Levy et al. 2018).
Why are hunter-gatherer parents generally more affectionate? Ronald Rohner’s (1975, 97–105) research suggests that warmth toward children is more likely when a mother has help in childcare. In the case of hunter-gatherers, fathers are generally much more engaged in infant care compared to food-producing fathers (Marlowe 2000; Hewlett and Macfarlan 2010). If fathers or other caretakers provide help, mothers may be less stressed (Rohner 1975). Fathers providing help is consistent with the fact that hunter-gatherer husbands and wives are more likely to engage in all kinds of activities together—eating together, working together, and sleeping together (Hewlett and Macfarlan 2010). Leisure time may also help explain more affection expressed toward children. Leisure time generally decreases with increasing societal complexity, and parents with little leisure time may be more irritable and short-tempered (Ember and Ember 2019, 60).
Of course, the fact that hunter-gatherer children have more time to play does not mean that parents are not active teachers. In a study of hunter-gatherer social learning, Garfield, Garfield and Hewlett (2016) report that teaching by parents or the older generation is the main form of learning about subsistence. Parents do more teaching in early childhood; other elders do more in later childhood. Teaching religious beliefs and practices is more common in adolescence and is often undertaken by the larger community.
Some research suggests that hunter-gatherers place different emphases on valued traits for children to acquire. Compared to food producers, hunter-gatherers are less likely to stress obedience and responsibility in child training and are more likely to stress independence, self-reliance, and achievement (Barry, Child, and Bacon (1959); Hendrix (1985) finds that high hunting is particularly associated with high achievement). Why? Barry, Child, and Bacon argue that child training is adaptive for different subsistence needs. Food producers depend on food accumulation for the long-run, and mistakes made in subsistence are very risky. In contrast, if hunter-gatherers make mistakes, the effects are short-lived, but gains in inventiveness could provide long-term benefits.
Other Hunter-Gatherer Differences
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Marriages amongst hunter-gatherers are much more likely to be with unrelated individuals or distantly related kin compared with food producers (horticulturalists and agro-pastoralists) who more frequently marry closely-related individuals (Walker 2014; Walker and Bailey 2014). In general, hunter-gatherer groups have low levels of relatedness (Hill et al. 2011).
Why? It is theorized that nomadic populations may need a wider network of kin who might be able to provide residential options in times of fluctuating resources.
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The songs of hunter-gatherers are less wordy and characterized by more nonwords, repetition, and relaxed enunciation (Lomax 1968, 117–28).
Why? As discussed further in the Arts module, Lomax theorizes that songs reflect the way people in a society work. In less complex societies people learn by observation and gradual instruction, and therefore explicit verbal instruction is not needed.
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Hunter-gatherer languages rarely have the sounds “F” and “V” in their languages contrasted with agriculturalists (Blasi et al. 2019).
Why? The researchers find evidence supporting the theory that “F” and “V” sounds emerged with the transition to agriculture, probably because of dietary changes to softer foods. Softer foods lead to the teeth formation most of us are used to—the top front teeth come down in front of the bottom front teeth when the mouth is closed. However, harder foods that hunter-gatherers traditionally ate prevented this overbite; the edge of the top teeth simply met with the edge of the bottom teeth. The “F” and “V” sounds are hard to produce without an overbite.
Are Hunter-Gatherers More Peaceful Than Food Producers?
It is widely agreed that, compared to food producers, hunter-gatherers fight less (Ember and Ember 1997). But why? Perhaps it is because in contrast to food producers, hunter-gatherers are less prone to resource unpredictability, famines, and food shortages (Textor 1967; Ember and Ember 1997, 10; Berbesque et al. 2014). And resource unpredictability is a major predictor of increased warfare in the ethnographic record (Ember and Ember 1992, 1997).
But fighting less than food producers does not necessarily mean that hunter-gatherers are typically peaceful. For example, Ember (1978) reported that most hunter-gatherers engaged in warfare at least every two years. But another study found that warfare was rare or absent among most hunter-gatherers (Lenski and Lenski 1978; reported in Nolan 2003).
Why are there these contradictory answers to the question about the peacefulness of hunter-gatherers?
How we define terms will affect the outcome of a cross-cultural study. When asking if hunter-gatherers are typically peaceful, for example, researchers will get different results depending upon what they mean by peaceful, how they define hunter-gatherers, and whether they have excluded societies forced to stop fighting (that is, pacified) by colonial powers or national governments in their analyses.
Most researchers contrast war and peace. If the researcher views peace as the absence of war, then the answer to whether hunter-gatherers are more peaceful than food producers depends on the definition of war. Anthropologists agree that war in smaller-scale societies needs to be defined differently from war in nation-states that have armed forces and large numbers of casualties. Also, within-community or purely individual acts of violence are nearly always distinguished from warfare. However, there is controversy about what to call different types of socially organized violence between communities. For example, Fry (2006, 88, 172–74) does not consider feuding between communities warfare, but Ember and Ember (1992) do.
In the warfare section below, we discuss predictors of variation in warfare amongst hunter-gatherers.
How and Why do Hunter-Gatherers Vary?
Hunter-gatherers vary in many ways, but cross-cultural research has focused on variations in the environment and types of subsistence, contributions to the diet by gender, marital residence, the degree of nomadism, and the frequency and type of warfare.
Variation in Environment and Subsistence Practices
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The closer to the equator, the higher the effective temperature, or the more plant biomass, the more hunter-gatherers depend upon gathering rather than hunting or fishing (Lee and DeVore 1968, 42–43; Kelly 1995, 70; Binford 1990, 132).
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The lower the effective temperature, the more hunter-gatherers rely on fishing (Binford 1990, 134).
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As the growing season lengthens, hunter-gatherers are more likely to be fully nomadic (Binford 1990, 131).
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In New Guinea, foragers with a high dependence on fishing tend to have higher population density and large settlements. Some of the foragers in New Guinea with a high dependence on fishing have densities of 40 or more people/square km and settlements of over 1000 people (Roscoe 2006).
Division Of Labor By Gender
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Males contribute more to the diet the lower the effective temperature or the higher the latitude (Kelly 1995, 262; Marlowe 2005, 56). As we saw above, gathering is a more important subsistence activity closer to the equator. Since gathering is more often women’s work, and hunting more often men’s work, this may account for the relationship.
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In higher quality environments (with more plant growth), men are more likely to share gathering tasks with women. Greater division of labor by gender occurs in lower quality environments (Marlowe 2007).
Marital Residence
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Amongst hunter-gatherers, how much males and females contribute to primary production predicts rules of marital residence—more specifically, when male contribution is high, patrilocal residence is likely; when not that high, matrilocal residence is likely.
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Not surprisingly, the more a foraging society depends upon gathering, the more likely the society is to be matrilocal. The more dependent upon fishing, the more likely a society is to be patrilocal. However, degree of dependence on hunting does not predict marital residence (Ember 1975).
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This finding is contrary to the general worldwide trend when all types of subsistence economies are considered—gender contribution to subsistence does not generally predict marital residence (Ember and Ember 1971; Divale 1974; Ember 1975). Why hunter-gathering societies are different is not clear.
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Bilocal residence, where couples can live with either set of relatives (in contrast to matrilocal or patrilocal residence), is predicted by small (under 50) community size, high rainfall variability, and recent drastic population loss (Ember 1975).
Why? The finding regarding population loss is consistent with previous findings from a broader study (Ember and Ember 1972) which tested Service’s (1962, 137) theory that drastic loss from introduced diseases made it necessary for couples to live with whoever was alive (Ember and Ember 1972). High rainfall variability is an indicator of resource unpredictability. Theory suggests that residential movement is a way to flexibly adapt to variability of resources over time—couples can move to places that have more abundance (Ember 1975). Finally, when communities are very small, the ratio of marriageable males to marriageable females can fluctuate greatly. Following a unilocal residence rule might mean that all marriageable men have to leave if residence were matrilocal, or all marriageable women would have to leave if residence were patrilocal. Small communities would not be able to maintain a consistent size. Bilocality allows flexibility.
Territoriality
- Hunter-gatherers with richer environments are more likely to make territorial claims over land (Baker 2003).
Warfare
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Hunter-gatherers with higher population densities have more warfare than those with lower population densities. Similarly, more complex hunter-gatherer societies have more warfare than simpler hunter-gatherers (Nolan 2003, 26; Kelly 2000, 51–52; Fry 2006, 106).
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Hunter-gatherers with a high dependence on fishing are more likely to have internal warfare than external warfare (Ember 1975).
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Amongst prehistoric hunter-gatherers in central California, resource scarcity predicts more violence as indicated by sharp force skeletal trauma in burial sites (Allen et al. 2016). This parallels worldwide research on a sample including all subsistence types that finds that unpredictable food-destroying disasters is a major predictor of higher warfare frequency (Ember and Ember 1992).
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Among foragers, as in other societies, patrilocal residence is predicted by internal (within society) warfare or a high male contribution to subsistence; matrilocality is predicted by a combination of purely external warfare and a high female contribution to subsistence (Ember 1975).
What We Do Not Know
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Why do some foraging societies share more than others? Is meat consistently shared more than plants? Does sharing differ by gender?
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Why should division of labor predict residence amongst hunter-gatherers, but not among food-producing cultures? (See Ember 1975)
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Do foragers with a high dependence on fishing tend to have higher population density and large settlements, as is the case in New Guinea? (See Roscoe 2006)
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How different are foragers with a little agriculture from those who lack agriculture?
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Are foragers with horses more like pastoralists than foragers lacking horses?
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How do complex hunter-gatherers differ from simpler hunter-gatherers in the ways we have discussed here—child-rearing values, marital residence, subsistence strategies, division of labor, etc.
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What predicts the emergence of hunter-gatherer complexity?
Exercises Using eHRAF World Cultures
Explore some texts in eHRAF World Cultures individually or as part of classroom assignments. See the Teaching eHRAF Exercise 1.22 for suggestions.
Credits
Photo Credits: San firestarters, photo by Ian sewell CC by 2.5. Copper Inuit spearing salmon, photo by Diamond Jenness available in the Canadian Museum of History collection, CC by 4.0. Tlingit Chief in Alaska, photo by Dmitry Pichugin via Shutterstock, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections Division. Hadza children around a fire, via EcoPrint/Shutterstock. San gathered together, photo by AinoTuominen via pixabay. Hadza with bow and arrow, photo by alexstrachan via pixabay.
Citation
The summary should be cited as:
Carol R. Ember. 2020. “Hunter-Gatherers” in C. R. Ember, ed. Explaining Human Culture. Human Relations Area Files, http://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/hunter-gatherers, accessed [give date].
Glossary
- Bilocal residence
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A pattern in which married couples live with or near the wife’s or the husband’s parents with about equal frequency
- Ethnographic record
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What is known from descriptions written by observers, usually anthropologists, who have lived in and carried out fieldwork on a culture in the present and recent past
- Matrilocal residence
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A pattern in which couples typically live with or near the wife’s parents
- Multilocal residence
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A pattern in which married couples may be bilocal or unilocal with a frequent alternative
- Patrilocal residence
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A pattern in which married couples typically live with or near the husband’s parents
- Unilocal residence
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A pattern in which married couples live with or near one specified set of relatives (patrilocal, matrilocal, or avunculocal)
Additional Cross-Cultural Studies of Hunter-Gatherers
Collard, Mark, Briggs Buchanan, Michael J. O’Brien, and Jonathan Scholnick. (2013). Risk, mobility or population size? Drivers of technological richness among contact-period western North American hunter–gatherers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1630: 20120412.
Freeman, Jacob, and John M. Anderies. (2015). The socioecology of hunter–gatherer territory size." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 39: 110-123.
Halperin, Rhonda H. (1980). Ecology and mode of production: Seasonal variation and the division of labor by sex among hunter-gatherers. Journal of Anthropological Research 36, 379-399.
Korotayev, Andrey V. & Alexander A. Kazankov (2003). Factors of sexual freedom among foragers in cross-cultural perspective. Cross-Cultural Research 37: 29-61.Langley, Michelle, and Mirani Litster. (2018). Is it ritual? Or is it children?: distinguishing consequences of play from ritual actions in the prehistoric archaeological record. Current Anthropology 59(5):616-643).
Lozoff, Betsy and Gary Brittenham (1979). Infant care: Cache or carry. The Journal of Pediatrics 95, 478-483.
Marlowe, Frank W. (2003). The mating system of foragers in the standard cross-cultural sample. Cross-Cultural Research 37, 282-306.
Thompson, Barton. (2016). Sense of place among hunter-gatherers. Cross-Cultural Research 50, no. 4 (2016): 283-324.
References
Allen, Mark W., Robert Lawrence Bettinger, Brian F. Codding, Terry L. Jones, and Al W. Schwitalla. 2016. “Resource Scarcity Drives Lethal Aggression Among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers in Central California.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (43): 12120–5. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607996113.
Baker, Matthew J. 2003. “An Equilibrium Conflict Model of Land Tenure in Hunter-Gatherer Societies.” Journal of Political Economy 111 (1): 124–73. https://doi.org/10.1086/344800.
Barry, Herbert, III, Irvin L. Child, and Margaret K. Bacon. 1959. “Relation of Child Training to Subsistence Economy.” American Anthropologist 61 (1): 51–63. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1959.61.1.02a00080.
Berbesque, J. Colette, Frank W. Marlowe, Peter Shaw, and Peter Thompson. 2014. “Hunter–Gatherers Have Less Famine Than Agriculturalists.” Biology Letters 10 (1): 20130853. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0853.
Binford, Lewis R. 1990. “Mobility, Housing, and Environment: A Comparative Study.” Journal of Anthropological Research 46 (2): 119–52. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.46.2.3630069.
Blasi, Damián E., Steven Moran, Scott R. Moisik, Paul Widmer, Dan Dediu, and Balthasar Bickel. 2019. “Human Sound Systems Are Shaped by Post-Neolithic Changes in Bite Configuration.” Science 363 (6432): eaav3218. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav3218.
Crittenden, Alyssa N., Nancy L. Conklin-Brittain, David A. Zes, Margaret J. Schoeninger, and Frank W. Marlowe. 2013. “Juvenile Foraging Among the Hadza: Implications for Human Life History.” Evolution and Human Behavior 34 (4): 299–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.04.004.
Divale, William Tulio. 1974. “The Causes of Matrilocal Residence: A Cross-Ethnohistorical Survey.”
Ember, Carol R. 1975. “Residential Variation Among Hunter-Gatherers.” Behavior Science Research 10 (3): 199–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/106939717501000302.
———. 1978. “Myths About Hunter-Gatherers.” Ethnology 17 (4): 439–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/3773193.
Ember, Carol R., and Christiane M. Cunnar. 2015. “Children’s Play and Work: The Relevance of Cross-Cultural Ethnographic Research for Archaeologists.” Childhood in the Past 8 (2): 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1179/1758571615Z.00000000031.
Ember, Carol R., and Melvin Ember. 1972. “The Conditions Favoring Multilocal Residence.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 28 (4): 382–400. https://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.28.4.3629318.
———. 1992. “Resource Unpredictability, Mistrust, and War: A Cross-Cultural Study.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (2): 242–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002792036002002.
———. 1997. “Violence in the Ethnographic Record: Results of Cross-Cultural Research on War and Aggression.” In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Debra L. Martin and David W. Frayer, 3:1–20. Gordon and Breach.
———. 2019. Cultural Anthropology. Pearson.
Ember, Melvin, and Carol R. Ember. 1971. “The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal Residence.” American Anthropologist 73 (3): 571–94. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1971.73.3.02a00040.
Fry, Douglas. 2006. The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions About War and Violence. Oxford University Press.
Garfield, Zachary H., Melissa J. Garfield, and Barry S. Hewlett. 2016. “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Hunter-Gatherer Social Learning.” In Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers, edited by Hideaki Terashima and Barry S. Hewlett, 19–34. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_2.
Hayden, Brian, and Suzanne Villeneuve. 2011. “Astronomy in the Upper Palaeolithic?” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21 (3): 331–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774311000400.
Hendrix, Lewellyn. 1985. “Economy and Child Training Reexamined.” Ethos 13 (3): 246–61. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1985.13.3.02a00030.
Hewlett, Barry S., and Shane J. Macfarlan. 2010. “Fathers’ Roles in Hunter-Gatherer and Other Small-Scale Cultures.” In The Role of the Father in Child Development, edited by Michael E. Lamb, 5:413–34. John Wiley & Sons.
Hill, Kim R., Robert S. Walker, Miran Božičević, James Eder, Thomas Headland, Barry Hewlett, A. Magdalena Hurtado, Frank Marlowe, Polly Wiessner, and Brian Wood. 2011. “Co-Residence Patterns in Hunter-Gatherer Societies Show Unique Human Social Structure.” Science 331 (6022): 1286–9. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199071.
Hitchcock, Robert K., and Megan Beisele. 2000. “Introduction.” In Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World: Conflict, Resistance, and Self-Determinations, 1–10. Berghahn Books.
Kelly, Raymond C. 2000. Warless Societies and the Origin of War. The University of Michigan Press.
Kelly, Robert L. 1995. The Foraging Spectrum. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Kramer, Karen L., and Russell D. Greaves. 2016. “Diversity or Replace. What Happens to Wild Foods When Cultigens Are Introduced into Hunter–Gatherer Diets.” In Why Forage, 15–42. School for Advanced Research.
Lee, Richard B., and Irven DeVore. 1968. Man the Hunter. Aldine Publishing Company.
Lenski, Gerhard, and Jean Lenski. 1978. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. McGraw-Hill.
Lew-Levy, Sheina, Noa Lavi, Rachel Reckin, Jurgi Cristóbal-Azkarate, and Kate Ellis-Davies. 2018. “How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Social and Gender Norms? A Meta-Ethnographic Review.” Cross-Cultural Research 52 (2): 213–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397117723552.
Lew-Levy, Sheina, Rachel Reckin, Noa Lavi, Jurgi Cristóbal-Azkarate, and Kate Ellis-Davies. 2017. “How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?” Human Nature 28 (4): 367–94.
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Marlowe, Frank W. 2005. “Hunter-Gatherers and Human Evolution.” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 14 (2): 56–67. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.20046.
———. 2007. “Hunting and Gathering: The Human Sexual Division of Foraging Labor.” Cross-Cultural Research 41 (2): 170–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397106297529.
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Nolan, Patrick. 2003. “Toward an Ecological-Evolutionary Theory of the Incidence of Warfare in Preindustrial Societies.” Soociological Theory 21 (1): 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9558.00172.
Peoples, Hervey C., Pavel Duda, and Frank W. Marlowe. 2016. “Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion.” Human Nature 27 (3): 261–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-016-9260-0.
Rohner, Ronald P. 1975. They Love Me, They Love Me Not: A Worldwide Study of the Effects of Parental Acceptance and Rejection. HRAF Press.
Roscoe, Paul. 2006. “Fish, Game, and the Foundations of Complexity in Forager Society: The Evidence from New Guinea.” Cross-Cultural Research 4 (1): 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397105282432.
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https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/
Hunter-Gatherers
Hunter-gatherers were prehistoric nomadic groups that harnessed the use of fire, developed intricate knowledge of plant life and refined technology for hunting and domestic purposes as they spread from Africa to Asia, Europe and beyond.
From African hominins of 2 million years ago to modern-day Homo sapiens, the evolution of humans can be traced through what the hunter-gatherers left behind—tools and settlements that teach us about the hunter-gatherer diet and way of life of early humans. Although hunting and gathering societies largely died out with the onset of the Neolithic Revolution, hunter-gatherer communities still endure in a few parts of the world.
Who Were the Hunter-Gatherers?
Hunter-gatherer culture developed among the early hominins of Africa, with evidence of their activities dating as far back as 2 million years ago. Among their distinguishing characteristics, the hunter-gatherers actively killed animals for food instead of scavenging meat left behind by other predators and devised ways of setting aside vegetation for consumption at a later date.
The culture accelerated with the appearance of Homo erectus (1.9 million years ago), whose larger brain and shorter digestive system reflected the increased consumption of meat. Additionally, these were the first hominins built for long-distance walking, pushing nomadic tribes into Asia and Europe.
Hunting and gathering remained a way of life for Homo heidelbergensis (700,000 to 200,000 years ago), the first humans to adapt to colder climates and routinely hunt large animals, through the Neanderthals (400,000 to 40,000 years ago), who developed more sophisticated technology.
It also spanned most of the existence of Homo sapiens, dating from the first anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago, to the transition to permanent agricultural communities around 10,000 B.C.
Hunter-Gatherer Tools and Technology
The early hunter-gatherers used simple tools. During the Stone Age, sharpened stones were used for cutting before hand-axes were developed, marking the onset of Acheulean technology about 1.6 million years ago.
Controlled use of fire for cooking and warding off predators marked a crucial turning point in the early history of these groups, though debate remains as to when this was accomplished. Use of hearths dates back almost 800,000 years ago, and other findings point to controlled heating as far back as 1 million years ago.
Evidence of fire exists at early Homo erectus sites, including 1.5 million-year-old Koobi Fora in Kenya, though these may be the remains of wildfires. Fire enabled hunter-gatherers to stay warm in colder temperatures, cook their food (preventing some diseases caused by consumption of raw foods like meat) and scare wild animals that might otherwise take their food or attack their camps.
After Homo heidelbergensis, who developed wooden and then stone-tipped spears for hunting, Neanderthals introduced refined stone technology and the first bone tools. Early Homo sapiens continued to develop more specialized hunting techniques by inventing fishhooks, the bow and arrow, harpoons and more domestic tools like bone and ivory needles. These more specialized tools enabled them to widen their diet and create more effective clothing and shelter as they moved about in search of food.
Hunter-Gatherer Diet
From their earliest days, the hunter-gatherer diet included various grasses, tubers, fruits, seeds and nuts. Lacking the means to kill larger animals, they procured meat from smaller game or through scavenging.
As their brains evolved, hominids developed more intricate knowledge of edible plant life and growth cycles. Examination of the Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov site in Israel, which housed a thriving community almost 800,000 years ago, revealed the remains of 55 different food plants, along with evidence of fish consumption.
With the introduction of spears at least 500,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers became capable of tracking larger prey to feed their groups. Modern humans were cooking shellfish by 160,000 years ago, and by 90,000 years ago they were developing the specialized fishing tools that enabled them to haul in larger aquatic life.
Hunting and Gathering Society
Studies of modern-day hunter-gatherers offer a glimpse into the lifestyle of small, nomadic tribes dating back almost 2 million years ago.
With limited resources, these groups were egalitarian by nature, scraping up enough food to survive and fashioning basic shelter for all. Division of labor by gender became more pronounced with the advancement of hunting techniques, particularly for larger game.
Along with cooking, controlled use of fire fostered societal growth through communal time around the hearth. Physiological evolution also led to changes, with the bigger brains of more recent ancestors leading to longer periods of childhood and adolescence.
By the time of the Neanderthals, hunter-gatherers were displaying such “human” characteristics as burying their dead and creating ornamental objects. Homo sapiens continued fostering more complex societies. By 130,000 years ago, they were interacting with other groups based nearly 200 miles away.
Where Did The Hunter-Gatherers Live?
Early hunter-gatherers moved as nature dictated, adjusting to proliferation of vegetation, the presence of predators or deadly storms. Basic, impermanent shelters were established in caves and other areas with protective rock formations, as well as in open-air settlements where possible.
Hand-built shelters likely date back to the time of Homo erectus, though one of the earliest known constructed settlements, from 400,000 years ago in Terra Amata, France, is attributed to Homo heidelbergensis.
By 50,000 years ago, huts made from wood, rock and bone were becoming more common, fueling a shift to semi-permanent residencies in areas with abundant resources. The remains of man’s first known year-round shelters, discovered at the Ohalo II site in Israel, date back at least 23,000 years.
Neolithic Revolution to Modern Day
With favorable conditions supporting permanent communities in areas such as the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent and the domestication of animals and plants, the agriculture-based Neolithic Revolution began approximately 12,000 years ago.
The full-time transition from hunting and gathering wasn’t immediate, as humans needed time to develop proper agricultural methods and the means for combating diseases encountered through close proximity to livestock. Success in that area fueled the growth of early civilizations in Mesopotamia, China and India and by 1500 A.D., most populations were relying on domesticated food sources.
Modern-day hunter-gatherers endure in various pockets around the globe. Among the more famous groups are the San, a.k.a. the Bushmen, of southern Africa and the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, known to fiercely resist all contact with the outside world.
Sources
The First Hunter-gatherers. Oxford Handbooks Online.
What Does it
Mean to be Human? Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers). Human Relations Area Files.
The Case
Against Civilization. The New Yorker.
https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/hunter-gatherers
Sex-Based Roles Gave Modern Humans an Edge
A division of labor according to sex and age gave modern humans an advantage over Neandertals, a new study says.
The emergence of "female labor roles" played an important role in human evolutionary history, because it allowed early-human hunter-gatherer societies to draw on more food resources and live in larger communities, researchers say.
It may help explain why the Neandertals who occupied Europe until modern humans arrived some 45,000 years ago, went extinct.
"The competitive advantage enjoyed by modern humans came not just from new weapons and devices but from the ways in which their economic lives were organized around … roles for men, women, and children," said Steven Kuhn, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Out of Africa
Some research has suggested that the practice of dividing labor according to sex dates back as far as two million years. But the new study suggests the changes didn't occur until the upper Paleolithic period, which lasted from about 45,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago.
"We argue that the typical patterns of labor division emerged relatively recently in human evolutionary history," Kuhn said.
At sites dating back to the upper Paleolithic, researchers have found evidence of an emergence of skill-intensive crafts, such as bone awls and needles used to make clothes. They have also found small animal and bird remains.
As in hunter-gatherer societies of the recent past, men likely hunted large animals while women gathered small game and plants, enabling a more efficient use of available food sources.
When small game and plant foods were scarce, women and older children were often involved in other vital activities, such as producing clothing and shelter.
The researchers say this division of labor between sexes is likely to have arisen in a tropical environment.
It was a crucial evolutionary moment for modern humans and may have facilitated the spread of modern humans throughout Eurasia after leaving Africa some 60,000 years ago, the researchers say.
The scientists point out in their study that gender roles were not always the same in early-human cultures, and there's nothing that predisposes either sex toward certain kinds of work.
"That women sometimes become successful hunters and men become gatherers means that the universal tendency to divide subsistence labor be gender is not solely the result of innate physical or psychological differences between the sexes; much of it has to be learned," the authors write.
Big Game Hunt
The importance of specialized tasks is something the Neandertals apparently never learned.
Ancient Neandertal sites provide little evidence for any reliance on subsistence foods, such as milling stones to grind nuts and seeds. Instead, the Neandertals, who lived in Europe from about 250,000 years ago until they disappeared about 30,000 years ago, preyed almost exclusively on large animals like bison, deer, and wild horses.
"This would have been a fragile system," the authors write. "In flush times, Neandertals would have lived high on the hog (or the red deer), but they may have lacked the kind of diversified resource base and labor network … needed to buffer them from major population losses in lean times."
Female skeletons found at Neandertal sites, like those of their male counterparts, have been shown to be robustly built, sometimes featuring healed fractures. This suggests that the women didn't stay at home but joined the men in the often dangerous practice of hunting large game.
Wesley Niewoehner, "I've always been impressed by the observation that female Neandertal hand bones indicate that their hands were just as powerful as those of male Neandertals," he said.
"This indicates to me that female Neandertals were doing things with their hands that required significant physical force."
"Whether this fact means that female Neandertals were performing the same tasks as their male counterparts, or they were simply performing different tasks that required the same amount of force, is up for debate," he said.
"Nevertheless, this line of evidence does support an interpretation that the Neandertal sexual division of labor, or lack thereof, may have been fundamentally different from the division of labor in modern-human groups."
No Silver Bullet
(this page disappeared from the internet some years ago and the theory is in decline)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html
https://defenceforumindia.com/threads/hello-idf.67300/page-7
https://www.whiteplainspublicschools.org/cms/lib/NY01000029/Centricity/Domain/353/Hunters%20and%20Gatherers%20The%20Paleolithic%20Era.docx
