Hunter Gatherer Case Study

It is said that farming is "the worst mistake in the history of the human race."(2). In An Edible History of Humanity, chapter two, Tom Standage explained the reasoning behind this statement. The explanation is, farming took longer, created health issues and changed the structure of our bodies.

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

Today I am going to write to you about what a day in my life is like as a hunter gatherer. Hunter gatherers are a group of people, known as a “band”, who live by hunting, fishing and harvesting wild food. Our bands are pretty small, they usually consist of about 20-30 people depending on the amount of food in the region. My band consists of 5 different families, we all work together as a team to hunt and gather food everyday. The labor is divided among our band depending on ones sex. The men hunt and fish for their own meat while women gather nuts and berries and care for the children. Because we live in all different kinds of environments, from mountains to rainforests, the

Jared Diamond, in his article, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human race”, explains that the worst mistake that humans made was the decision to change from a hunter gatherer society into an agriculture society. Jared Diamond gives evidence of how switching from an agricultural society was a bad mistake. Many believe that adopting an agricultural society and leaving the hunter gatherer society was the way to a more qualitative and sustainable lifestyle. As Diamond says, it is true that because this society was adopted and evolved because we have longer lifespans and live better now than how people lived back in the old days. But Diamond`s claim that the hunter gatherer society gave humans more benefits individually than what the agricultural society had to offer is agreeable.

He explains how farmers are highly susceptible to malnutrition, anemia, infectious diseases due to being crowded together, degenerative conditions due to hard physical labor, starvation, and sexual inequality due to women being released of their hunting duties and pressured to produce offspring to tend to the fields. Moreover, he supports his idea by explaining how hunter-gatherers have sufficient leisure time for painting and sculpting, sleep a good deal, work less hard than farmers, and have healthier diets due to the abundance of wild plants and animals available. The diet of hunter-gatherers contains high protein and well balance of proteins compared to farmers who can only consume one or a few foods from their

Diamond explains that our worst mistake was the transition from hunter-gathers to farmers. Diamond believes that humans were better off chasing our food rather than planting it due to the consequences that followed after such a dramatic change of life. His reasoning expands further out than one might think of about this subject. He talks about the social changes that were created when agriculture began. Diamond spews empowering points that leave a reader pondering if he is correct. People are only sure of how the world is now but the possibilities are endless on what our world could have been if agriculture had not begun.

Hunter- gatherers was able to consume many variety of foods, such as animals meat, berries, nuts, roots etc which are high in proteins and fiber. Farmers can only consume the crops they grew, which is limited. Additionally, the main commonly crops are rice, corn, and wheat, which is high in carbs and lacked fiber, vitamins, and proteins. As a result, farmers’ diet consists of carbs and fats, but no vitamins or proteins. The second risk is limited crop production. Farmers are easily opened to risk of starvation if their crops fail to grow. The final risk to agriculture is epidemic diseases. Agricultural encouraged farmers to get together in crowded societies in order to trade their crops, which can easily lead to spread of contagious diseases and

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.”

health. Hunter-gatherers have a varied diet, however, early farmers gained poor nutrition and cheap calories. In addition, farmers ran the risk of starvation due to the dependence on crops. Diamond states that agriculture encouraged the creation of civilizations, which then led to the spread of infectious diseases and parasites that can seriously jeopardize our health. Social inequality between deep class divisions came out of agriculture as well. According to research on skeletons from ancient times, royals had better diets than the commoners due to the fact that they were a few inches taller and had better teeth than them. Thus, Jared Diamond supports his claim that agriculture was a terrible mistake made in human history due to inequality, bad health, and a difference in lifestyles between hunter-gatherers and

Farming initially developed in the Middle East, the Fertile Crescent. Grains such as barley and wild wheat were abundant. Also, not heavily forested, and animals were in short supply, presenting a challenge to hunters. 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE. Notice: it took thousands of years for this “revolution” so not fast but profound for history. Agriculture was hard for many hunting and gathering peoples to adopt – lots of work. Those in agricultural communities developed diseases, which they became immune. The agricultural people would unintentionally infect the hunters.

Farming is a very important job. Humans didn’t start with framing thougth. At first we were hunters and gatherers moving with the food. Over time we started to farm; after the Ice Age there was a huge drought. Humans started to farm and live at one spot. Document 1-1

People living in sedentary villages in the Neolithic experienced worsened health and mortality. Sedentary life brought with it sanitation problems like garbage and human waste accumulate, which contributed to disease. The close association between humans and animals was also key to the transmission of many infectious diseases. Higher mortality rates were offset by increased fertility. (Haviland et al 2011: 249)

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.

How did early civilizations effectively develop and utilize early plants and vegetables to move from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists, and what were the impacts socially, politically, and technically? “Agriculture did not emerge from an untapped resource base or randomly distributed family or tribal units of Homo sapiens sapiens. It emerged as the result of efforts by highly organized ecologically canny communities composed of skilled hunter-gatherers.” In the beginning of what is considered burgeoning civilization, humanities ancestors were what were called hunter-gatherers. They moved from place to place, following the source of their food in order to survive the brutal aspects of early life. If they could not find food, or not find it in sufficient amount, they would starve and eventually die off. Thus, the only decision facing them was to relocate their tribes in order to better take advantage of the available game. As the second portion of their name implied, they were also considered gatherers, in which they subsisted on whatever grains and green vegetables or fruits they could find to eat. It was this kind of lifestyle which led to a smaller, tribal mindset in which you ate what you could, when you could. Over time this began to change, with the establishment of agricultural practices which allowed for availability of much needed crops and the decision of tribes to establish permanent communities, as well as the increase in both number of members and life terms.