Hunter-Gatherer Societies from Different Views

In the book “The Dobe Ju/’hoansi”, the author Richard B. Lee, an anthropologist, provides a detailed look into the lives of the South African tribe known as the Dobe Ju/’hoansi. Lee did a great job capturing one of the only societies that live a way of life very similar to our ancestors. I believe each and every reader will take from this book that living this way was not easy and will be grateful for all that we are blessed from in our western societies. Throughout his time with one of the only foraging societies that still exist today Lee takes us on a journey through the Dobe Ju/’hoansi traditional way of life. With this rare lifestyle may question their way of life and its sustainability. When reflecting back on this great read we can grasp their impact on their environment and how globalization can impact the Dobe Ju/’hoansi way of life.

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

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.

Approximately 2.5 million years ago humans lived as hunter-gatherers that would move in bands, later on, they would turn into the great civilization of the ancient world due to better technique and a more organized society. Starting from the neolithic age which consists of hunter-gatherers. There were basically early modern humans. Hunter-gatherers had populated a lot of the earth by 30,000 years ago, continued the hunter and gathering way of life. They would feed off of wild plants and animals and move from one location to another. They would also use the fur of their killings as clothes. In a hunting and gatherings economy, they would move from one location to another to secure their food supply. Hunter-gatherers were very self-sufficient.

Although it has been assumed for a long period of time that early Paleolithic people have a very uninteresting and uniform history, studies have shown that many cultures of the time have demonstrated many different ways of expressing beliefs, relationships with others, and ways of getting food by hunting and gathering.

Further in the article, Mr. Kleine distinguishes “hunters” and “gatherers” with students and professors. “A hunter must go into the world with a strong sense of purpose and direction, and employ deliberate strategies and technologies to kill his game, while a gatherer must look about widely, making sense and use of the food he discovers…A hunter finds what he is looking for; a gatherer discovers that which might be of use” (24).

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.

Attaching great importance to individuality is the third characteristic of market society. For people living in market society, economic advantages are superior to other advantages; the first thing to protect is their individual wealth. This ideological change results from the material condition in market society that people all become single individuals in the factories producing goods for making more money for themselves. In this case, the economic relations rule the social relations (Rinehart 71). Under the structure of the previous social organization, however, “man’s economy... is submerged in his social relationships” (Polanyi 46). People were always concerned about their social relations within their communities (Polanyi 46). They acted so as to maintain their social values (Polanyi 46). The reason for this when it comes to the case of tribal society is that there is no need for people to care much about “individual’s economic interest” because working for the communities enables

Before the great transformation, no economy was subject to being a prisoner of the market (Polanyi 43). Polanyi discusses previous forms of economic organization that function effectively without the system of markets (43). It can be said that through the social being of man and his relationships, that he values material goods only as they serve to an end (Polanyi 46). Within Tribal communities, each member takes on the ideology towards noneconomic ends, that is, not connecting the means of production or distribution in significance with the ownership of goods (Polanyi 46). Members of the tribe place no desire upon economic interests of the individual, but rather on the collective. Reciprocity and redistribution are certain behaviours that communities maintain (Polanyi 47). Reciprocity, regards the sexual organization of society, and redistribution is functioning under a common chief representing domain and authority

Likewise and the topic of this paper Solomon provides a thorough discussion of the problems of the present global economy. In his essay Solomon provides three mind-wrenching questions that questions and supports his methods of economic reform. The first question of “is it possible to engage in the pursuit of wealth without succumbing to greed and selfishness?” brings the topic of morality when it comes to wealth (108). Sallie McFague brings an argument stating that human beings are people filled with emotions of self-interest and will do whatever it takes to become wealthy. In the grand scheme of things this innate self-interest that is within people makes it extremely tough for countries to follow certain Jewish laws that he provided. McFague’s solution of moving towards an ecological economic system makes it tough on countries as well because it will force them to forget about their self-interest and learn to understand that they are dependent upon each other. McFague states, “ecological economics claims we

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.

Due to the dependence upon naturally occurring sources of food, which are not always found in the same abundance as in agricultural cultivation, hunter-gatherers are usually found in bands of less than fifty people and in areas with low population density. This subsistence strategy

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.

Barth examines three groups in their relationships with the natural habitat and with one another in terms of using the concept of a niche, meaning “the place of a group in the total environment, its relations to resources and competitors” (Barth, 1079). The three groups Barth examins are the Pathans who are the sedentary agriculturalists; Kohostanis who practice agriculture and transhumant herding; and lastly the Gujars who are nomadic herders. The Gujars are under a single political leader that organizes groups by lineages and clans. The Pathans are seemed as the most powerful ones. All groups had different political systems that worked with one another.

In this unit’s text, we learned about modernization of society and how agriculture permitted nomadic hunt-and-gather groups to become stabilized and centralized in one location. The text and supporting video clips introduced both positive and negative anthropological effects of the rise of agriculture. Three positive outcomes include stabilization, improved nutrition, and food surplus. For each of these positive instances, there is an alternate and negative impact as well: habitat destruction, feast and famine cycles, and health concerns. This essay will briefly expound on each positive outcome and its counterpart, and will relate the sustainable agrarian achievements of the people of the Gamo Highlands to these effects.