Human Foragers Research Paper

The peopling of the Americas “was the last great human migration, the final leg of our journey out of Africa” (Bawaya, M. How the west was won). Precisely how and when this migration occurred is presently up for debate. Accepted archaeological wisdom stated by Hetherington “suggests that the first Americans were large game hunters who migrated from northeast Asia across the Beringian land bridge ca. 12000 years BP, spreading southward through a continental ice-free corridor” (R. Hetherington et al.). Gugliotta says that archaeologists called these pioneers the Clovis, after distinctive stone tools that were found at sites near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1929 (Gugliotta, The first Americans).

Hunting was important to the early man. This was how they would find food and the necessities that they needed from animals. In document #1, the cave painting found in Lascaux, France, shows a herd of deer attacking a group of people that have bows and arrows. The painting shows the human figures using the bows and arrows to attack and kill the deer. This evidence may suggest that this group of people are nomadic; meaning they migrate to areas where a food source is available. A quote by Jacob Bronowski’s documentary, The Ascent of Man, in

the majority of the first nomadic Asian hunters came to the New World by walking

In the beginning of the Paleolithic Era, bands of humans progressively migrated from East Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and then to the Americas while adapting to their new regions. During the Paleolithic era, hominids used crude tools like clubs and choppers to crack open bones, simple axes, and scrapers to prepare animal hides. As the years went on the Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and Homo sapiens amended these tools and created new ones. They made these tools so that they can provide shelter, protection, defense from other predators, food, and also clothing. As the Paleolithic era was ending, the hominids were building much more innovative wood and stone structures. They also started

Humans covered vast areas of the Earth, some even during the harshness of the ice age, only carrying basic hunting tools.

Chapter 1: The starting point from which Diamond answers Yali’s question is 11,000 BC, the beginning of village life, 13,000 years ago. Diamond summarizes human history up to that point, starting with humans’ evolution from monkeys 7 million years ago and the Homo erectus 2.5 million years ago, all restricted to Africa and spread from there. The Great Leap Forward corresponds with the first known inhabitants of Eurasia and Australia/New Guinea. Human colonization of new continents and islands links to the extinction of many species, known as the overkill hypothesis or as some believe the climate hypothesis. Humans continued to spread to lands like Siberia and the Americas via Berlin Strait/Berlin Land Bridge leading to Alaska. Although the conditions of each continent were vastly different, someone could not have guessed that Eurasia would be the one to develop the quickest.

Prior to the “Agriculture Resolution”, humans who migrated out of Africa lived by traveling in groups from one location to the next which is the technique used to exploit seasonal food supplies. Tools like bows and arrows, fishhooks and needles were used in order to live. But with the agricultural resolution, there was a large change brought about with people beginning to settle in areas which eventually built villages and the introduction of new technologies, including pottery, wheeled vehicles and writing. With the switch of from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle

As earth’s last continents to be colonized by humans, all skeletal remains found in the Americas are modern Homo sapiens. Modern human dispersal out of Africa across Eurasia began about 50 ka and reached the Americas around 15ka (Goebel, 2008). The last global maximum took place around 20ka when sea level was 60ft lower than present day and the land bridge between Beringia and Tierra del Fuego was exposed. Routes of migration are hard to estimate from genetic data. Archaeological data tells us that humans entered America around the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, 11ka, via an ice-free mid-continental corridor. This model would support a relatively even latitudinal migration southward. An alternative migration route is along the Pacific coasts. This model could

The first beginning we had hunter and gatherers, and that became something that everybody started doing. People would use resources around them, and they would not stay in permanent settlements. Than a new life began and it was called Emergence of Agriculture. People know started having permanent settlements, the population has became bigger, and their health might be becoming shaky. These changes might have been better or worse.

It has recently been discovered that the first people to arrive in America had migrated in small groups over the Bering Strait via the land bridge that once connected Asia to North America. However, it has not been discovered exactly when this occurred. The most widely accepted theory is that these migrations took place approximately 15,000 years ago. By 11,000 B.C.E., these people had spread across the North and South American continents. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers that organized into small communities near food supplies. Agriculture may have begun about 10,000 years ago starting with the cultivation of squash and beans. Maize, possibly along with other crops, began to be cultivated in 5,000 B.C.E. by

The Americas comprises of North and South America with a current and ever-growing population of over seven hundred million people (Continent) with a vast array of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. From people walking south through ice free corridors into what is now considered the United States of America to paddling through kelp highways down the south Alaskan shoreline to the Americas by hugging the shoreline, the hypothesis of how the first peoples migrated to the Americas varies. The Kennewick Man or otherwise “referred to as the Ancient One by Native Americans” (Rasmussen) is one of the “most complete prehistoric skeletons” found, has led to significant scientific breakthroughs, and have given humankind a peek at its past (Americas).

I would like to address topic A, regarding the placement of subsistence strategies into four discrete categories: hunting and gathering (foraging), horticulture, pastoralism, and agriculture. While this quick categorization of human subsistence behavior has benefits to introduce these concepts, it falsely assumes that each behavior exists independently and ignores their location on a continuum, often blending from one strategy into the next. In this essay I will introduce each subsistence strategy, show examples of it and finally show ways that even among groups of people who would seem to fit the archetype of each behavior they often adopt strategies of others in a sort of mixing and matching process, especially in times of duress.

Contrary to the idea that American exploration started with the white Europeans in 1492, the first Americans journeyed from Siberia around 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. The next wave of migrants, known for being Athapaskan speakers, emigrated to America around 9,000 years ago, while the ancestors of the Inuit occupied the last wave 5,000 years ago. After many years of surviving on large animals, the nomadic bands of natives had to adapt to new means of obtaining food, once skilled hunters annihilated a large portion of the species. This led to a larger range of a food, which included fish, birds, seeds, berries, nuts and shellfish. However, these substitutes didn't completely suffice for the larger animals, in which the creation of more advanced

The author states that we believe that all people were born to be naturally competitive, calculating, and rational. I personally believe him, but he also points out that man was not made to be like that. We hardly even realize that it is a cultural belief and not a statement of fact. To add to this people also believe in the fact that social classes are inevitable and economical organization are a must. This is also false. Living like a hunter-gatherer comes with some challenges against the economic orthodoxy though.

The foraging time for exp. 1 & 3 were a lot similar, because each person had time to find food and with exp. 1 the food wasn’t as hard to find. With exp. 2, since there were more people looking for food in the same area, then it began to become more of a challenge.