Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics

• mobility• small group size• food sharing• egalitarianism• communal property• rarity of warfare

For each of these you should know:

what it meanshow/why it is adaptive for

their chosen subsistence strategy

how it relates to / affects the other characteristics on the list

Use p. 413-417 to complete your explanations. I will come around and award classwork points for completing this assignment.

Be sure to include the following in your notes:

• definition of carrying capacity• how hunter-gatherers keep populations low –

this answer refers to a biological adaptation not just a cultural one

• the only status differences among hunter-gatherers (hint: there are two)

• hunter-gatherers and surplus• hunter-gatherers and a concept of land

ownership

Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics

• rarity of warfare• How do you define war?• Early ethnographies - !Kung, Mbuti Pygmies – reported

few deadly conflicts.• Carol Ember (1970s)– 64% - war at least once every two years– 26% - war less often– 10% - war extremely rare

• Lawrence Keeley (1990s)– 25-30% adult males die violently– That’s the same as 2 billion deaths in the 20th C.

Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics

rarity of warfare?

• Why do we care?

• Whether war is frequent or rare reveals what about hunter-gatherers’ nature?

• Why would we want to know whether hunter-gatherers are naturally violent or not?• What subsistence strategy have most humans used for

most of history?

Hunter-gatherersCharacteristics

rarity of warfare?

• Why would we want to compare rates of violence of our ancestors (hunter-gatherers) to rates of violence in modern society?

• What do anthropologists have to assume about modern hunter-gatherers in order to understand whether modern society has made us more or less violent?

Tlingit• grasslands /

semi-arid desert• semi-abundant

resources: both hunting & gathering

!Kung Inuit (Netsilik)

• temperate rainforest / sea coast

• very abundant resources: mostly hunting & fishing

• tundra / sea coast

• scarce resources: most calories from hunting

• live in settled communities with permanent housing?• believe in 3 gods – one hates humans, the other is a

moody baby, and the last one just sorta puts up with humans?

• are able to accumulate some personal wealth?• near gender equality: neither gender is dominant?• work an average of 17 hours per week?

Which one: !Kung, Tlingit, or Inuit (Netsilik)?

Anthropology became a field of study in the 1800s. The first anthropologists described hunter-gatherers as inferior, primitive savages.

STEREOTYPES• culturally poor: no art, no literature, etc.• Ignorant & primitive• very low status for women• must slave long hours just to get the bare minimum to survive• are unhealthy

Hunter-gatherers are SAVAGES!

The myth of the NOBLE SAVAGE arose later among anthropologists and romanticized hunter-gatherers as the ideal human, far superior to us.

STEREOTYPES• They share everything and live in perfectly harmonious, close-

knit groups.• They have a deeper respect for the environment.• Their lifestyle is much healthier than ours.

Hunter-gatherers are NOBLE SAVAGES.