The Foraging Subsistence Pattern: Our First Adaptive Strategy

San woman cooking mongongo nuts

Of all the subsistence patterns developed by humans, it can be argued that foraging or hunting and gathering, is the most successful. Foragers depend upon foraging for wild plants and animals. We adopted this strategy so early that a selection for genetic traits suitable for foraging became part of our biological evolution. If success is measured in time or persistence, than foraging wins hands down. It is possible that this subsistence pattern began to develop almost 2.5 mya (million years ago), and it persisted in a few areas of the world until the year 2000 A.D. By contrast, any form of food production (farming) has existed for only the last 12-13,000 years.

Most of our information on foragers comes from the few who persisted into the late 20th century, although there is considerable evidence from archaeology of the time period from 2.5 mya to the present. These cultures were able to remain foragers because they occupied environments that farmers and herders didn't want, such as the San in the dry Kalahari (above) or the Netsilik north of the Arctic circle. These cultures represent unique adaptations to unique environments, they were vibrant and satisfying for their members, and are exciting to study. In addition, the study of such cultures has provided considerable information about how any mode of production requires similar cultural adaptations in things such as religion, social structure, and world view. All foragers studied appear to have certain similar traits, and by ethnographic analogy, it may well be that our earliest ancestors had these same traits, developing them over the millennia as the best adaptation for foragers. Here is a list of some of these traits.

• Bands are the major social/political group, averaging about 50-80 people per band. Bands are

  mobile.

  create a "face to face" community.

  usually exogamous; members of one band must marry into another.

• Foragers usually have a low population density, often as low as one person /40 square miles.
• Foragers normally have relatively few items of material culture, in part because of their relatively mobile life style. They tend to believe that human needs and wants are few, and are easily satisfied. Their material culture is often exquisitely adapted to their environment. For an example, click here (recommended site) to see the artifacts and art of some of Canada's Inuit (Eskimo).Be sure to look at the practical, and beautiful, fishing implements and decoys.
• Except for arctic environments, plants usually account for 60-80% of food resources.
• Labor is usually divided along gender lines (sex division of labor), with women primarily responsible for gathering, and men for hunting.
• Foragers have more leisure time than any other subsistence pattern, with workweeks that average between 20-24 hours. (In an industrial culture such as ours, most people have a job which requires 40 hours of work a week, or more, and then may have an addition 30-40 hours of work such as child care, food preparation, home maintenance activities, commuting, etc.)
• Foraging society is egalitarian, with an equal distribution of goods, resources, and authority, particularly among people of the same gender and age group. (Does this describe our culture?)
• Most goods and resources are exchanged in foraging societies via reciprocal exchange, something we engage in only with relatives and close friends. If a San hunter kills an animal, the meat is shared equally with everyone in the band, with the expectation that when someone else is successful, they too will share. All goods/resources are shared in this way, and it has helped foragers survive in some of the toughest environments. If someone can not look for food, or has no luck on a particular day, he or she will not go hungry. If anyone has found food it will be shared equally with all. If a particular band has found no food for days, it can split up and families can use ties of kinship and marriage to join another band temporarily or permanently. The band being joined will of course share all available food with the newcomers. In this way, humans survive in what many of us would think is a difficult environment. In our culture, reciprocal exchange is the gift giving we see at birthdays and Christmas, as well as "gifts" of assistance and aid (e.g. exchanging baby-sitting services) between friends.
• Foragers tend to have low life expectancies, primarily due to a high infant mortality rate (often caused by the first exposure of the infant to common bacteria.) However, their diet tends to be low in fat and salt, high in fiber and vegetables, adequate in protein, and sufficient in terms of calories. They also lead a physically active life style. As a result, foragers rarely have heart disease and other environmental diseases; contagious diseases are also absent, primarily because band size is so small and population density so low that bacteria and viruses can not spread. Foragers do suffer from congenital diseases, parasites, and infections from injuries.
  

For additional information on a specific group of San, the !Kung San, go to the following site: http://social-shadow.tripod.com/index.html and be sure and read at least the brief sections on Introduction, Family, Religion, Education, and Economics. REQUIRED SITE