Adaptive Strategies, or Modes of Production

The most important biological, genetically determined trait of our species is the ability to learn. Mammals as a group have adapted to their environment via leaning. Among the various types of mammals, Primates as a group have adapted via an ability to learn that is greater than that of other mammals. And within the Primates, our species Homo sapiens has evolved with the greatest ability to learn. It is that evolution, the evolution of our species and its great ability, that we will be tracing in next few lessons.

As our species evolved, culture, that is, learned shared behavior, became our primary adaptive mechanism. We adapted to changes in our environment by changing our learned behavior, not by genetic adaptation. Even though our great ability to learn is due to a selection for genes which helped us learn, our success with cultural adaptation is responsible for the successful spread of our species all over the world, and into so many different environments. This spread, or diaspora, happened for the most part when humans were using our most energy efficient and most successful (in terms of time) adaptive strategy: foraging, or hunting and gathering. In their physical evolution to Homo sapiens, humans culturally used foraging as their adaptive strategy (or what some anthropologists refer to as mode of production or subsistence pattern).

Early Foragers in Spain Painted This Depiction of a Hunt

Foraging as a human adaptive strategy is clearly a very energy efficient strategy. Energy efficiency refers to a near balance between energy expended by a society ( in terms of foragers energy expended is primarily the energy expended by people foraging, plus the use of fire) and energy utilized or acquired as food and fuel for cooking and if necessary heat. Foragers expended approximately the same amount they utilized. Of course they were also energy efficient in the sense that they used little energy; in both ways foragers were the opposite of modern industrial societies.

Foraging can also be considered the most successful of all human adaptive strategies, if success is measured in the length of time cultures depended upon it for survival. Foraging was the first human adaptive strategy, and from its beginnings approximately 2.5 million years ago all humans in the world depended upon foraging until approximately 12,000 ya. At that point in time some began to turn to farming or horticulture. Even so, foraging remained the adaptive strategy for some peoples living in areas too cold or too dry for horticulture or until the beginning of the 21st century. This record of over 2.5 million years is far more than the 350 years for our current adaptive strategy of industrialism.

Five Adaptive Strategies

In all of human existence, we have come up with five culturally based adaptive strategies. These five are foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, intensive agriculture or the agrarian state, and finally industrialism. A common division used by anthropologists and archaeologists is between non-state (foraging, horticulture, pastoralism) and state societies. There is no question that we are currently in the process of developing a new adaptive strategy, one which does not have the key trait of industrialism, dependency on fossil fuels.

In this course, we will be looking at the development of four of the five human adaptive strategies, and their spread throughout the world. Only industrialism was a post-1500 A.D. development.

Since an adaptive strategy is determined by the technology of how people acquire and utilize energy in a particular environment, many archaeologists and anthropologists believe that it influences many other aspects of culture. To some extent, if you know a societies adaptive strategy, you know many fundamental aspects of its political and social structure, as well as religious beliefs, basic values and attitudes. This is not to say that all foragers or all horticulturalists are identical, any more than all industrial societies are identical, but similar adaptive strategies do make cultures similar in many fundamental ways. This is a basic premise of this course, and will be explored in some depth for four of the five adaptive strategies. Here are some basic definitions.

Foraging: Forager depended upon gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals. Foraging societies are usually organized into small groups called bands, and are egalitarian.

Horticulture: Horticulturalists depended upon domesticated plants, and often (but not always) domesticated animals. Their technology of production was relatively simple and did not require enormous expenditures of energy, either human or animal. Horticultural societies are usually organized into large, egalitarian tribes, or even larger ranked societies called chiefdoms.

Pastoralism: Pastoralists depended upon herding domesticated animals, though they often either grew some domesticated plants or had regular trade with societies which did. Like horticultural societies, pastoral societies are usually organized into large egalitarian tribes, or even larger ranked societies called chiefdoms.

Intensive Agriculture: Also known as the Agrarian State, people using this adaptive strategy depended upon domesticated plants (always) and animals (usually), but also used large amounts of energy in the form of complex technology (such as plows) and massive amounts of human and/or animal energy in their agricultural techniques. Intensive agricultural societies are characterized by the political state, class stratification, and full-time occupational specialization, as well as dependency on market exchange.

Industrialism: The latest human adaptive strategy, industrialism is dependent on fossil fuels to power machinery. Industrial societies also have detailed division of labor and mass production. Like intensive agriculture, industrial societies are characterized by the political state, class stratification, and full-time occupational specialization, as well as dependency on market exchange.

Be sure to refer to page 27-31 in your text for additional information on some of the terms used above.

Progress?

While the five adaptive strategies are listed in roughly chronological order of their development, this is not meant to be a list of human progress. Progress is one of those culturally-laden words that are usually used in a very ethnocentric manner. Many Americans believe, as do many French, Japanese, etc., that their country is the most progressive in the world, for somewhat different reasons. Progress is often defined differently by different people within one modern nation; it remains a term difficult to define objectively. Studying the past is a story of change, a story of cultures and people adapting (or failing to adapt) to their specific physical and social environments, a story that helps us to understand the problems of today. I don't know if it is a story of progress, since I don't have any idea what that word means to you, nor do you have any idea what it means to me. It is an ethnocentric word. Please don't use it in this course to describe any cultural change. I guarantee you that I won't.