Subsistence
Anthropological definition of "subsistence" activities carried out by individuals in a society:
Broad terms: Any activity undertaken by humans to survive in an environment
Narrow terms: A food obtaining activity undertaken by humans in order to make a liv
Primary Modes of Subsistence
Each pattern involves natural resources and the technology (knowledge and tools) developed by the society to effectively utilize those resources.
1. Food foraging societies
2. Food producing societies
3. Industrialized societies
Cultural Adaptations
Refers to the process and time it takes a person to assimilate to a new culture.
Cultural Ecology
The study of human interaction with ecosystems to determine how nature influences and is influenced by human social organization and culture.
Food Foraging
Hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods.
Carrying Capacity
The number of people that the available resources can support at a given level of food-getting techniques.
Egalitarian
A society without formalized differences in the access to power, influence, and wealth.
Horticulture
Cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.
Slash-and-burn Cultivation
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; also known as Swidden farming.
Agriculture
The cultivation of food plants in soil prepared and maintained for crop production. Involves using technologies other than hand tools such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the wooden or metal plow pulled by harnessed draft animals.
Pastoralism
Breeding and managing large herds of domesticated grazing and browsing animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle, horses, llamas, or camels.
Transhumance
The action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.
Ecosystem
A system, or a functioning whole, composed of both the natural environment and all the organisms living within it.
Cultural Evolution
Cultural change over time; not to be confused with progress (not always positive).
Progress
The notion that humans are moving forward to a better, more advanced stage in their cultural development toward perfection.
Convergent Evolution
In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures.
Parallel Evolution
In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by people whose ancestral cultures were already somewhat alike.
Culture Area
A geographic region in which a number of societies follow similar patterns of life.
Culture Core
Cultural features that are fundamental in the society's way of making its living - including food-producing techniques, knowledge of available resources, and the work arrangements involved in applying those techniques to the local environment.
*Production
Neolithic
The New Stone Age; prehistoric period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which peoples possessed stone-based technologies and depended on domesticated plants and/or animals
Neolithic Revolution
The profound cultural change beginning about 10,000 years ago and associated with the early domestication of plants and animals and settlement in permanent villages.
Peasant
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
Agribusiness
Large-scale businesses involved in food production, including farming, contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, distribution, processing, and marketing. Also known as corporate farming, it stands in contrast to smaller family-owned fa
How Do Humans Meet Basic Needs?
1. Cultural Adaptations
2. Basic Needs (e.g. food, water, shelter)
3. Ecosystem
What Are Historical Milestones in Human Cultural Adaptation?
1. Food sharing
2. Plant and animal domestication (10,000 years ago)
3. Horticulture (permanent settlements) and pastoralism (mobile societies)
4. Cities (5,000 years ago)
Characteristics of Food Foraging Societies
1. Nomadic (move with seasons and resource availability)
2. Currently occupy marginal environments (desert, arctic, tropical)
3. Small size of local groups (less than 100 members, limited by carrying capacity)
4. Populations stabilize at numbers well belo
Food Foraging: Mobility
Strongly limited by their difficult living environments which they occupy
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
Food Foraging: Population Size
Must limit their population size due to the carrying capacity of the environment (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 availabi
Food Foraging: Limiting 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 ovulat
Food Foraging: Gender Division of Labor
ALL societies have some type of division of labor by gender
Foraging groups often follow this pattern:
Men: hunting, butchering, processing of hard or tough materials, and overall more dangerous activities
Women: collecting food, domestic chores
Food Foraging: Food Sharing
Men and Women will both share the "fruits" or results of their labor, and they each provide a different food resource and all contributions are valued.
Food sharing among members and neighboring groups can also provide the basis for creating and maintain
Food Foraging: 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. Very little hierarchy.
No one mem
Transition to Food Producing Societies
-Neolithic Revolution began around 10,000 years ago and was a time of significant culture change
-Domestication of plants and animals
-Permanent settlement
-Increased management of wild food sources
-Increased populations
-Increased job specialization and
Types of Food Producing Societies
1.) Horticulture - cultivation of crops using simple hand tools and human energy
2.) Agriculture - cultivation of plants using soil preparation and technologies beyond hand tools
3.) Pastoralism - raising and maintaining herds of domesticated animals
Horticulture: Slash-and-burning (aka Swidden farming)
*Form of horticulture in which the natural vegetation is cut, the slash is subsequently burned, and crops are then planted among the ashes
*Groups establish several fields at various stages of growth
*Outsiders often seen as destructive to environment, bu
Characteristics of Agricultural Societies
*Use technologies other than hand tools, such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the wooden or metal plows pulled by harnessed draft animals or even machines
*Reside in fixed settlements near cultivated fields
*Societies become stratified as populations incr
Intensive Agriculture
*As agriculture grows some farming communities will turn from small villages into larger cities including large centers of market exchange (aka urbanization). This allows other members of the community to engage in other activities (i.e. non-food producti
Urbanization and Peasants
-Urban dwellers increasingly rely on farmers in rural areas for food and often seek to control rural areas
-Farmers often turn into peasants (defined below)
rural cultivator whose surpluses are transferred to a
*Dominant group of rulers that use the surpl
Characteristics of Pastoral Societies
1. Pastoralism or animal husbandry is the subsistence pattern of raising and maintaining herds of domesticated animals, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.
2. Pastoralists are usually nomadic. They share the similar concern of food foragers for finding fres
Industrialized Food Production
As with other aspects of society, industrialization has impacted food production around the globe.
Key Concepts
1. Dependence - Humans depend on wildlife, including plants and animals for their livelihoods. In rural Africa this dependence is often direct, such as the use of animals for food or plants for medicine.
2. Insurance - Wild animals and plants can also pro
Economic Systems
1. Defined - a society's arrangement for producing, distributing and consuming goods.
2. Subsistence practice represents an important PORTION of a society's economy but not the complete picture.
3. Caution! Be wary of ethnocentrism and applying our econom
Primary Resources
The following are the primary resources available within all societies and cultures. Their specific subsistence practice will influence their treatment and allocation of these resources.
-Land and Water Resources
-Technology
-Labor
Control of Land and Water
ESSENTIAL - The access to land and fresh water is naturally a resource all living people MUST obtain to survive
VARIATION - Some societies have private ownership of these resources while others divide them up among who has occupied that land the longest
S
Land & Water: Food Forages
-Land is usually controlled by kinship groups rather than an individual
-All bands will have their own "territory" an area they occupy that is considered theirs, loose boundaries
-Ex. Ju/'hoansi have about 10-30 individuals per 250 sq. miles
-Food forager
Land & Water: Food Producers
-Pastoralists require a system that determines rights to watering places and grazing land for their animals. Often land will be divided up based on watering holes
-Farmers (agricultural) must have some means of determining title to land and access to wate
Land & Water: Industrial Societies
-In Western capitalist societies, private ownership of land and rights to natural resources generally prevails
-System is based on the individual not the group as it might be for foraging and some producing societies
Technology Resources
-Similar to economic systems, all societies will have some form of technology
-Technology (defined)= tools and other material equipment along with the knowledge of how to make and use them
-Technological complexity varies among groups, and technological a
Technology Trends
-Food foragers and pastoralists who are nomadic have fewer and simpler tools than sedentary farmers
-Ex. Average member of the Ju/'hoansi owns about 25 lbs. of possessions per member!
-The primary tools for horticulturists include the axe, digging stick,
Division of Labor
Despite cross-cultural variations of labor patterns, every society has a division of labor by gender and age at the very minimum
There are three documented patterns of labor by gender:
1. Flexible/Integrated Pattern
2. Segregated Pattern
3. Dual Sex Confi
Flexible/Integrated Pattern
-Seen most frequently among food foragers
-35% of tasks are performed equally by men and women
-Tasks considered appropriate for one gender may be performed by the other without the loss of respect or esteem by others
-Boys and girls grow up in much the s
Segregated Pattern
-Common to pastoral, intensive agricultural, and industrial societies
-Almost all labor/work is defined as masculine or feminine
-Men and women rarely engage in joint efforts and do not help one another
-Both boys and girls are raised primarily by women
-
Dual Sex Configuration
-Seen among some Native American societies
-Men and women carry out their work separately
-The relationship is balanced and complementary, rather than unequal
-Each gender manages its own affairs, and the interests of both men and women are represented at
Division of Labor by Age
-Typical to have a division by age in all societies although how divided varies greatly
-Food foraging societies such as the Ju/'hoansi do not expect children to contribute to subsistence until their late teens. Elders will also "retire" around the age of
Systems of Distribution
Anthropologists often classify the cultural systems of distribution into three primary modes:
1. Reciprocity - the exchange of goods and services of roughly equal value between two parties
2. Redistribution
3. Market Exchange
Reciprocity: Bartering
-Occurs when two or more partners negotiate a direct exchange of one trade good for another
-This transaction can turn hostile of both parties are not in agreement
-Could result in negative reciprocity
-Each party seeks to get the best possible deal, both
Forms of Reciprocity
Three main forms of reciprocity:
1. Generalized - The value of what is given is not calculated and repayment is not specified.
2. Balanced -A direct obligation to reciprocate in equal value for the relationship to continue.
3. Negative - The giver tries t
Redistribution
-Redistribution is the form of exchange in which resources and goods flow into a central place where they are sorted, counted, and reallocated
-Redistribution involves a certain amount of centralized power and control
-In societies with a surplus to suppo
Redistribution Motives
-The leadership by the chief or person in charge of redistribution has several motives:
-Equalize access of resources with the members of the population
-Gain or maintain a position of superiority through a display of wealth and generosity.
-Assure those
Market Exchange
*Defined - buying and selling of goods and services, with prices set by rules of supply and demand
*Prices are set on the basis of supply and demand.
*Money is often but not always used as in some non-industrial societies that practice market exchange
*Mo
Informal Economy or Black Market?
*The production of marketable commodities that for various reasons escape enumeration, regulation, or any other sort of public monitoring or auditing.
*Examples of goods or services that may be obtained on this type of market:
*Household services (ex. chi
Bronislaw Malinowski
*1884-1942 - Founder of social anthropology and many methods that form the core of anthropological fieldwork
*Became prominent through studies of Pacific Islanders as he extensively studied their marriage, trade and religious customs
*Did not wholly "inve