Patterns of Subsistence

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CHAPTER 18

• Patterns of Subsistence

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Chapter Preview

• What Is Adaptation?
• How Do Humans Adapt Culturally?
• What Sorts of Cultural Adaptations Have Humans
  Achieved Through the Ages?

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How Humans Meet Basic Needs.

• Throughout human antiquity it is known that
  humans must have the ability to constantly make
  cultural adaptations to better survive and thrive
  in their natural environments or ecosystems.
  Meeting humans most basic needs are finding
  efficient methods to obtain food, shelter, and
  fresh water.
• Ecosystem- functioning system that comprised of
  both the natural environment and the organism
  that inhabit it.

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Cultural Adaptations Through the Ages.

• Food foraging is the oldest and most universal
  type of human adaptation and typically involves
  geographic mobility.
• Adaptations involving domestication of plants and
  animals, began to develop in some parts of the
  world about 10,000 years ago.
• Horticulture led to more permanent settlements
  while pastoralism required mobility to seek out
  pasture and water.
• Cities began to develop as early as 5,000 years
  ago in some world regions.

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Adaptation in Cultural Evolution

• The most common way for a group of people to
  adapt to their ecosystem is through their
  culture. Cultural Evolution is the process of
  cultures changing over time.
• It is important to note that the idea of cultural
  evolution is not always in a positive light.
  Although this concept can often be confused with
  the idea of progress as if humans are
  progressing as a culture towards something better.

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• Not all changes turn out to be positive, nor do
  they improve conditions for every member of a
  society even in the short term. To better
  understand these there are two historical
  accounts of cultural evolution.
• Case Study on The Native American Comanche
  Cheyenne

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Convergent Evolution

• The Native American Comanche were from the
  highlands of southern Idaho. They had
  traditionally subsisted on wild grains, small
  animals and the occasional large game that roamed
  the region. The possessed simple technology and
  equipment that was limited to what dogs could
  carry on their backs. They considered their
  shaman (spiritual and medicinal healer) as
  holding the highest social power.

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• Eventually the Comanche made a move towards the
  Great Plains region where they encountered a
  larger food supply such as free roaming bison
• Trade for horses and guns began with nearby
  European settlers.
• Over time Comanche traders began to hold a higher
  power within the group, one above the shaman, as
  they would go on raids to steal horses.
• The society that started small and powerless,
  converged into a powerful and wealthy tribe.

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• The history of the Comanche is similar to the
  historical accounts of the Native American
  Cheyenne Indians. These peoples moved from the
  woodlands of the Great Lakes regions also into
  the Great Plains. Unlike the Comanche they took
  up farming which they later ceased to focus on
  hunting and gathering.
• Both tribes developed similar solutions to living
  in the new environment

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Convergent Evolution

• Convergent Evolution as outlined by the Native
  America Comanche and Cheyenne is best described
  as the development of similar cultural
  adaptations to similar environmental conditions
  by different peoples with different ancestral
  cultures.

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Parallel Evolution

• Parallel Evolution as outlines by the development
  of farming in Mesoamerican SW Asia is best
  defined by the development of similar adaptations
  to similar environmental conditions by peoples
  whose ancestral cultures were similar.

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Parallel Evolution

• The other type of cultural evolution apart from
  convergent evolution is parallel evolution. The
  development of farming took place simultaneously
  in Southwest Asia and Mesoamerica. People in
  both regions already had similar life ways. They
  both became dependent on a narrow range of plant
  foods.
• Both developed intensive forms of agriculture,
  built large cities, and created complex social
  and political organizations.

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Cultural Areas

• Anthropologists have long identified that ethnic
  groups that co-habitat within the same
  geographical region many times share cultural
  traits that have been borrow from one culture to
  the next.
• These groups have been classified as cultural
  areas, which are geographic regions in which a
  number of societies follow a similar pattern of
  life.

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• Many times these areas are defined by natural
  environmental conditions. The following is a list
  of some such regions in North American such as
• Arctic
• Plains
• Southwest
• Prairies
• East

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What determines Subsistence Patterns?

• Although technological advancements and
  environmental factors play a significant role in
  a cultures subsistence patterns it is not the
  only defining trait. Political and social
  organization will also play a large role in the
  technology that will be invented and used-thus
  directly influencing what subsistence pattern a
  culture will use.
• These features are known as the culture core.

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Culture Core

• The culture core is defined as the cultural
  features that are fundamental in the societies
  way of making its living. This can include
• Food producing techniques
• Knowledge of available resources
• Work arrangements involved in applying those
  techniques to the local environment.

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Culture Core and Food Ways

• The culture core also influences other aspects of
  culture including the production and distribution
  of food. Religious views can define and prohibit
  certain cultural foods.
• Muslims and Jews must abstain from eating pork
  because it is prohibited by their religion.
• Hindus do not eat beef because their religion
  considers these animals to be sacred.

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Modes of Subsistence

• There are three main modes of subsistence
  patterns. Each mode will involve not only
  natural resources but also the developed
  technology to effectively utilize those
  resources.
• 1.) Food Foraging Societies
• 2.) Food Producing Societies
• 3.) Industrialized Societies

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Characteristics of Food Foraging Societies

• Nomadic
• Occupy marginal environments (desert, arctic,
  tropical)
• Small size of local groups (less that 100
  members) limited by carrying capacity
• Populations stabilize at numbers well below the
  carrying capacity of their land.
• Egalitarian, populations have few possessions and
  share what they have.

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Food Foraging Organization

• Four elements of food foraging organization
• Mobility
• Division of labor by gender.
• Food sharing
• Egalitarian Social Relations

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Mobility

• Mobility of food foragers is strongly limited by
  their difficult living environments which they
  occupy. For instance the distance between their
  food supply and fresh water must not be so great
  that more energy is required to obtain fresh
  water than can be obtained from food.

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• It is necessary for food foraging groups to limit
  their population size due to the carrying
  capacity of the land which is defined by the
  amount of people the land and support with its
  available resources.
• Often this can create what is called a density of
  social relations meaning that the limited
  availability for resources forces larger groups
  to live together. More people can create more
  social conflicts.

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How do Food Foraging Groups Limit Population

• One way that these groups limit population growth
  is by the prolonged nursing of infants. The
  longer the mother nurses the less likely she is
  to ovulate.
• The other factor is their low percentage of body
  fat. Lower body fat leads to a later onset of
  ovulation and the onset of menstruation.

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Labor by Gender

• All societies have some type of division of labor
  by genders. Foraging Groups follow these two
  patterns
• Men hunting, butchering, process of hard or
  tough materials, and overall more dangerous
  activities
• Women collecting food, domestic chores

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Food Sharing

• Men and Women will both share the fruits of their
  labor. Considering they each provide a different
  food resource that they continue to share with
  one another.
• Food sharing among members and other nearing
  groups can also provide the basis for creating
  and maintain social allies and networks.

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Egalitarianism

• Among many food foraging societies egalitarianism
  is an important characteristic.
• To be egalitarian means to have no status
  differences among members of a group. Generally
  the only status differences are with age and sex.
• No one member will accumulate more goods than
  another, thus eliminating jealously and potential
  conflict.

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Food Producers

• The New Stone Age or Neolithic the prehistoric
  period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which
  peoples possessed stone-based technologies and
  depended on domesticated plants and/or animals.
• This time period marks the emergence of a
  transition to food producing.

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Transition to Food Production

• The Neolithic revolution (transition) began about
  11,000 to 9,000 years ago. It was a time of
  significant culture change associated with the
  early domestication of plants and animals with
  settlement of permanent villages.
• Probably the result of increased management of
  wild food resources.
• Begin the development of simple hand tools for
  working the land.

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Types of Food Producing

• There are three main forms of food producing
  subsistence patterns
• 1.) Horticulture
• 2.) Agriculture
• 3.) Pastoralism

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Horticulture

• The cultivation of crops using simple hand tools
  such as digging sticks or hoes.
• Slash-and-burn cultivation (swidden farming).
• An extensive form of horticulture in which the
  natural vegetation is cut, the slash is
  subsequently burned, and crops are then planted
  among the ashes.

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Agriculture

• Agriculture is defined as the cultivation of food
  plants in soil prepared and maintained for crop
  production.
• It involves using technologies other than hand
  tools, such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the
  wooden or metal plow pulled by harnessed draft
  animals.

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Characteristics of Agricultural Societies

• Similar to food foragers who stay nearby their
  food resources, food producers reside together
  near their cultivated fields in fixed
  settlements.
• Historically, social relations would have been
  egalitarian and similar to those of food
  foragers. However, as settlements grew larger
  in population size people had to share important
  resources such as land and water, society became
  more elaborately organized.

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Pastoralism

• Pastoralism or animal husbandry is the
  subsistence pattern of raising and maintaining
  herds of domesticated animals, such as cattle,
  sheep, and goats.
• Pastoralists are usually nomadic. They share the
  similar concern of food foragers for finding
  fresh resources not only for their group but
  their herds as well.

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Intensive Agriculture

• As agriculture grows some farming communities
  will turn from small villages into larger cities
  including large centers of market exchange. This
  allows other members of the community to engage
  in other activities.
• Carpenters, blacksmiths, sculptures, basket
  makers, stonecutters.
• Carpenters, blacksmiths, sculptures, basket
  makers, stonecutters.
• Eventually this creates an urbanization.

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Peasants

• As urbanization including new life ways and
  complex culture these dwellers must rely on
  farmers in rural areas for most of their food
  supplies.
• Over time it becomes increasingly important for
  urban dwellers to seek control over rural areas.
  Farmers eventually turn into peasants.

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Peasants

• A rural cultivator whose surpluses are
  transferred to a dominant group of rulers that
  uses the surpluses both to underwrite its own
  standard of living and to distribute the
  remainder to groups in society that do not farm
  but must be fed for their specific goods and
  services in turn.

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Industrialization

• After the invention of the steam engine about 200
  years ago in England (which replaces human labor
  by machine labor) subsistence patterns changed in
  some regions.
• North America, Europe, Asia will become centers
  of industrialization among areas of intensified
  agriculture.
• This has led to a multitude of technological
  inventions that utilize oil, electricity, and
  nuclear energy.