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Hunter-gatherer: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Hunter-gatherer
Homo erectus began hunting and gathering approximately 1.8 million years ago, establishing the most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world. This subsistence strategy occupied at least 90 percent of human history, spanning from the emergence of early humans to the invention of agriculture. While modern societies rely on farming and domesticated animals, the original human experience was defined by mobility and the constant search for food from local sources. The transition to agriculture displaced many hunter-gatherer groups, yet the lifestyle persisted in dense forests and extreme environments long after farming societies emerged in Western Eurasia. Archaeological evidence suggests that these early communities lived in groups of a few dozen people, often nomadic or semi-nomadic, adapting to the specific ecological conditions of their time.
The Egalitarian Ethos
Hunter-gatherer societies generally operated under an egalitarian social ethos that emphasized sharing and resisted hierarchy, a stark contrast to the hierarchical structures of chimpanzees and later agricultural civilizations. Anthropologists Richard Borshay Lee and Irven DeVore noted that mobility required the minimization of material possessions, preventing any single member from accumulating surplus resources. This system, which Karl Marx termed primitive communism, encouraged economic equality through the sharing of food and material goods. The San people of southern Africa, for instance, maintained social customs that strongly discouraged hoarding and displays of authority. While inequalities and divisions of labor existed, the resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, and social organization. Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers did not have permanent leaders, with the person taking initiative depending on the specific task being performed at that moment.
The Gendered Hunt
The conventional assumption that women did most of the gathering while men concentrated on big game hunting has been challenged by recent research findings that reveal a more complex reality. Women in many hunter-gatherer societies hunted small game and, in some cases, even participated in big-game hunting alongside men. A 2018 discovery of 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter at the Andean site of Wilamaya Patjxa in Peru, accompanied by a toolkit of projectile points, suggests that female hunters may have comprised anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters. A 2023 study of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies from the 1800s to the present day found that women hunted in 79 percent of these societies. Among the Ju/'hoansi people of Namibia, women help men track down quarry, while the Australian Martu utilize a different style of gendered division where women target smaller game to feed their children and promote working relationships. This sexual division of labor is considered by some scholars to be the fundamental organizational innovation that gave Homo sapiens the edge over the Neanderthals.
When did Homo erectus begin hunting and gathering?
Homo erectus began hunting and gathering approximately 1.8 million years ago. This subsistence strategy occupied at least 90 percent of human history, spanning from the emergence of early humans to the invention of agriculture.
What social structure did hunter-gatherer societies generally operate under?
Hunter-gatherer societies generally operated under an egalitarian social ethos that emphasized sharing and resisted hierarchy. Anthropologists Richard Borshay Lee and Irven DeVore noted that mobility required the minimization of material possessions, preventing any single member from accumulating surplus resources.
Did women participate in big game hunting in hunter-gatherer societies?
Women in many hunter-gatherer societies hunted small game and, in some cases, even participated in big-game hunting alongside men. A 2018 discovery of 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter at the Andean site of Wilamaya Patjxa in Peru suggests that female hunters may have comprised anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters.
How many hours per day did adults in foraging societies work on average?
Adults in foraging and horticultural societies worked on average about 6.5 hours a day. Ross Sackett's meta-analyses found that people in agricultural and industrial societies worked on average 8.8 hours a day.
When did big-game hunter-gatherers cross the Bering Strait into North America?
Evidence suggests that big-game hunter-gatherers crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into North America over a land bridge known as Beringia, which existed between 47,000 and 14,000 years ago. Around 18,500 to 15,500 years ago, these hunter-gatherers followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors.
Which contemporary societies are still classified as hunter-gatherers?
Only a few contemporary societies of uncontacted people are still classified as hunter-gatherers, including the Pila Nguru of Western Australia, the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands, and the Savanna Pumé of Venezuela. These groups demonstrate that the transition to agriculture was not inevitable, and that some societies have managed to preserve aspects of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle into the 21st century.
Marshall Sahlins challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherer lives as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, arguing instead that they were the original affluent society. Ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, yet they still ate well. Ross Sackett's meta-analyses found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies worked on average about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies worked on average 8.8 hours a day. This affluence came from the idea that they were satisfied with very little in the material sense, relying on mutual exchange and sharing of resources to create a gift economy. However, critics argue that these societies suffered from extremely high infant mortality, frequent disease, and perennial warfare, with researchers estimating that around 57 percent of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15 and 64 percent of those continue to live to or past the age of 45.
Diet and Survival
As one moves away from the equator, the importance of plant food decreases and the importance of aquatic food increases, with hunter-gatherers in cold climates relying more on stored food than those in warm climates. Fat is critical in assessing the quality of game among hunter-gatherers, to the point that lean animals are often considered secondary resources or even starvation food. Consuming too much lean meat leads to adverse health effects like protein poisoning, and can in extreme cases lead to death. In areas where plant and fish resources are scarce, hunter-gatherers may trade meat with horticulturalists for carbohydrates, creating a cost-effective means of acquiring necessary nutrients. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is not necessarily a one-way process, and some scholars argue that hunting and gathering represents an adaptive strategy that may still be exploited when environmental change causes extreme food stress for agriculturalists.
The American Expansion
Evidence suggests that big-game hunter-gatherers crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into North America over a land bridge known as Beringia, which existed between 47,000 and 14,000 years ago. Around 18,500 to 15,500 years ago, these hunter-gatherers followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America, either on foot or using primitive boats. Hunter-gatherers flourished all over the Americas, primarily based in the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, with offshoots as far east as the Gaspé Peninsula and as far south as Chile. The Archaic period in the Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer, more arid climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna, leading to regional adaptations and a pattern of increasing regional generalization.
Land Tenders and Wilderness
Scholars like Kat Anderson have suggested that the term hunter-gatherer is reductive because it implies that Native Americans never stayed in one place long enough to affect the environment around them. Many of the landscapes in the Americas today are due to the way the Natives of that area originally tended the land through practices such as pruning, weeding, sowing, burning, and selective harvesting. These practices allowed them to take from the environment in a sustainable manner for centuries. California Indians view the idea of wilderness in a negative light, believing that wilderness is the result of humans losing their knowledge of the natural world and how to care for it. When the earth turns back to wilderness after the connection with humans is lost, the plants and animals will retreat and hide from the humans. This challenges the notion of the hunter-gatherer as a passive observer of nature, revealing instead a deep, active relationship with the land.
The Last Foragers
Only a few contemporary societies of uncontacted people are still classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism. The Pila Nguru of Western Australia live in the Great Victoria Desert, an area unsuitable for European agriculture, while the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands maintain their independent existence by repelling attempts to engage with and contact them. The Savanna Pumé of Venezuela live in an area inhospitable to large-scale economic exploitation, maintaining their subsistence based on hunting and gathering while incorporating a small amount of manioc horticulture. These groups demonstrate that the transition to agriculture was not inevitable, and that some societies have managed to preserve aspects of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle into the 21st century. The variability of these societies, from the mammoth steppe hunters of Siberia to the semi-sedentary fishers of the Pacific Northwest, highlights the diverse ways in which humans have adapted to their environments.