Unit 1: Genetics & Evolution

Foraging Traits

Foraging as a mode of production survived in some parts of the world until almost the 21st century. The earliest human ancestors, some two and a half million years ago, were foragers. By 1900 there were only 160 foraging cultures in the world; by 1980 that number was down to 50. Few if any of that number are truly foragers today. Still, foraging lasted more than two and a half million years, a success story unlikely to be duplicated by industrialism. There are many common traits of foragers, which are part of their adaptation via this particular strategy. However, when looking at individual cultures, their particular history and environment may cause some differences from the typical foraging pattern.

  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, may have had slightly different adaptations.
  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
    • Face to face community; everyone is well known to everyone else
    • Often very flexible membership within each band
  5. Band exogamy; patrilocal residency the most common
  6. Foragers believe that human needs and wants are few, and are easily satisfied. [For additional information, you may refer to recommended article The Original Affluent Society.]
  7. Plant foods usually account for 60-80% of food, except for cultures in very cold climates, such as the Inuit.
  8. Sex division of labor; men usually do most or all of hunting; women most or all of gathering.

San Hunters

 

9. Foragers have most leisure time of any mode; workweek averages 20-22 hours.

10. Egalitarian: resources, goods, and authority are equally distributed.

11. Reciprocal exchange (of the type termed balanced reciprocity) 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. Most foragers try to extend kin ties as widely as possible, primarily through band exogamy and bilateral descent.

13. Population/Reproduction: Foragers often have severe cultural and environmental restraints on population growth, which etically serves to maintain the standard of living. Past foragers, who were able to expand into unoccupied territory, may have had only some of these restraints. Factors include:

  • Prolonged breast-feeding (up to three or four years) which together with a low fat diet and a life style with physical exercise often suppresses ovulation.
  • Taboos on sexual intercourse (particularly while breast feeding, but also at other times).
  • 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.
  • Good diet and exercise keep environmental health problems (e.g. heart disease, many cancers) at a minimum; many lethal contagious diseases were absent from foraging cultures until contact with people in other modes of production. [See lesson/reading:The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race.]
  • Abortion and infanticide rare, but may be practiced.

14. Relatively little warfare, violent crime, or crimes against property (compared to other modes of production).

  • Arrogance and violence 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.
  • Band exogamy and reciprocal exchange emphasizes cooperation between bands rather than warfare.
  • Egalitarian nature of culture.

15. Foragers are efficient in preserving their resource base, and interfere little without he ecosystem; while their religions often demonstrate great respect for the natural world, they rarely consciously embrace a conservationist ethic, and when brought into an unlimited market system may readily destroy resources.

Traits as Adaptations

Many of the common traits of foragers are adaptations to this particular mode of production. One such trait is band exogamy. Rules of exogamy exist is all cultures, and function to regulate sexual behavior and marriage. 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 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 postmarital 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 traditional San, 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 length hunt, men who stayed home will share equally in the meat. It is everyone's right to share equally in whatever resources are available. This point was clearly brought out in the required article Eating Christmas in the Kalahari. 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 (see Worst Mistake lesson--required-- and recommended article Original Affluent Society), in part because they shared all they had.