Hunter-gatherer

The Hunting and the Cueillette are the first modes of subsistence of the Homme. These activities are directly inherited the animal world, in particular that of the Primate S. They consist in taking on the Nature what it provides spontaneously. They precede the breeding and the Agriculture and can force with the Nomadisme, if the herds which provide the principal subsistence move or if the resources of the soil are exhausted. The man was thus a hunter-gatherer until the Neolithic Révolution.

Terminology

Formerly, the terms of hunter-trappers or farmer-trappers competed with that of hunter-gatherer. Come from Scandinavia, this denomination supposed an economy Paléolithique. The use of these terms as the assumption of this economy appear exceeded today.

All the archaeological discoveries agree to support the assumption according to which until twenty thousand years ago, all the human beings were gatherer-hunters. (see text annexes) Aujourd'hui, one finds gatherer-hunters in Arctique, in the wet tropical forests where the other forms of subsistence are impossible. The majority of these groups are not gatherer-hunters of any eternity: often, their ancestors were farmers who were pushed back in peripheral zones during migrations and of wars. It is estimated that these communities will disappear from here at a few decades.

additional text: Among all the biped primates that we know and others which remain to be discovered, the decisive characteristic of those which would become our ancestors was to increase the distance between food and the mouth by inventing all kinds of manners of obtaining it and of preserving it. It is that our first ancestors were at least as fishing and gatherers as hunters. They were also sometimes diggers, perhaps vultures, etc To indicate the first companies rather than the current formula of hunters-gatherers, in a chronological concern to propose the word gatherers would be preferable. By these apparently minor details it is structuring of our collective thoughts which it acts.

If one thinks to descend from “Large hunters” the current condition predatory of the species seems a fate of all times. The written history teaches us that the kings of old Mésopotamie affirmed their sovereignty as a practitioner of ceremonial huntings. Since these times, at least, probably quite front, at the moment when the war as organized activity settled in our habits, the amalgam drive out-war took form.

To so often neglect fishing as essential activity of the past is a fact revealing of handling warmonger. To put the word hunter too in front of gatherer. So that our social sciences start to find a little objectivity us let us propose to write for example, “cueilleuses” quite simply, to indicate our first companies. The word “drives out” door a heavy direction in the principal written languages. Here is the primary reason which still condemns the word gathering to tiny or to remain behind a hunting considered as activity much more developing by some. Manucolo October 5th, 2007 with 11:29 (CEST) Manucolo at wikipedia-

Lifestyle

The human ones used only materials available in nature to build shelters, while preferring natural shelters which needed only few installations. These shelters protected from the bad weather and the predatory ones.

The great majority of the companies of hunters-gatherers are wandering. Usually, the resources of an area are quickly exhausted, making impossible the perennial establishment of the groups human. There are however exceptions: as the Haida of the Colombia-British which could sédentariser in a sufficiently rich area.

The populations of hunters-gatherers are far from dense: in the areas which allow the Agriculture, the countryside can nourish from 60 to 100 times more population than the lifestyle of hunting and gathering.

The companies of hunters-gatherers tend not to have hierarchical social structures, but it is not always the case. Being wandering, they do not have most of the time the possibility of storing food surpluses. They cannot thus maintain the leaders, craftsmen or civils servant with full-time. One can however divide the companies of hunters-gatherers into two tendencies according to the mode of redistribution:

  • levelling companies, with an immediate redistribution;
  • uneven companies, with a differed redistribution.

The first consume their production in one day or two; the others store their surpluses.

In these company egalitarians, the family systems are different from the companies from farmers, stockbreeders or industrial society.

Agricultural hunters-gatherers and companies

The social modes of the hunters-gatherers run up violently since the invention of agriculture, 10.000 years ago, with the pastoral or agricultural companies. Perceived like parasite S, they disappear most of the time or are driven back on ungrateful grounds. The Colonization and the Industrialization continue this process.

If the 19th century posed a glance a little scorning on this lifestyle considered to be primitive, one realizes today that in addition to the fact that it informs us about the beginnings of the Humanité, it proved not very constraining and made it possible to develop a cultural life harmonizes some with the environment. Some idealize even this lifestyle.

See too

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