Ethnographic research among
hunter-gatherers
CONTRASTING FORAGERS AND FARMERS
From Paleolithic to Mesolithic
 Paleolithic economies disappeared millennia ago.
 Definition of “Paleolithic” and “Mesolithic”
 Cultural anthropologists have studied groups using
Mesolithic technology: hunting and gathering.
 Examples:
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Inuit (Eskimo)
Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert
Australian aborigines
Pygmies of Central Africa
Ethnographic Strategy:
Participant observation
 “Holistic” description as the first task.
 Search for universal components of human cultures.
 Economic base: making a living.
 Kinship and marriage.
 The raising of children.
 Expressive dimensions of culture: music, art, etc.
 Power and conflict resolution
 Healing of illness.
 Disposal of the dead
 Religion: dealing with invisible spirits.
Hunter-gatherer features
 Economy: hunting wild animals, gathering vegetation.
 Long distance running.
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Side theme: the loss of human body hair.
 Occupational specialization only by age and gender.
 Monogamous egalitarian gender relations.
 Domestic economy: Sharing of meat.
 Social organization: Nomadic bands.
 Much leisure time.
 Relgion:
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zoomorphic spirits.
Shamans: healing the sick
Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert
Kung woman processing meat
Eskimo seal hunting
Eskimo igloo
Eskimos and dogs
The transition to agriculture
 The Near East and the Horn of Africa
 Wheat, barley and sorghum
 Cattle, swine, goats and sheep
 Meso-America: corn and beans
 The Andes: potatoes, llamas, alpacas
 China: rice and millet
Overview of Rice
 Three cultivated species
 Oryza sativa japonica, domesticated in what is
today central China by about 9,000 years BP.
 Oryza sativa indica, domesticated/hybridized in the
Indian subcontinent about 2500 BP
 Oryza glabberima, domesticated/hybridized in west
Africa between about 3500 and 2800 BP.
Domestication of rice in China
 Figs and rice may have been the earliest domesticates
 Time: end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000-12,000 BP,
early Neolithic.
 Domesticated rice (Oryza sativa) was developed from a
wild variety perhaps in the Yangtse River Valley in China
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Probably about 8000 years ago
Maybe before 10,000 years ago.
Two causal questions about domestication
 Diffusion or independent invention?
 Population growth: cause or effect?
Three explanatory models
for the transition to agriculture
 Independent invention
 Diffusion, borrowing, local modifications.
 Visitors from outer space.
 Example: Question of pyramids
Pyramids: invention or imitation?
Egyptian pyramids
Mayan pyramids
Emphasis on independent invention
 When confronted with similar problems, humans
often devise similar solutions.
 There were independent movements around the
world to pass
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from foraging to food growing,
From hunting to raising livestock
Population growth:
cause or effect of domesticated food?
 Were people forced into food growing by population pressure?
 Or did population increase as a result of more abundant food?
 What other factors could have led to
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1.the domestication of food?
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2. population growth?