Modern foragers have been much studied by cultural anthropologists, and ethnographic analogy and ethnoarchaeology (see text) do indeed provide one important source of information about this adaptive strategy or subsistence pattern. History, geography and environment however mean that more recent foragers are very different from each other, and probably resemble past foragers in only the most fundamental of ways. Archaeologists have excavated many foraging sites, and some of these fundamental resemblances do indeed appear archaeologically, though some are impossible to determine. Those traits which can be determined archaeologically are important in determining when and how this first adaptive strategy developed.
1. Subsistence is from gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals; little, if any dependency on domesticated plants and/or animals.
2. Recent foragers who have been studied by anthropologists survive in environments that are too marginal for farming: i.e. too wet, too dry, too cold, too vertical. Past foragers, who inhabited more favorable environments, probably were even more variable than modern foragers.
3. Basic energy sources: human muscle, fire.
4. Major sociopolitical group: the band.
* Small: 50-80 people
* Mobile
* Low population density, as low as one person/40 sq. miles (more in favorable areas)
* Face to face community; everyone is well known to everyone else
* Often very flexible membership within each band
5. Band exogamy common (everyone has to marry outside their own band) ; patrilocal residency the most common (the wife moves to her husband's band upon marriage)
6. Foragers tend to believe that human needs and wants are few, and are easily satisfied.
7. Plant foods may be the most important, but this depends upon environment.
8. Sex division of labor common; men usually do most or all of hunting; women most or all of gathering.9. Modern foragers have most leisure time of any adaptive strategy; workweek averages 20-22 hours. In more abundant environments of the past, it may have been even less.
10. Egalitarian: resources, goods, and authority are equally distributed, particularly among people of similar age and gender.
11. Reciprocal exchange is the primary way in which goods and resources are distributed:
* Exchange where no immediate return is expected.
* Exchange where no systematic calculation of the value of goods/resources is made.
* Frequently, people make the overt claim that the exchange need not balance out, even over the long term.12. Kinship and kin roles are usually a major device for social control in more recent foragers, and probably also in past ones. Most foragers try to extend kin ties as widely as possible, primarily through band exogamy and bilateral descent (tracing relationships through males and females, as the US does).
13. Population/Health: Modern foragers often had severe cultural and environmental restraints on population growth, which helped them to preserve resources. Past foragers, who were able to expand into unoccupied territory and often lived in better environments, probably only experienced natural limitations to population growth.
* High infant mortality (often due to simple bacterial infections and dehydration); life expectancy at birth usually in low 40's, but 10% of population is over 60 in modern foragers; in the past life expectancy may have been lower.
* Good diet and exercise keep environmental health problems (e.g. heart disease, many cancers) at a minimum; many lethal contagious diseases were absent from modern foraging cultures until contact with people in other modes of production. Many of these contagious diseases likely did not evolve until some foragers switeched to farming some 10,000 years ago, and therefore were not a problem to our earliest ancestos. Accidents due to the very physical lifestyle may have contributed to many deaths in the past, however, particularly of children and young adults. Deaths in childbirth may have meant that more men than women survived to old age.14. If the past was like the present, relatively little warfare, violent crime, or crimes against property (compared to other modes of production). Again, there may have been more violence in the past between groups. However, most foragers are dependent upon cooperation for hunting and gathering.
* Violence within the culture may have been discouraged by face to face nature of the culture, and extended kin ties.
* Many problems that might lead to violence are resolved by moving to another band, or migrating to another area entirely.
* Band exogamy and reciprocal exchange emphasizes cooperation between bands rather than warfare.
* Egalitarian nature of culture may have limited violence.15. Foragers are and probably were efficient in preserving their resource base, and interfere little with the ecosystem; while their religions often demonstrate great respect for the natural world, they rarely consciously embrace a conservationist ethic, and like many cultures of the past and present, may readily destroy resources. It was as foragers that humans first began to negatively affect their environment, though in relatively mild ways compared to later adaptive strategies.
Traits as Adaptations
Many of the common traits of foragers are adaptations to this particular adaptive strategy or mode of production. One such trait is band exogamy. Rules of exogamy exist in all cultures, and function to regulate sexual behavior and marriage. It is difficult to say archaeologically when such traits developed. Exogamy literally means "marriage outside", and is a rule that requires an individual to mate and marry outside his "group", as that group is defined by his culture. In the United States, one's group is an extended kin group, including siblings, parents, children, grandparents, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and in many but not all states, first cousins. It is considered incest to have sex with any of these relatives, and illegal to marry one. While such exogamous kin groups are usually found in more modern foraging societies, there is an additional exogamous group: the band. It is considered incest for an individual to have sexual intercourse with someone from the same band, and he or she is required to marry someone from another band. When marriage occurs, the woman is required to move to her husband's band, a post marital residency pattern termed patrilocal. As a result, most foragers view members of their own band as close relatives (whether that is actually true or not), and members of other bands as actual or potential in-laws. Band exogamy links the bands together, though no government unites them. Besides limiting hostilities between bands, band exogamy also means that most people have kin and in-laws in many different bands. If there is a local food shortage, a band can split up and go live with relatives in other bands. The sharing between bands helps all survive.
The egalitarian structure of foragers, made possible primarily by reciprocal exchange, is another adaptive trait. In an egalitarian culture such as the more recent foraging San of Botswana, resources such as land, food and water are equally distributed. If a woman is ill and can not spend the two hours or so necessary to find roots and nuts to feed her family, other women will share with her. If several men go on a successful and lengthy hunt, men who stayed home will share equally in the meat. It is everyone's right to share equally in whatever resources are available. In this way a man who is unsuccessful in the hunt, or a woman who found no plant foods, will not suffer hunger as long as anyone in the band has been successful in finding food. Foragers rarely starved in more recent times. Exactly when these traits developed archaeologically is difficult to prove, though many believe that the adaptive value of egalitarianism and reciprocity would have been essential to the survival of our earliest foraging ancestors.
Humans physically evolved as foragers; the next part of this unit will deal with that evolution.