Hunter Gatherer vs Agri
(20 posts) (10 voices)-
Sir Grandma
MemberI was watching clips from the BBC tribe on youtube last night. I caught an interesting tid bit. When speaking of one African H/G tribe they said that in the typical H/G society adults need to spend 3-4 hours per day to meet their basic needs. In contrast when they spoke about Agricultural societies they spoke of the dawn to dusk toil in the fields.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Tarlach
MemberAgriculturalists also have a lot of common basic needs to HGs that would need to be done all year around. Dwelling building and maintenance, firewood collection, water collection, etc.
They also can't move when things get bad, so may also have to work in worse conditions.Posted 5 months ago # -
Geoff
MemberI suppose this all begs the question: Why did agricultural societies become the worldwide paradigm? No, I'm not going to defend agriculture, but it is worth considering why it so quickly became the dominant social paradigm. Humans are generally pretty smart, and their inventions don't usually sweep the world and last for millenia if they aren't superior to what preceeded them. Surely the agri model must have been superior to H/G in some respect. Again, not a defense of agriculture or a suggestion that it's been good for us. It just seems odd that something that requires more labor and more capital, and yet reduced social flexibility would be seen as a superior cultural model.
Posted 5 months ago # -
OnTheBayou
MemberI think some of the answer, Geoff, is that it didn't happen in a generation. We have the benefit of looking backwards and seeing a big picture over many thousands of years. The participants of early agriculture only knew what they were experiencing. Their was no A vs. B, only A.
One theory as to "Why" is that big game was pretty much gone and that the early neolithics got to supplement their now small game diets with grown foods. And they could store many of them.
Posted 5 months ago # -
hannahc
MemberWell the feudal system was widespread across Europe for centuries...so since the agricultural system allowed some people to rise to power and control masses rather than small tribal groups, could that be one of the reasons it stuck? I know there are smaller agricultural groups too, but think of the super powers that were built on agriculture, like Egypt during the time of the pharoes.
Maybe it's all about power? Doesn't sound too far fetched to me anyway.
Posted 5 months ago # -
We were always taught in school that agriculture created a surplus which gave rise to civilization. But if it created a surplus you would think that it would free up more time than being strictly H/G. I think a stationary agri way of life would be much more conducive to civilization. Think about cultural past times... you can't pack up an arena and move it with you anywhere.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Geoff
MemberMakes sense. Though when I write "swep the world" in reference to agriculture, naturally I'm using that phrase in the same evolutionary sense that we speak of grains being "suddenly and rapidly" introduced to our diet. Not in a single generation, but in a very compressed timeframe compared to our species's evolutionary history.
I'm no antropologist, but I tend to agree with your "supplement" notion. Seems nomadic groups might have started leveraging their knowledge of when and where wild plants produced edible crops by planting their seeds in spring as they followed migratory patterns knowing that the ripened crop would then be there when they returned in autumn. The storage factor you mention would probably also have been a strong "selling point" (assuming they could prevent spoilage and vermin infestation - domesticated cats, anyone?).
It's the move from H/G supplemented by opportunistic agriculture to full time grain-based farming communities that surprises me. Sure 12-14 hours hard labor in a field is preferable to starvation, but why switch to farming grains instead of staying nomadic and herding food animals? There's got to be some reason it was thought to be the best option. Maybe it was because land suitable for farming could support a higher human population per acre than it could in the H/G or herdsman mode? As farming communities grew in size a sort of negative feedback loop may have started: bigger population requires more food requires more farming which requires more population which requires.....
Of course my brainstorming is simply making agriculture sound like one of those "Seemed like a good idea at the time..." things. Any anthropologists on board here who could enlighten me?
Posted 5 months ago # -
OnTheBayou
Member"Seemed like a good idea at the time..." LOL!
I wonder, too, if the flat bottomlands and flooding of the Nile and Tigris and Euphrates rivers were factors to rip some of them native vegetation up, or even that wild grains were already flourishing on the river banks. By then "we" had figured out how to pulverize the seeds and them cook them, probably.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I have an undergraduate degree in anthropology & have to admit that it's puzzled me for years why humans developed agriculture, so I've given it a lot of thought. Archaeology seems to find h/g sites and full-blown ag sites, but not much in the way of "transitional" old world sites, which is what we really need to find. But that always seems to be the case.
Anyway, ag first developed 10,000 years ago in the Near East and spread slowly, arriving in Britain, Ireland, Scandanavia something like 6,000 - 7,000 years later (4,000 - 3,0000 years ago). So, that's pretty recent. I don't know the rate of spread East, though. In the New World, central America was the site of first development of agriculture around 7,000 years ago, I think. It took a long time to spread, too, to its northern limits, arriving in the New England area about 1,000 years ago. Again, not long ago.
There was backsliding in both Europe and the Americas, too. The Dakota/Lakota people were once agriculturalists and went back to full nomadic life once the horse was introduced. There's evidence from Britain, too, that some peoples abandoned agriculture & went back to h/g lifestyles. In the Amazon, too, this probably happened but this is something that's only just now being investigated. Many of those tribes may have abandoned ag. once Europeans came & hid in the jungle reverting back to more h/g ways.
Why did it happen? Many h/g societies really have seasonal camps, they don't move all the time. So it needn't have been a completely different way of life for them - suddenly settled as opposed to continually roaming. New England Native Americans practiced this kind of settlement pattern. Plant crops here & let them grow & everyone goes to the fishing camp. Go back to the village by the fields when it's close to harvest time. Sometimes old people would stay to kind of guard the crops. Not full-time, in one place always kind of a deal. So this kind of "slipping" into permanent settlements could have easily happened.
Powerful people could have been involved, too. Pre-literate societies have great speakers and usually it's one of the thinkgs that distinguishes a leader. Think bards in ancient Ireland or Native American speakers. Being very persuasive is what got you to the top in ancient societies. All that it would take would be one very powerful person to see the potential and be able to promote it. Give it some spiritual spin (powerful dream, vision, etc) and it could be very persuasive in some cultural contexts.
And we all know the power of culture, don't we? In just one generation we've gone from "carbs make you fat" to "fat makes you fat", right? That didn't take long! Try to argue against it & you know what happens. There could have been a lot of pressure to not go back to the old ways, even in times of starvation.
And, lastly, the plants. Don't underestimate the power of plants. They've been around a lot longer than us (most indigenous cultures refer to them as "grandmother/grandfather" beings) and they have their own "goals". By having us plant them in huge quantities they've really outcompeted many other plants if you want to look at it in evolutionary terms. Corn wins, I think. It's the most planted crop on the planet. As an interesting note, we've found the ancestors to all European grains but not corn. We really don't know where it comes from. Carbohydrates are also addictive. Not something to underestimate, either. Very addictive. Our whole culture is addicted to them right now. I'm sure it was the same in the past. Check out the conclusions discussed in here: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/ Eades goes over an archaeological paper where the authors contrast the same population over time - h/g and ag. Very interesting.
There's some long-winded thought for ya! It's not an easy problem to investigate.
Posted 5 months ago # -
CathyG
MemberWhat about division of labor to go along with that concentration of power idea? I am seeing people here mention how many hours are needed for each of the lifestyles, but not necessarily WHO is performing that labor. If you can get one person to work 12 hours, then several other people don't need to perform that work and are free to do something else, either creative or powerful.
Just a thought.Posted 5 months ago # -
In most h/g societies, they had a lot of free time. Instant example: the huge cultural outpouring of the Hopewell people of the Ohio Valley well before agricultural times (1500 yrs ago, I think? Too lazy to check!). They made tons of intricate artwork that was made only to be buried with the dead. Or even 30,000 years ago in the cave systems in France. Newest thing I heard about: dyed, plaited plant fibers probably for rope from about 20,000. Dying with plants takes some time.
Ag peoples had artisans but they probably also did some field work, too, or at least the women had gardens. They could always be paid in barter, too, very common even with a cash economy.
In every h/g culture there is strict division of labor: women do gathering, men do hunting, although not exculsively. In ag/horticultural societies, men do hunting, men (Europe) or women (Eastern Native American) may be the farmers, women usually do gardening (horticulture, like growing cassava). Women almost always do clothing, especially processing fibers and weaving (See 'Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years' for a full discussion of that. Fascinating book!). Men may shear the sheep but not always. Remember, whatever women do it has to be able to be done toting babies/kids. Women always have control over the kids. That's why women don't do a lot of hunting or "dangerous"/heavy work. Most ag. people worked a lot, regardless of gender.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Sir Grandma
MemberIt is not so different than today, people are willing to pay more for security. Being in control of where your next meal was coming from is powerful. Grains in particular brought the ability to store food for leaner times. Then once people start to posses "things" motivations change and standard of living increases. How long do each of us need to work to meet our basic needs. What are our basic needs, are cell phones, internet, cable, and cars part of our basic needs? We spend a lot of our time paying for those things. I think agriculture is attractive to people because it puts them in control.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I think that's true, Sir Grandma. Agriculture may have been presented as a solution to periodic food shortages. Although the acquiring of material goods for common people is extremely recent (last 150 years - Industrial Revolution). Most people were just getting by until then. Everyone's stores would be pretty slim by early spring. Even in the early to mid-1800's people were starving due to crop failure here in New England (or in Ireland the potato famines). I think it was pretty common before the "Green Revolution" (modern ag with its dependence on petrochemicals & fertilizer) to have crop failures on a regular basis.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Katt
MemberIn Nicholas Wade's book, Before the Dawn, he says that it is being found out that sedentism came /before/ agriculture. Agricultural was a by product, so his surmising, or the surmising of the people he is quoting, goes.
According to his research, H/G groups are limited in size and when the group became too large, it split. Partly because of the difficulty of getting that much food together for everyone, but also because agressive tensions built to large. But as man became less aggressive, he was able to settle in larger and larger groups. Cooperation and trade became the way to bring in food and supplies.
It may be that as people settled, the spilled grains of what wild seeds they gathered formed a haphazard garden, which they began to take advantage of. This seems to be the case at Catalhuyuk, at least from my understanding of the current research there by Ian Hodder. Once this became 'normal', it could conceivably begin to take up more and more time. Catalhuyuk seems to have been very egalitarian, but as farming becomes a way of life, agricultural societies eventually end up with leaders, overseers and an elite class forms.
A good book to check out for what was happening in the Americas is 1491.
Posted 5 months ago #
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