Hunter Gatherer Research Paper

Before delving too deep, it’s best to look at the foundation of this entire premises; yes, hunter gatherers lived more comfortable and heathier lives than ancient farmers, but was their lifestyle truly better? After all, humans have been hunter-gatherers for much of our existence.

Diamond claims that hunters and gathers received more protein and a better nutrient balance than what farmers received. He gives an example of a hunter gather group such as the Kalahari Bushmen to enforce this argument. This group lives off the hunters gathers methods in the twentieth century. Even by being hunters and gatherers, they can still provide for themselves. In the article, a study shows that hunters and gathers are self sufficient and get the food they need. A Bushmen takes in 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein. Diamond says this is more than the recommended allowance for people of their size. Hunters and gatherers eat variety as they live off what the Earth has to offer while on the other hand, farmers live off the non diversified plants they grow. He then also indirectly mentions risk of agriculture by mentioning the potato famine which was a time of starvation for the Irish.

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

About ten to twelve thousand years ago, humans made one of the most important decisions in history - agriculture. A task as simple as deciding to grow your own wild plants enabled the advancement of the technology that we have today. Agriculture also supports larger populations of people; larger populations means that we have the advantage to evolve at a quicker pace because we have more genes. However, with agriculture, came a more clear distinction between the roles of the sexes, it gave birth to the development of social classes, and brought about more disease. Which brings some people to question whether or not we should go back to being hunter-gatherers. I argue that it is impossible for industrialized societies become hunter-gatherers; however, those societies can learn a lot about how to maintain good health, how to raise healthier families, and how to maintain strong social relations, from the hunter-gatherer groups today. While the development of agriculture has brought on some negatives, the positive changes do greatly outweigh the negatives. Thus, agriculture is the necessary

Several variables allowed agriculture to exist, develop, and modernize the world. The first and most obvious cause is that agriculture provides a smaller labor to food ratio than hunting and gathering. In addition, the populations of small hunter-gatherer tribes got bigger, requiring the hunter-gatherers to either depend on agriculture, or limit population growth. Most chose the former, and those that didn’t were driven off of fertile farming land by the converted farmers to make room for agriculture. All three justifications lead to agriculture, and now very few humans remain

The transition to food production began when it did as an accident that was copied by others and eventually spread around the world. In the book it explains that food production wasn’t a discovery or an invention. Instead, it was a side effect that resulted from a misstep of the hunter-gatherer society. It states in the text, “Food production evolved as a by-product of decisions made without awareness of their consequences” (Diamond 101). Since food production wasn’t yet created, people had no clue what it was. They couldn’t make conscious choices or strive towards farming goals because they had never seen farming and what it would be like. Therefore, food production must have been made unintentionally

The hunters and gatherers chose to have a facile lifestyle by engaging themselves in sedentary agriculture. According to their point of view, farming and rearing animals at the same place would save up their time and make their life much easier. Prior to a sedentary lifestyle, humans had to travel a long way to find their sustenance. The fortune did not always favor the brave. It is perilous to go out in wild and hunt. A hunter can be a victim there and not always one could find a proper nosh. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there is (in this view) no respite from the struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. (Jared Diamonds) The struggle was terminated when the hunters and gatherers

collapsed heavily in their heartlands, where ecological demand had been highest, but left remnant societies who descendants have come down to modern times” (102). Again, Wright paints a very bleak portrait of progress and human consumption. However, he again fails to connect two very important dots. First, progress has led to an increased understanding of how the world works, especially agriculturally. While our current knowledge is not exhaustive, we have a better understanding of how not to strip the land of its nutrients. How not to cause erosion in the fields. Is it not possible that progress has led to a more clear understanding of farming and environmental issues? Did the people of Easter Island and Sumer know the things that we know? I doubt it.

1.) Some people consider farming “the worst mistake in the history of the human race”. Many people are opinionated this way because Hunter Gatherers had to work less and were overall healthier. Because Hunter Gatherers primarily ate meat, they consumed much more protein than Farmers. Whereas Farmers mostly consumed the three main cereal grains back then (maize, wheat, and rice). This did not enable the Farmers to have a varied diet like the Hunter Gatherers. Although Farming produces more food per unit of land, Farmers had to work a lot longer and harder than Hunter Gatherers to produce a less varied and less nutritious diet.

Writers Diamond and Christian discuss the development of agriculture from the former lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. Main similarities between the authors include examining the reasons that agriculture spread on a global scale and also defining agriculture as a choice instead of an inevitability. However, a prime difference appears in that Christian discusses the division of class that occurred as a result of agriculture, meanwhile, Diamond does not mention this topic at all. Also, Christian further elaborates on his points through the discussion of early human history.

23). Once human learned to grow food for themselves in one area, they did not have to rely on the wilderness as the only form of food. They were able to go outside of their living area and grab whatever is was they needed for the day. They learned, “instead how to propagate edible plants and domesticate (bring under human control) wild animals (p. 23). With the development of food production this allowed for groups of people to come together, settle in villages, expand in size, and gain control over nature to begin what we know as early human civilizations (p. 23).

Thesis- Our modern world may not be as affluent as primitive hunter-gatherers because of the gap between unlimited human wants and insufficient means to get what humans want.

Between 8000 B.C.E. to 5000 B.C.E, a major shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture known as the Neolithic Revolution began. It is said to be the humanity’s first verifiable revolution in agriculture. Believed to have started in the Middle East, agricultural techniques of production spread to other areas of the globe. This agricultural revolution fundamentally changed humanity’s way of life. This shift towards agriculture directly led from small, nomadic groups of hunters and gatherers who had dominated human prehistory to permanent settlements such as villages and towns and the establishment of social classes. Now, with a reliable food supply, the denser population supported larger sedentary communities,

However, there are those who, like Professor Jared Diamond, believe that, “With agriculture came the gross social inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence (WMHHR, line 6).” Many believe that adopting agriculture made life better, however, the diets of surviving hunter-gathers, which is a mix of wild plants and animals, provides more protein and a better equilibrium of other nutrients than the farmers who keep their focus on crops like rice and potatoes. It’s also shown that agriculture is bad for health. While hunter-gatherers diets varied, farmer’s diets mostly consisted of starchy crops and that didn’t allow for many calories therefore, those farmers had a poor nutrition. Agriculture also brought along disease.

Complexity in nature acts as a limiting factor on not only the human species, but also all the species of earth. Ecosystems residing between the tropics possess immense biodiversity that creates barriers to human expansion, often in the form of disease. As early humans migrated from tropical ecosystems to less elaborate, temperate ecosystems, a “niche-shift” took place (McNeill 55). Homo sapiens found themselves in a less-resilient habitat, inhibiting new survival tactics. Agriculture arose as means to make survival simpler. Rather than expending energy gathering edible plant species, humans began growing those species on plots of land. Inherently a “desire to liberate food from nature” arose amongst groups of humans, which came to be the early workings of human civilization, known as settlements (Pollan 117). Cultivation of plants as means of simplification allowed