1 / 17

Hunter-gatherers Characteristics

Hunter-gatherers Characteristics. For each of these you should know : what it means how/why it is adaptive for their chosen subsistence strategy h ow it relates to / affects the other characteristics on the list. mobility small group size food sharing egalitarianism communal property

clark
Download Presentation

Hunter-gatherers Characteristics

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics • For each of these you should know: • what it means • how/why it is adaptive for their chosen subsistence strategy • how it relates to / affects the other characteristics on the list • mobility • small group size • food sharing • egalitarianism • communal property • rarity of warfare Use p. 413-417 to complete your explanations. I will come around and award classwork points for completing this assignment.

  2. Be sure to include the following in your notes: • definition of carrying capacity • how hunter-gatherers keep populations low – this answer refers to a biological adaptation not just a cultural one • the only status differences among hunter-gatherers (hint: there are two) • hunter-gatherers and surplus • hunter-gatherers and a concept of land ownership

  3. Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics • rarity of warfare • How do you define war? • Early ethnographies - !Kung, Mbuti Pygmies – reported few deadly conflicts. • Carol Ember (1970s) • 64% - war at least once every two years • 26% - war less often • 10% - war extremely rare • Lawrence Keeley (1990s) • 25-30% adult males die violently • That’s the same as 2 billion deaths in the 20th C.

  4. Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics rarity of warfare? • Why do we care? • Whether war is frequent or rare reveals what about hunter-gatherers’ nature? • Why would we want to know whether hunter-gatherers are naturally violent or not? • What subsistence strategy have most humans used for most of history?

  5. Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics rarity of warfare? • Why would we want to compare rates of violence of our ancestors (hunter-gatherers) to rates of violence in modern society? • What do anthropologists have to assume about modern hunter-gatherers in order to understand whether modern society has made us more or less violent?

  6. !Kung Inuit (Netsilik) Tlingit • tundra / sea coast • scarce resources: most calories from hunting • temperate rainforest / sea coast • very abundant resources: mostly hunting & fishing • grasslands / semi-arid desert • semi-abundant resources: both hunting & gathering

  7. Which one: !Kung, Tlingit, or Inuit (Netsilik)? • live in settled communities with permanent housing? • believe in 3 gods – one hates humans, the other is a moody baby, and the last one just sorta puts up with humans? • are able to accumulate some personal wealth? • near gender equality: neither gender is dominant? • work an average of 17 hours per week?

  8. Hunter-gatherers are SAVAGES! • Anthropology became a field of study in the 1800s. The first anthropologists described hunter-gatherers as inferior, primitive savages. STEREOTYPES • culturally poor: no art, no literature, etc. • Ignorant & primitive • very low status for women • must slave long hours just to get the bare minimum to survive • are unhealthy

  9. Hunter-gatherers are NOBLE SAVAGES. • The myth of the NOBLE SAVAGE arose later among anthropologists and romanticized hunter-gatherers as the ideal human, far superior to us. STEREOTYPES • They share everything and live in perfectly harmonious, close-knit groups. • They have a deeper respect for the environment. • Their lifestyle is much healthier than ours.

More Related