Chapter 7
Patterns of Subsistence
1
What Will You Learn?
• Recognize the relationship between cultural adaptation
and long-term cultural change.
• Distinguish between the different food-collecting and
food-producing systems.
• Analyze the relationship between the environment,
technology, and social organization in cultures.
• Assess the significance of the Neolithic revolution.
• Explain the process of parallel and convergent
evolution.
• Critically discuss mass food production in the age of
globalization.
2
Adaptation and Environment
• 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 is
comprised of both the natural environment
and the organisms that inhabit it.
3
Adaptation in Cultural Evolution
• Human groups adapt to their environment by
means of their cultures. However, cultures may
change over the course of time; they evolve.
Cultural Evolution is the process of cultures
changing over time.
• The process is sometimes confused with the idea
of progress- the notion that humans are moving
forward to a better, more advanced stage in their
development toward perfection.
• Not all changes turn out to be positive in the long
run, nor do they improve conditions for every
member of a society even in the short run.
4
Convergent Evolution: A Case Study
• 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. They 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.
5
Convergent Evolution: A Case Study
• 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.
6
Convergent Evolution: A Case Study
• The history of the Comanche is similar to the
historical accounts of the Native American
Cheyenne Indians. The Cheyenne Indians 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.
7
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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8
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.
9
An Ecosystemic Collapse: The Tragic
Case of Easter Island
• Pictured here are the
famous “moai” of Rapa
Nui or Easter Island.
• Nearly 900 stone statues
line the landscape of the
island.
• Polynesian seafarers
settled here some 800 yrs
ago, they prospered
greatly and then faced an
ecosystemic collapse.
10
Cultural Areas
• From early on, anthropologists have
recognized that ethnic groups living within the
same broad habitat often share certain
cultural traits.
• These groups have been classified as “cultural
areas”, which are geographic regions in which
a number of societies follow a similar pattern
of life.
11
Cultural Areas
• This maps shows the
major cultural areas
that have been
identified for North and
Central America. Within
each, there is an overall
similarity of native
cultures, as opposed to
the differences that
distinguish the cultures
of one area from those
of all others.
12
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
13
Food Foraging: Organization
•
•
•
•
•
Four elements of food foraging organization:
Mobility
Division of labor by gender
Food sharing
Egalitarian Social Relations
14
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
– The number of people that the available resources can
support at a given level of food-getting techniques.
• Populations stabilize at numbers well below the
carrying capacity of their land.
• Egalitarian, populations have few possessions and
share what they have.
15
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.
16
Mobility
• As previously mentioned it is necessary for
food foraging groups to limit their population
size due to the carrying capacity.
• Often this can create what is called a density
of social relations; meaning that the limited
availability of resources forces larger groups to
live together. More people can create more
social conflicts.
17
Critical Thought
• Frequent nursing of
children four or five years
acts to suppress ovulation
among foragers. As a
consequence, women
give birth to relatively few
offspring at widely spaced
intervals.
• How does this differ from
the Western perspective
on breastfeeding?
18
Flexible Division of Labor
• Division of labor exists in all societies.
• Among food-foragers, the hunting and
butchering of large game as well as the
processing of hard or tough raw materials are
almost universally male occupations.
• Women’s work in foraging societies usually
focuses on collection and processing a variety
of plant foods, as well as other domestic
chores that can be fit to the demands of
breastfeeding, pregnancy, and childbirth.
19
Food Sharing
• Men and women will both share the fruits of
their labor. They each provide a different food
resource that they share with one another.
• Food sharing among members and other
nearby groups can also provide the basis for
creating and maintain social allies and
networks.
20
Egalitarian Social Relations
• 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.
21
Communal Property
• Food foragers make no attempt to accumulate
surplus foodstuffs, which is often a source of
status in other societies.
• As a result food is typically shared throughout
the group and no one person or family
achieves wealth or status that hoarding might
produce.
22
Rarity of Warfare
• Anthropologists have learned that warlike
behavior on the part of food-foraging peoples
is known, but this behavior is a relatively
recent phenomenon in response to pressure
from expansionist states.
• In the absence of such pressures, foodforaging peoples are nonaggressive and place
more emphasis on peacefulness and
cooperation than they do on violent
competition.
23
Food Producers
• The New Stone Age or Neolithic; the
prehistoric period beginning about 10,000
years ago in which peoples possessed stonebased technologies and depended on
domesticated plants and/or animals.
• This time period marks the emergence of a
transition to food producing.
24
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.
25
Transition to Food Production
26
Types of Food Producing
• There are three main forms of food producing
subsistence patterns:
– 1. Horticulture
– 2. Agriculture
– 3. Pastoralism
27
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.
28
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.
29
Characteristics of Crop-Producing
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.
30
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.
31
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.
• Eventually this creates an urbanization.
32
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.
33
Peasants (continued)
• 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.
34
Industrial Food Production
• 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.
35
Industrial Food Production
• Throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s, this
resulted in large-scale industrial societies.
Technological inventions utilizing electricity
and nuclear energy brought about more
dramatic changes in social and economic
organization on a worldwide scale.
36
Large Scale Food Production
• In order to maximize profits, agribusinesses
are constantly streamlining food production
and looking for ways to reduce labor costs by
trimming the numbers of workers, minimize
employee benefits, and drive down wages.
37