Subsistence
FORAGING AND HORTICULTURE
Learning Objectives:
Subsistence Unit

1. Identify the subsistence patterns found in human
societies

2. Identify the cultural characteristics of a society that
might be inferred from knowing the society’s subsistence
patterns

3. Identify the changes brought about by the transition to
food production.
Adaptive Strategies

Means of making a living
 1)
Foraging
 2)
Horticulture
 3)
Agriculture
 4)
Pastoralism
 5)
Industrialism
 Will
discuss at the end of the quarter
Foraging
 Until
_________________this was the strategy
of all humans
 Band
 Rely
– social system, fewer than __________
on available natural resources
 Variation
among world’s foragers
Foraging

Rely on naturally occurring plants and animals
 Diets
consisting of _____________________
 Problem:
Subject to Seasonality
____________________________________
Is
this possible today?
Often
____________ with neighboring food
producers
Foraging: Hunting

Typically a male
domain though
females help
process foods

_________________
Foraging: Gathering

Typically a female
domain
 Requires
 Allows
care

less travel
for infant
Provides most of the
__________________
Foraging: Today

All foraging groups utilize some form of food
production OR food producers

Why is this the case?

Influenced by
 1.
 2.
Foraging:
Inuit

1.

2.
Foraging:
Ache

Paraguay
 Earliest
report of this group – 1600s
 Before
1960s, small nomadic bands
 Today:
____________________
 1.
 2.
Foraging: San (Bushmen)

1997-2002: 3,000 of the 10,000 known San
people were relocated
 ______________________________

2006 court ruling -- ___________________
 Global
political action for indigenous peoples
 _________________________
 ____________________________
Foraging: San (Bushmen)
Horticulture


The ____________________________________
 Hoes
and digging sticks
 Fields
are not continually planted
Does not produce________________
 Supplement
diet by ______________________
Horticultural
Techniques

________________
 Shifting
Cultivation
 Problems?

_____________: Use
of a high variety of
plant species
Horticultural Groups

Low _________________________
 Lack

of surplus maintains population size
Some _______________________
 Continuously
exploit new soil when old plots have
lost their usefulness

Some ___________________________
 Move
horticultural plots rather than settlement
Horticulturalists of Today
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.
Horticulturalists of Today