Cultural Anthropology: Chapter 2

Factors of Carrying Capacity: Cultural Perceptions of the Available REsources

"Since what we eat becomes us ---beomes our flesh and bones-- our learned cultural perceptions of , and attitudes toward, foodstuffs are deeply internalized and difficult to unlearn as an adult. The smell of certain produces may be tasty to one individuals may be disturbing to others.

Domesticated Plants

A plant Variety is said to be domesticated when its native features have been changed to the point that it cannot reproduce, at least not in that ongoing form, without human assistance. Domesticated Plants need help with reproduction; protection from drought, disease, and pests; and the utilization of fertilizer. Some plants are been modified to ripen even after being picked from plants, prevent easily being bruised, and longer self life.

Modes of Subsistence

Anthropologists are referring to how people get the food they need to survive. To subsists means "to exist" or "to live on"

Wild Foods

Before the Neolithic Revolution, All plants and animals were wild. Hunters and gatherers relied on these wild foods for their sustenance. They developed an intimate knowledge of the natural history of the flora and fauna.

Intensive and Industrial Agriculture in More detail

By adding additional sources of power and additional tools and technology to the process, agriculture can be intensified and even industrialized. Tractors, harvesters, and balers can allows even larger tracts of land to be put under cultivation and even more food to be harvested from a given amount of land. Canals and irrigation tunnels can be sophisticated to allow water from miles away to be readily available for farmers to use.

Cultural ecology

Careful study of the relevant environmental variables, as well as the way in which specific groups of people adapt to, interact with, and exploit the resources available to them. Subsistence activities can be considered the culture core, the heart of a culture.

Horticulture and Agriculture in More Detail

Domestication of plants began during the Neolithic Revolution and has been an ongoing process. The ability to grow one's own food and the food of others have allowed people to focus their time and talents to other activities like black smiting and metal mining. Horticulture and Agriculture also lack in the fact that it is very work intensive and improves preparing large quantities of ground, planting the seeds, seeding, or shoot; controlling weed, providing water, and dealing with pests and birds that want to eat the crops.

Reproductive Strategies in Carrying Capacity: K-selected

Females have few offspring, each with a high probability of survival and the parents provide substantial care. Humans, and all other mammals, are k-selected. Thus for humans, carrying capacity is not an objective characteristic of the land itself but rather a subjective characteristic based on cultural values and goals.

Reproductive Strategies in Carrying Capacity: R-selected

Females have many offspring, each with a low proability of survival, and the parents do not provide much, if any care.

Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness

Focuses on trying to understand what life was like for early human foragers, including what sorts of behaviors and cognitive capacities would have been developed through natural selection and other evolutionary processes. It is understandable why a group of people would have to hunt and gather instead of domesticating plants and animals. hunting is unpredictable and unreliable compared to the gathering of plant and animal foods. Men and women are exposed to different environments, Men will typically be out for a couple days to stalk prey and women will be closer to home collecting berries and watching children.

Food Distribution

Foragers would gather within a radius and return later the day to share their food. Hunters would stay out over night to stalk prey. After the Neolithic Revolution and the rise of market towns and trade routes, people were restricted to eating less wild foods and only ones provided in surplus. Exotic food was provided by travelers from faraway lands. Food that are climate sensitive may be grown in one area and shipped to far off places to individuals who were willing to buy them at a premium price.

Agriculture in More Detail:

Growing Domesticated plants with the addition of domesticated animals as a power source and the addition of the plow as a tool. A plow can quickly overturn the surface of landscape much quicker than a hoe can so planting requires less time and expansion is quicker. Due to large expansions with the assistance of domesticated animals, Agriculturalists can provide an excess amount of crops and sell or trade them in the market. The addition of a domestic animal like a donkey, mule oxen, or water buffalo adds additional responsibilities but the turn out rate is worth the investment.

Stuff Theory: Nomadic/ Transhumant Pastoralists

Have more options on what they could pack because they have domestic animals and do not have to transport it with only their arms.

Carrying Capacity: Sustainability

How long can a community survive for. Continual improvements in technology and knowledge may allow the population to increase above 100 people still successfully support eh population in a sustainable fashion. Over-fishing and over-mining of crucial ores can prevent a sustainable environment.

Domesticated Animals

Humans selected for a variety of characteristic, beginning with friendliness, lack of fear of humans, and the capacity to be herded and/or kept in captivity. Lack of sharp teeth might be selected for. A breed of anial is said to be domesticated when its native features have been changed to the point that it cannot reproduce, at least not in that ongoing form, without human assistance. Animals are selected for their ability to have certain favorable traits like bigger chicken breasts and leaner meat.

Sedentary Lifestyle

If people live in one location and don't have to move in order to make a living, or indeed, must stay in one place for sinsistence purposes

Direct Labor

Individuals or a small group of others come by food through their own efforts. Pastoralist raises his cows and sheep, milks them, and processes the milk in a variety of food. Freegans is the name given to a small but growing subculture of anti-consumerists in the developed world. Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet. Food is obtained directly through the labor or work of the individual or group involved. No money is exchanged, nothing bought or sold.

Stuff Theory: Nomadic Foragers

Nomadic Foragers who live in warm climates and do not have domestic animals often live in small, temporary houses that we call Huts, These huts are easily constructed and deconstructed and suited for their constant need to move.

Factors of Carrying Capacity: Knowledge and Technology

Paleoanthropologists speculate that successful exploitation of large herbivores for food was not possible until evolving humans had developed both the cognitive capacity for coordinated hunting , appropriate stone tool technology for spear points, and perhaps language to communicate effectively. (Poisoning spear tips, how to process foods to remove poisons). Although a Culture's technologies may be primitive, they are effectively in providing for them in their environment.

Pastoralism in More Detail: Patterns of Movement

Pastoralists are more common transhumant, moving between camps in different regions of their territories according to the season and rainfall. Pastoralists can also be sedentary for those who live in rich enough environments that most or all of the population can live in a permanent settlement. Sedentary living styles allows Pastoralists to build fenced in pastures and watering canals to feed their domesticated animals.

Stuff Theory

People will have less stuff if they do not have domesticated animals and if they have to move very often as in Nomadic life or Transhumant lifestyles.

Modes Of Subsistence: Pastoralism

Raising of Domesticated or semi-domesticated animals. Domesticated animals can provide food through their meant and other body parts, their milk, their blood, or their eggs. They can also be traded for other goods.

Modes Of Subsistence: Horticulture

Raising of domesticated plants. Growing of domesticated plants using humans as the only source of power and using a digging stick or a hoe rather than a plow

Pastoralism in More Detail: Types of Animals

Some focus on a single species,while others have two, three, or more different types of domestic animals. Which animals are herded depends, in part, on the natural environment--how hot or cold a place is and how available water is. In arid environments, Camals may be the best type of animals to be domesticated. In areas full of water and grass, Goats, sheep, and donkeys will be the better choice.

Pastoralism in More Detail

Subsistence base don the herding of domesticated or semi-domesticated animals. Societies where taking care of a hard of animals is the main way that people occupy themselves, and in return, the herd provides most of the food supply.

Environmental Possibilism

Suggests that the environment limited the range of choices people had for subsistence but did not determine which option people would choose under particular circumstances.

Modes Of Subsistence: Mechanized or intensive Agriculture

The addition of power sources and more complex technology to the raising of domesticated plants. Examples include irrigation, fertilizer, terracing of hill sides, etc. This method of subsistence can provide for family and be able to trade to Markets in exchange for goods.

Food Miles

The average distance food travels from where it is grown to where it is purchased or consumed. This average is steadily increasing as food is shipping across the world and demand for certain produces increases.

Environmental Determinism

The environment determined, in a very rigid and narrow way, what sort of subsistence patterns a population would have.

Horticulture in More Detail:

The growing of domesticated plants using humans as the only source of power and using digging stick or a hoe rather than a plow. Slash and burn farming is when cultivating new landscapes, the ground is slashed of all previous vegetation, and later burned to replenish the nutrients of the soil. Crops are then planted and tended for until it no longer provided a good yield. Potential crops that are domesticated for Horticulture type of lifestyle is wheat, barley, rye, corn, sorghum, millet, teff, rice, etc.., Root crops like potatoes, yams, peanuts, and tree crops like tree nuts and other variety of fruits.

Carrying Capacity

The number of individuals of a particular species that can be supported successfully in a given environment in a sustainable fashion.

Transhumant Lifestyle

There a re regular patterns to the movements people make.The length of the transhumant cycle may very, from weekly or monthly to an annual cycle based on the season. It may include three or four or more settlement sites but the key feature is that it is possible to predict where the group will be, depending on the stage of the cycle.

Nomad or Nomadic

This type of lifestyle is referring to the way of life that requires moving across the landscape to wherever resources are available, in a context where the resources are not always to be found in the same places from season to season or year to year.

Contamination of the Food supply

When evaluating the modern system of food production is the possibility of accidentally or deliberate contamination of the food supply. This is more common with intensively agricultural communities because our food will be coming from one source and contamination can affect a large population. The replacement of ingredients for cheaper substitutes are prime culprits to contamination. Many important ingredients like iron can be removed making them unhealthy. We risk catastrophic failure of the food supply should a new disease or unusual weather conditions wipe out a significant portion of the food resources we depend on.

Domesticated Foods

~10,000 years ago. Over time, wild plants and animals became domesticated and people began relying more and more on these domesticated sources for their food. This transition is known as the neolithic Revolution. Artificial Selection is when human beings rather than other forces in the environment selects for what would be the best source of food. Deliberate breeding instead of immediately eating.

Modes Of Subsistence: Agriculture

Addition of domesticated animals as a power source and the addition of the plow as a tool. Plows can quickly and effectively overturn soil before planting crops.

Subsistence

Adjective to mean that people are eating all of the food they hunt, gather, or raise, rather than selling it in the market. A subsistence farmer will only grow food to support his own family.

Modes Of Subsistence: Hunting and Gathering

All of the food consumed is wild-- wild plants, wild animals, honey from wild bees.. etc. Hunting and Gathering is later replaced with domesticated plants and animals.

Semi-Domesticated Plants and Animals

Animals that allow human intervention, but are capable of not providing the necessities for complete human usage.Certain Animals may be considered semi-domesticated if they are grown in captivity and released in the wild.

Pastoralism in More Detail: How Pastoralists Live off their herds

It is assumed that once a domesticated animal has been effectively herded, we could kill them when necessary without having to chase them around. However, people soon figured out that there are many ways to live off a herd of animals without having to kill them. Milk for example can be produced indefinitely by cows as long as they are fed often. Killing a cow may feed you for the day, but would be harmful in later usage. Animals are artificially selected by humans to produce more milk necessary for their babies so that their owners can utilize the excess amount. Milk can be consumed raw, made into butter, yogurt, cheese, and other fermented milk products. Another way of using a domesticated animal without killing it is extracting their blood, their blood is extracted and easily replaced by the body in the subsequent days to come. Blood can be used as flavoring or allowed to coagulate into a solid and cooked and eaten by men. Chicken are allowed to grow and produce eggs which can be eaten or hatched to further increase the population. Sheep and Alpacas are sheared which is not harmful to the animals, but beneficial for owners who wish to sell their coat since it grows back. Animals can be used for farming, pulling wagons, and as pack mules.

Factors of Carrying Capacity: Natural Resources

Just as for plants and nonhuman animals, the natural resources of a region are paramount to determining how many humans the land can support. How much soil there is, how rich the soil is, how much sunlight is available. All of these different aspects of the environment facotr into how many people the lan can support.

Trade of Market Exchange

MAny people trade for or buy most or all of their food whether from wild or domestic sources. Obtaining milk from people who are direct laborers. People who obtain their food through Trade exchange their labor for a salart, and then later exchange part of their salary for food they purchase in a grocery store or restaurant.

Food Processing

Many of the foods sold in stores are not sold in their original form but rather in a washed, peeled, sorted, cut up, grounded, or fried. We do not see live chicken in groceries stores and cutting stations for individuals to package their own chicken. Artificial colors, preservatives, and flavoring is added to food to enhance self life and nutrition/taste.

Egalitarian

Men and women will work together when hunting and gathering. They are *equal in status*, rather than the men's work or contributions being more highly valued. There are no leaders and decisions are therefore made by consensus.

Generalized Reciprocity

Sharing, especially food, is typical of hunters and gatherers. Most food is shared among the people within your camp. If a family member was to catch prey, the food would be shared with the community and not just the family.

Stuff Theory: Sedentary PEoples

Since their houses are relatively permanent, it makes sense to build them out of material that is long lasting and sturdy. Since they don't have to move, they can have homes with multiple stories, glass windows, stone exteriors. They could build homes that are protected from rainfall, strong winds, and earthquakes.