Anthropocentrism : The Five Strategies Of Subcentrism In Our Society

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

Introduction: The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications.

As plants became larger and unable to survive in the wild as a result of humans, the plants became solely reliant on human assistance to survive, as did humans on the plants. The consistent practice of farming domesticated grains was able to provide a supply of food that, in turn, “. . . provided the basis for new lifestyles and far more complex societies.” Furthermore, because domesticated cereal grains were able to supply exorbitant amounts of food, cultures and civilizations were built around and “. . . relied on a range of foods, but the most important were the cereals . . . .” In the grand scheme of the world, civilizations, such as the Mayan and Aztec, were built upon the basis of farming domesticated grains like maize because of the criticality of cereal grains. This deliberate process of domesticating grains led to the domestication of animals starting around 8000 B.C., and both are practices that continue today. The domestication processes have taken a strong hold on the human diet of the modern world and are considered staples to many of its inhabitants because of its effect on mankind. Although domesticated grains provided a new mean of food production, cooking is also played a role in human

The main idea of Howell’s arguments about the Neolithic Revolution is that the adoption of agriculture is beneficial because hunting life makes nature in control of humans. Nature controls the limit on animals and plants. When it reaches its limit in a given place, humans are forced to move to survive. Nature requires humans to spread themselves out across the land and limit the number of people they band themselves with to not use all the natural resources in short amount of time. Moreover, the limited resources cause groups to kill off the young, sick, and elderly to lower the amount of humans exploiting the land. As a result of isolation amongst each other, humans rarely become civilized or social and the sexual division of labour does not change. As a result of agriculture, food is domesticated and grown rather than gathered. Also, humans are able to create civilizations with hundreds of people.

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”

In a period of complete change beknownst to us as the Neolithic Revolution, some groups of nomads deserted their “normal” way of life and began to settle down in villages and use agrarian methods to make a living for themselves. Two examples would be the Chumash of Southern California and the San of South Africa. Although the Chumash and the San both led a gathering and hunting way of life, they are ultimately two completely different civilizations, embodying unique political organizations, social structures and hierarchies, distinct economic foundations and individual sets of differing values.

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because

To continue, agriculture and farming is essensial because we need food to survive and it helps with a regions economic growth. This human activity however, is creating

Subsistence strategies are patterns of production, distribution, and consumption that members of a society employ to ensure the satisfaction of the basic material survival needs of humans. There are many forms these strategies can take. These groups fall into two main categories, food collectors and food producers. Food collectors are those who gather, hunt, or fish for food. Examples of this would be pastoralism, and horticulture. An example of pastoralism can be seen in the savannas, pastoralists and their animals gather when rain water is abundant and the pasture is rich, then scatter during the drying of the savanna. Horticulture can be seen in ancient Mayan culture, in the cornfields, multiple crops were grown such as beans (using cornstalks as supports), squash, pumpkins and chili peppers. Food producers on the other

History of Environmental Problems Part 2: “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond Society has evolved over the years in a processes called the Neolithic revolution, the transition from food foraging to farming. In this article The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race by Jared Diamond challenges this revolution, illuminating a supported opinion that farming was the worst mistake the human race has made. In the beginning of the article, Mr. Diamond starts off by addressing the time it takes to gather food vs farming for food, he says “It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each

Humans have always had to find a way to survive in the changing environment of our world. Humans have had to find many ways to adapt and find different practices to feed their communities. Humans were able to keep their communities alive due to their ways of hunting and gathering. Gender played a role in this way of finding food source. Men were set to be the hunters and the women were responsible for gathering any crops they could find. There was a transition that occurred and a new way of cultivating food emerged. Agriculture became a way of survival for human beings. Agriculture played an intricate role in providing a food source and it had a major impact on the Neolithic societies in the Near East. It provided a new way for society to be permanently transformed from what they once were, hunter gatherers to becoming something more stable and stronger.

One reason why farming was the worst mistake in the history of the human race is because it led to the division of social classes. When people were hunter-gatherers, it required no special skill, they couldn’t store their own food, and “they live[d] off the wild plants and animals they obtained each day” (5). Therefore, there cannot be any social classes because everyone was

Today we live in an agriculturist society, but previously hunter and gathering was the popular way of survival. The diversity between them is astonishing whether that be how many children they have or where they live. Also, the way they control the rules, government, and social problems is extremely different. However, there is some of the same characteristics that help them survive and make their systems work more efficiently.

Due to the fact that it has been universal for twelve-thousand years, the majority of people do not recognize the effects that agriculture had on, not only human prosperity, but on societal norms. The Neolithic Revolution, or the emergence of agriculture, in 10,000 BCE caused the materialization of a social hierarchy in preliminary communities.     Before agriculture, people were predominantly focused on foraging. However, this  ceased when agriculture, and all its changes, flooded into early societies. Ian Kuijt remarks, “...complexity creates resource stress-resource stress does not create complexity”, meaning that as job specialization was introduced due to lack of hunter-gatherer notions, social hierarchies became increasingly complicated (23).