Hunter Gatherers : More Beneficial Or Beneficial?

Farming has been a source of work ever since man has been introduced to the earth, but the past 100 years have been promising in continuing to provide for the needs of the growing population. The people have become more educated, and technology has become much more advanced. The two have come together to boon the land and animals so that they produce to their fullest potential. The people of the world have been influenced to the extent that they work smarter not harder to provide for the growing population. Farming, a crucial necessity to the survival of mankind, has evolved in the area of education of the people which has assisted in the advances of technology, land, and animal production which will lead to the provision of food for the growing

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

Hunting is a common activity all around the world, and if performed properly, can have many benefits to us and the rest of the planet. The art of hunting has been around since the beginning of time. Living off of the land used to be a necessity across the world, until the mass production of food came along. In America, people do not usually need to hunt to survive. However, the population of animal species needs to be controlled. Too many of one type of animal can cause a drastic change to any ecosystem. Food supplies decline quickly, leaving many animals without food. Hunting can help keep the population of a group of animals at a good number, making the lives of the other

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

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.”

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, gives light to the question, “What should we have for dinner?” that he thinks Americans today cannot answer simply due to the fact that there are too many food options. This book serves as an eye-opener to challenge readers to be more aware and accountable of what is consumed daily. In order to understand fully where our food comes from, we must follow it back to the very beginning. Pollan goes on to discuss three different modern food chains in which we get our food: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer. By tracing our food back to the beginning, we can understand that most of the nutritional and health problems America is going through today can be found on the farms that make our food and the government that can decide what happens. America deals with many food related illness such as, heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes. Majority of a human and animals diet consists of being corn-fed leading to a high cause of obesity in the United States these are just some of the many diseases that come with over processed foods and diets we are unaware of. In this study, we will highlight the environmental and health issues and impacts related with modern agriculture and how these systems can be made more sustainable.

Whether mistakes are minor and forgotten within a day or so drastic they are remembered for years’ mistakes are one thing members of society all have in common. Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography and Physiology at the University of California, mentions an important mistake in his essay, The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. Diamond discusses agriculture versus the hunter-gatherer method of acquiring food. He exclaims that agriculture is the worst mistake human race has made. Additionally, Diamond introduces two perspectives towards agriculture. A person may take a revisionist standpoint and “advocate revision of a system, theory, etc” (OED). Oppositely, a person may take a progressivist standpoint and become involved in

Brought up in the southern of China, I often heard about that people from there “eat anything with four limbs except tables, anything that flies except aero planes, and anything that swims except ships”. Nevertheless, I eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains but less meat to make careful choices for environmental protection. Similarly, Kathy Freston argues that animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming. In her Huffington Post selection “Vegetarian Is the New Prius,” Freston lists how many emissions of greenhouse gases people make when they eat meat and illustrates the consumption of tree in animal agriculture. She effectively convinces her audiences that the livestock results in the most serious environmental problems and encourages people to lead a greener diet to protect our environment. However, ardent craving, poor health, and perpetual hassle and cost prevent all Americans from being vegetarian.

In the book “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and the article “Eat Food: Food Defined” by Michael Pollan, Pollan informs us of the dangers of eating processed foods. He goes on to explain that in the modern age of today, our diets are majorly composed of processed food, leading to health complications such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Pollan advises us that we must stop eating processed food and instead eat real food, in which he lists ways of obtaining real food, such as going to farmer’s markets. However I challenge Pollan’s approach to obtaining real food as it is too costly and complicated, and instead I will propose a different approach to obtaining real food by traditional means of hunting and gathering.

Hunters and gathers were able to enjoy a variety of food for a healthy diet because they traveled for their food. However, whenever they started farming they were limited to what they could eat and make. They could only make what was available in their area. Most farmers only had crops like wheat, rice and corn available to them. With three similar foods in their diet, they were led to malnutrition for not getting the necessary vitamins they needed. Most of the vitamins you need in your daily diet are not in wheat, rice, and corn. Also, if one crop failed to grow they were at risk of starvation. ‘"Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was bout twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."’ Jared Diamond quotes Armelagos in his article The Worst Mistake in Human History (2). With a drastic seven year difference, beginning to farm was definitely harming the

Life today in 2014 is vastly different to the period 1500-1800 as described by Blainey (2000). Survival no longer hinges on hunting and gathering food. In fact many people today give little or no thought to food production. Instead, we drive to a supermarket and buy whatever we want to eat. We have access to many restaurants and fast food outlets, so we not only have ample food at our fingertips, we don’t even have to prepare it if we choose not to. Advancements in production and using machines in place of humans (Henslin, Possamai and Possamai-Inesedy 2011, p. 139) mean food is now farmed and produced on a much larger scale (Macionis and

First, I would like to discuss the strategy of hunting and gathering, the sole strategy until twelve thousand years ago. Hunting and gathering is a form of subsistence dependent upon wild plants and animals for the majority of the calories of the diet. While its name underscores the importance of hunting in this lifestyle, this is misleading as the majority of caloric needs in societies practicing this strategy are met by gathering wild edible plants and berries.