Cultural Anthropology
Chapter Five:
Making a Living
But first…Meet the Natives 2
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Chapter Preview
 What is Adaptation?
 How Do Humans Adapt?
 What sorts of Adaptations Have Humans Achieved Through
the Ages?
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Patterns of Subsistence
Anthropologists have identified five patterns
of subsistence:
1. Foraging (hunting and gathering)
2. Pastoralism
3. Horticulture
4. Intensive agriculture
5. Mechanized agriculture (industrialism)
The pattern followed influences every aspect of
the group’s culture, such as community size
and kinship
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Adaptation
How humans manage to deal with the contingencies of
daily life
The interaction between changes an organism makes in its
environment and changes the environment makes in the
organism
organism
environment
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Humans, Culture and Environment: How
are These Components Related?
Ecosystem
humans
 The physical
environment and the
organisms living in it
Anthropogenesis
 The process whereby
ecosystems are
influenced or altered by
humans
culture
 Environment does not
environment
determine culture
 Environment provides
limits and possibilities
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
The Food-Foraging Way of Life
 The original affluent society
 Highly developed
 Well balanced and ample diet
 Plenty of leisure time
 Rich in human warmth and aesthetics
 Today
 Few people depend upon foraging
 Found in the world’s marginalized areas
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Characteristics of Food-Foragers
 Mobility
 Small group size
 Usually fewer than 100 people
live together
 Size is limited by carrying
capacity
 Groups respond to the
density of social relations
 Persistence hunt of !Kung
San
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Small Group Size
 Population density
 Rarely exceeds one
 Population control
 Nursing possibly
person per square mile
 Land can support 3 to 5
times as many people
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
suppresses ovulation
The Impact of Food Foraging on Human Society
 Division of labour by sex
 Food Sharing
 A consequence of the division
of labour
 Response to more frequent
meat eating
 Camp becomes center of
activity
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
The Impact of Food Foraging on Human Society
 Cultural adaptations and
material technology
 Mobility may depend upon
nature of resources
 Egalitarian society
 High mobility means few
accumulated goods
 Age and sex only status
markers
 Population size depends upon
hunting style
 Foods distributed equally
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Food-Producing Society
 Transition
 Food production first occurred about 11,000 to 9,000
years ago
 Unlikely people voluntarily became producers
 Arose as an unintended by-product of foodmanagement practices
 Adopted out of necessity when population growth
outstripped ability of foraging to support people
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
The Settled Life of Farmers
 Permanent settlements
 People stay close to gardens
rather than following game or
other food sources
 Altered division of labour
 Specialization develops
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
The Settled Life of Farmers
 Society more elabourately
structured
 Multifamily kinship groups
reside together
 Increase in population density
 Horticulture developed
 Crops cultivated with hand
tools
 Catal Hoyuk
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Pastoralism: The Bakhtiari
 Animal husbandry the
ideal way of life
 Effective in places not fit
for farming
 Large number of people are
pastoralists
 Transhumance normal
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Intensive Agriculture and Nonindustrial Cities
 Urbanization
 Increase in specialization
 New social order
 Sharp increase in tempo of cultural evolution
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Nonindustrial Cities in the Modern World
 Preindustrial cities
 Urban settlements characteristic of nonindustrial
civilizations
 Some have been around for thousands of years
 Common in the world today
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.
Mechanized Agriculture
 Large-scale agriculture dependent on complex
technology and biotechnology rather than human
power to increase production
 Complex machinery lightens the workload and enables
agriculturalists to open up larger farms
Copyright © 2009 by Nelson Education Ltd.