Chapter 7 (Anthropology)

Crops for horticulturists

1. perennial- bananas, plantains, figs, dates, and coconuts 2. annual seed (high in protein)- wheat, barely, corn, oats, sorghum, rice, millet 3. root (high in starch/carbs)- yams, arrowroots, taro, manioc, potatoes

Peasants are...

1. subject to the laws and controls of the state 2. influenced by the urban-based religious hierarchies 3. exchange their farm surpluses for goods produced in other parts of the state

Two types of movement patterns for Pastoralism

1. transhumance 2. nomadism

industrialization

A process resulting in the economic change from home production of goods to large-scale mechanized factory production.

Neolithic Revolution

A stage in human cultural evolution (beginning around 10,000 years ago) characterized by the transition from hunting and gathering to the domestication of plants and animals. Humans for the first time produced their food by means of horticulture or animal husbandry.

horticulture pg.164-166

A system of farming based on the use of simple hand tools and employing a minimum of labor. small-scale crop cultivation characterized by the use of simple technology and the absence of irrigation. Do not develop extensive market systems. Some horticulturalists not only are subsistence farmers but also produce a small surplus to sell/exchange in local markets for things they cannot produce themselves.

Implications of Agriculture

Allows for private land ownership, and control of such a critical resource can form the basis of control of other persons as well. With the substantial labor invested in improving the land, agriculture entails fully sedentary living. It allows also for denser populations than any other mode of subsistence. Productive enough over the long term to support substantial non-farmers, allowing for the formation of urban centers.

Horticulture Geographic Distribution

At the time of European contact, most of the peoples living in the American northeast (Iroquian and Algonkian) and southeast (Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw) made a living growing crops by employing horticultural strategies. Southwestern Puebloan peoples were also horticultural farmers, as were peoples in Central America, northern South America into Amazonia, and in the southern Andes. Most sub-Saharan Africans were and continue to be horticultural farmers, as well as Oceania and parts of Asia.

pastoralism (animal husbandry) pg. 166-167

Based on the maintenance of large herds of livestock. Depending on the location, that livestock may consist of camels, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, or yaks. Many agriculturally-based societies engage in pastoral activities. But collections of cowboys or llama herders are not pastoral societies but subsets of larger agricultural ones. Societies are only classified as pastoral if they constitute politically independent units.

Adaptation (cultural and biological)

Cultural adaptation responses to cold climates include "technological" solutions such as building fires, using animal skins as clothing and blankets, and seeking refuge from the elements in caves or constructed dwellings. They tend to eat more food increasing their internal body temp. pg. 151-152

4. "original affluent society"

Described by Marshall Sahlins. Because they only harvest nature's bounty food foragers save themselves the effort of land clearing, planting and weeding crops, and caring for animals. Such peoples actually work hardly at all. 20 hours or so dedicated to work and rest of their time is spend socializing and partying.

Jared Diamond (agriculture)

Describes agriculture as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race."

Shifting Cultivation

Done by horticultural farmers in the form of slash-and-burn technique and swidden cultivation. Horticultural practices are actually much sounder ecologically than are modern industrial agricultural ones which seek to overcome nature rather than mimic it. Since fields are abandoned after a few years or so, private land ownership is impossible in this system and communal land ownership must be practiced.

agriculture

Energy intensive and employs more sophisticated technology, commonly plows drawn by draft animals, and often such techniques as irrigation and terracing.

Northwest Coast Indians

Extends from southern Alaska southward into northern California. Their subsistence centered on the exploitation of salmon captured in weirs, nets and by other means when they swarm upstream to spawn. So abundant were the salmon during their yearly runs that only a few months of summer fishing sufficed to feed people the remainder of the year. The abundant food supply allowed Northwest Coast peoples to live in much larger communities than found among simple foragers.

food foraging (hunting and gathering) vs. food production

Food Foraging involves living off the land and selectively "harvesting" what nature provides, as opposed to actively laboring to alter the environment so as to enhance the availability of selected species deemed important to humans. Food production is based on domesticated plants and animals and the goal of food producers is to enhance the quality and biomass of their domesticates.

1. low population density

Food foragers live off the land, selectively harvesting the plants and animals that nature provides. There are immediate and direct consequences of employing this particular subsistence strategy. 1. Nature rarely provides a bounty of food, an such food sources as exist tend to be widely scattered about the landscape, greatly restricting the carrying capacity of such a system. This means that in areas inhabited by foragers population densities are low, as low as .2 person per square mile in the case of the Bushmen of South Africa.

Food Foraging

Food foraging was the original human economic adaption. Later domestication of plants and animals beginning first about 11,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, initially led to the creation of horticultural farming societies. These later gave rise to agriculturally-based societies and the latter to pastoral ones.

Downside of Food Production

Food producers of all varieties narrow their subsistence base by depending on only a handful of plant and animal species for the bulk of their diet, while foragers exploit a much wider range of food sources.

3. simple technology

Foragers are stone age peoples, typically equipped with only the bare minimum of technology. For most, spears, bows-and-arrows, traps, nets and other simple tools and weapons of the hunt suffice for the task at hand. Foragers know the most intimate characteristics of the environments they inhabit, including the plants and animals that inhabit it, and it is that know-how that enables them to efficiently exploit that environment. One implication of their limited technology is that food foragers have minimal impact on the environment compared to peoples employing other subsistence strategies.

Mongongo Nut

Found in abundance all year long, contains 5 times more calories and 10 times more protein per cooked unit than cereal crops. However, unlike people in other arid regions, they did not have any periods of plenty and they had no way of storing food supplies. When food shortages occurred, they adapted by relying on pooling networks among their local groups to reduce their risk of starvation.

greater sedentism

Horticulture also allows for greater sedentism by anchoring people to their farmlands. This means that horticultural farmers are able to live in permanent or semi-permanent villages.

Agriculture (continued)

It is their use of indigenous knowledge, passed from 1 generation to another, that has enabled such societies to adapt overtime to their changing environmental, economic, social, and political conditions. In some cases of adaptive failure, in which societies have become extinct by mismanaging their environment and squandering their natural resources.

food foraging (=hunting & gathering)

Living by hunting animals, fishing, and gathering wild plants. The original human economic adaption.

2. nomadic

Moreover, because of the scattered distribution of food sources, such groups as do exist must be limited in size to family and small multi-family units and remain highly mobile in search of game and edible vegetation.

Ju/'hoasni culture (Africa)

Observed by Richard Lee. Because they lived in a desert environment, they had to keep moving in order to keep eating, especially given that food and water resources are sparse. They were classic hunter-gatherers (foragers) and possessed no domestic animals except their hunting dogs. Women collected roots, nuts, fruits, and other edible veggies and occasionally snared small game, and men hunted medium and large animals and occasionally brought back gathered items. Women provided 2 to 3 times more food by weight. Their most important food item was the mongongo nut (accounted for about half of their diet).

Inuit (Arctic Region)

Often faced starvation. Had to adapt to a climate of bitterly cold temperatures, short summers, and a terrain almost devoid of vegetation. Fished and hunted for whales, walruses, caribou and seals and would take down polar bears, birds, and any other edible animal if the opportunity presented itself. Supplemented diet with seaweed due to little edible vegetation. Spent part of the year on the move, searching for food, and then part of the year at a central, more permanent camp. 3 hunting seasons: the seal, the caribou, and the whale. Understanding the seasonal migratory patterns of animals is central to their subsistence strategy. Although hunting and gathering has been largely replaced by food production, there remains one very important form of hunting that many world economies depend on: fishing. pg. 157-160

5. sexual division of labor

One of the reasons foragers are able to meet their physical needs with little expenditure of labor is that individuals specialize in specific economic tasks, and as a result become very proficient at them. The most important basis for the division of labor is sexual. Largely because pregnancy and child care preclude most women from engaging in hunting activities for long periods of time, they instead devote their energies to plant gathering while men specialize as hunters and fishers.

population increase (horticulture)

Population densities among horticultural peoples show a corresponding upward climb, with as many as 50 or more persons per mile, while simple foragers max out at around 1 person per mile.

Affluence and Abundance for the Ju/'hoansi

Richard Lee suggested that their food gathering techniques were both productive and reliable. They ate only about one-third of the edible plant foods and regularly hunted only 17 or 223 local species of animals known to them. They were hardly overworked where only about 12-19 hours per week were in the pursuit of food. By the 21st century, their way of life had disappeared. pg. 155-157

peasantry

Rural peoples, usually on the lowest rung of society's ladder, who provide urban inhabitants with farm products but have little access to wealth or political power.

simple vs. advanced foragers

Simple Foragers: Advanced Foragers: much larger, more sedentary, and more socially and technologically complex societies.

6. minimal warfare"

Since they do not invest labor in transforming the landscape by, for example, clearing forests and planting fields, land itself has no value to most foragers. What does have value are animals that respect no boundaries and plants that provide food on a seasonal basis. Motivations for conflict with neighbors are therefore few in number. Taking their land is meaningless, since in and of itself land has no economic value. Sometimes feuds do develop among neighbors due to imagined slights, but this usually only occurs when those neighbors are culturally different and speak a different language.

Maasai pastoralism pg. 167-169

The Maasai culture of Kenya and Tanzania (East Africa) The Maasai got most of their sustenance in the form of milk and blood from their cows, consuming meat only on rare ritual occasions. This high protein diet was occasionally supplemented with grains and honey obtained through trade with neighboring peoples. Gained the reputation of being quintessential cattle keepers. According to their creation myth, Ngai (God) gave all the cattle on the earth to the Maasai, and they have used this myth to justify raiding cattle from neighboring peoples. Pg. 167-169

nomadic pastoralism

The entire group (whole village) moving with their herd in search of new pasturage. (such as Bedouin camel herders in North Africa). They grow NO CROPS and are entirely dependent for their survival on obtaining grains from farming peoples with whom they maintain a symbiotic economic relationship. They take advantage of seasonal variations in pasturage so as to maximize the food supply of their herds.

Energy Efficiency (Agriculture)

The least efficient and most wasteful subsistence system ever developed by mankind. For every calorie of food produced on American industrial farms, anywhere fro, 8-12 calories of oil has been expended. Adding the cost of processing, marketing, transportation, etc. and the cost skyrockets.

carrying capacity

The maximum number of people a given society can support, given the available resources.

transhumance

The movement pattern of pastoralists in which some of the men move livestock seasonally. Usually young males.

Industrial Agriculture pg. 171-172

Third revolution was the industrial revolution. Industrialization in food production relies on technological sources of energy rather than human or animal energy. Economic change from home production of goods to large-scale mechanized factory production. High-tech farm management is good for the environment b/c it uses the fertilizer more economically, and it is good for the farmer b/c it increases the overall yield per unit of land.

traditional vs. industrial agriculture

Traditional agricultural systems: most energy inputs take the form of additional human labor. Industrial Agriculture systems: energy inputs mostly take the form of fossil fuels and heavy machinery. It is essentially a means of converting oil into food. Industrial agriculture stands alone as the only subsistence system operating on a negative energy budget.

Shifting Cultivation (slash & burn technique/ swidden cultivation) pg. 164-165

Used by horticultural farmers. A form of plant cultivation in which seeds are planted in fertile soil prepared by cutting and burning the natural growth; relatively short periods of cultivation are followed by longer fallow periods. This technique involves clearing the land by manually cutting down the growth, burning it, and planting it in the burned area. Even though the ash residue serves as a fertilizer, the soil nutrients are usually depleted within a few years. Slash-and-burn cultivating can eventually destroy the environment if fields are not given sufficient time to lie fallow. In such cases, the forests may be replaced by grasslands or the soil nutrients may be depleted, which results in poverty for the farmers.

Intensive Agriculture pg. 169-170

a form of commodity production that requires intensive working of the land with plows and draft animals and the use of techniques of soil and water control. Today, intensive agriculture is the primary food production pattern in all developed nations except those that are too arid or too cold for any form of farming. Egypts, Mesopotamia, India, and Pakistan, northern China, Mesoamerica, western South America.

Stock Friendship

a gift of livestock from one man to another to strengthen their friendship.

milpa

cleared field

Pastoralism pg. 166-167

involves herding, breeding, consuming, and using domesticated herd animals such as cattle, camels, goats, etc. Practiced in areas of the world that cannot support agriculture b/c of inadequate terrain, soils, or rainfall.

Peasantry pg. 171

rural peoples, usually on the lowest rung of society's ladder, who provide urban inhabitants with farm products but have little access to wealth or political power. Tied to larger units (cities/states) politically, religiously, and economically. Provide most of the dietary needs of the city dwellers. Powerful city dwellers often extract both labor and products from the peasants in the form of taxation, rent, or tribute.