Patterns of Subsistence

1
Chapter 17

• Patterns of Subsistence

2
Chapter Outline

• What is adaptation?
• How do humans adapt?
• What sorts of cultural adaptations have humans
  achieved through the ages?

3
Adaptation

• Interaction between
• changes an organism makes in its environment
• changes the environmentmakes in the organism.

4
Procedures for Cultural Ecology

• Analyze the interrelationship of a cultures
  technology and its environment.
• Analyze the patterns of behavior associated with
  a cultures technology.
• Determine the relation between those behavior
  patterns and the rest of the cultural system.

5
Food Foraging Life Characteristics

• Move about a great deal.
• Small size of local groups.
• Populations stabilize at numbers well below the
  carrying capacity of their land.
• Egalitarian, populations have few possessions and
  share what they have.

6
Food Foraging Impact on Society

• Three elements of human organization
• Division of labor by gender.
• Food sharing.
• The camp as the center of daily activity and the
  place where food is shared.

7
Transition to Food Production

• Began about 11,000 to 9,000 y.a.
• Probably the result of increased management of
  wild food resources.
• Resulted in the development of permanent
  settlements as people practiced horticulture
  using simple hand tools.

8
Pastoralism

• Subsistence that relies on raising herds of
  domesticated animals, such as cattle, sheep, and
  goats.
• Pastoralists are usually nomadic.

9
Development of Cities

• Cities developed as intensified agricultural
  techniques created a surplus.
• Individuals were free to specialize full-time in
  other activities.

10
Social Structure of Cities

• Development of cities resulted in increased
  social stratification.
• People are ranked according to gender, the work
  they do, and the family they are born into.
• Social relationships grow more formal and
  centralized.