forests and arid regions in the developing world that are deemed undesirable
for agricultural use. Over the centuries,
they were pushed to these marginal lands.
Small groups of scattered true huntergatherer groups live in the Amazon, the
Arctic, Papua New Guinea, Australia, the
Andaman Islands and Africa. Robert Kelly
(The Foraging Spectrum. 1995) has identified 92 hunter-gatherer groups around the
world, some of whom may be only marginally hunter-gatherers. However, there
likely are many more unidentified groups
around the world.
As an example, the Hadza people live
in the wild lands of northern Tanzania
around Lake Eyasi in the Great Rift Valley. Like most hunter-gatherers, they are
nomadic, having no fixed residence and
moving from place to place in search of
food and water according to the seasons.
Agricultural encroachment has whittled
the Hadza hunting and gathering land
down over the years to a quarter of the
4,000-plus square miles (10, 360 sq. km)
that the group once used. The Hadza now
number about 1,000, but only about 300 remain true hunter-gatherers.
The Hadza have neither crops nor livestock. Men and women have a distinct
division of labor. The men are responsible
for procuring meat, honey and the fruit of
the baobab tree. In the dry season, the men
According to National Geographic, the
Hadza lifestyle is very important to anthropologists. It offers a glimpse of what
societies might have been like before the
advent of agriculture. The Hadza have
never suffered major infectious disease
outbreaks, perhaps because they have never lived in densely packed populations.
They have never experienced famine and
Neal Lineback
their diet is more stable and varied than
most people of the world. They have plenand Mandy Lineback Gritzner
ty of leisure time and they have hardly left
an imprint upon the earth.
Unlike the Hadza who could feasibly
grow crops, the hunter-gatherer communities of the Arctic have no means to support
In some parts of the world people still
agriculture. The Arctic experiences long
make survive by hunting and gathering.
periods of bitter cold, extreme seasonal
National Geographic magazine recently
differences in sunlight and little natural
published an article detailing the lives
vegetation. For these reasons, most Arctic
of the Hadza people of northern Tanzahunter-gatherers subsist almost entirely
nia. The Hadza live as their ancestors did
on meat.
10,000 years ago—as hunter-gatherers.
Various groups of hunter-gatherers live
Hunter-gatherers hunt game and collect
in the circumpolar region of the earth. They
plant foods (called foraging) in the wild
are small subsets of the Inuit of northern
rather than growing or tending crops. AnAlaska, Canada and Greenland and the
thropologists use the term hunter-gatherYupik of western Alaska, Alaskan coastal
ers to describe a particular type of lifestyle,
zones and areas of Russia. They exploit a
one that was practiced by all human bevariety of Arctic animals including seal,
ings until the advent of agriculture about
walrus, caribou, whales, polar bear, water10,000 years ago.
fowl and fish to meet their caloric needs.
In fact, 90 percent of human existence
All of the world’s hunter-gatherer societhas involved hunting and gathering. The
ies are fascinating. Their reasons for retainfirst
hunter-gatherers
ing the hunter-gatherer
Exploring Today’s Hunter-Gatherers
probably collected sealifestyle are varied, from
©2010
food, eggs, nuts and
lack of suitable agriculfruits and scavenged
tural land to continuing
dead animals.
the ancestral ways. For
When the Neolithic
most, it is “just the way
period began about
it’s always been done.”
10,000 years ago, plants
Virtually all hunterand animals started to be
gatherer societies are
domesticated and agrismall and their members
culture began spreading.
have a deep appreciation
Food production allowed
for the land and water
Hadza
populations to increase
resources that support
and farm-based societthem.
ies began to displace or
As time passes, these
Hunter-Gatherer Groups
destroy the habitats of
groups are diminishhunter-gatherer groups.
ing in number as presWith the resulting pressures on their resources
sure for land use, many
encourage, if not force,
Geography in the News 2/26/10
Source: Kelly 1995
C. Franko/T. Smith
hunter-gatherers graduthem to adapt new techally adopted agriculture
nologies. Studying these
Sources: Finkel, Michael, “The Hadza,” National Geographic, December 2009,
or pastoralism (raising
societies is an urgent
pgs. 94-119; and Kelly, Robert L., 1995, The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in
livestock). As villages,
matter while so few reHunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Percheron Press: New York.
towns and fiefdoms
main.
emerged,
widespread
And that is Geography
hunter-gatherer lifestyle all but ended in a
wait at watering holes to kill game with
in the News™. February 26, 2010. #1030.
relatively short time span .
bows and arrows treated with poison.
Co-authors are Neal Lineback, Appalachian
Today, while almost all human beings
Women specialize in foraging tubers, berState University Professor Emeritus of
rely on agriculture for food, some very
ries and greens. Most women carry a “digGeography, and Geographer Mandy Lineback
small communities of hunter-gatherers
ging stick,” a knife and a skin pouch for
Gritzner. University News Director Jane
still exist. Many of them live in tropical
holding foraged foodstuffs.
Nicholson serves as technical editor.
Geography
In The
News™
MODERN HUNTERGATHERERS
©2010 Maps.com