Essays on Gatherers

For efficiency purposes, including the availability of information, the Late Prehistoric Period [AD 1000-1600] will be the focus of this paper. With a particular interest in the Fort Ancient culture, the technological and socio-economic norms that the people observed will come into play in determining the typical winter survival tactics. From possible storage of food crops to the disbandment of villages into “winter camps,” the cold season called for the Fort Ancient peoples’ innovativeness if they were to survive (Late Prehistoric Period, 2013). Case in point the archaeological discoveries that found evidence that suggests hunting, gathering, and farming as ...

In the article titled, “Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination”, by Michael Gurven and Hillar Kaplan, the authors find that survival of Homo sapiens has gradually increased and people who lived before us, has a shorter life span than people of the current time. The longevity in this article is described as senescence-associated age of death. If human lifespan is divided into three phases: childhood, adulthood and older adult (after 40 years of age), mortality rates are higher among older adults. Lifestyle changes and better sanitation practices have helped to reduce mortality rates across all three phases of ...

History is the study of past events especially involving human affairs. It also includes the study of following past incidents in the history of humankind connected to someone or something. Studying history assists humanity in understanding how the society has transformed in time. It also helps students relate various modern trends in the society and compares them to the progression from the early times (Bartolome 4). History is also an element of filtering the learned from the unlearned. Historians believe that by use of historical knowledge of facts and figures one can be able to determine the level of ...

Introduction

Trillions of microbes constitute the “Metagenome” of the human gut. This is the organ called microbiome, which is highly essential, and offers the host benefits such as metabolic abilities, pathogen protection, immune system enhancement, and GI tract developmental modulations (De Fillipo, et al.). In their study, three questions regarding the evolution of the human microbiota have been raised. They are: (1) how does the partitioning of bacterial diversity between and within two populations studied? (2) Does there exist a correlation between the diet and bacterial diversity?; and (3) considering the varied geography and hygienic conditions, what is the bacterial ...

The time is March 2004 and the place is Paraguay. It is there, where a group of hunter-gatherers, quite possibly one of the few willingly isolated societies in the planet, came running out of the forest in northern Paraguay, escaping from ranchers' earthmovers. The Gran Chaco forest, which means "hunting land" in the Quechua language, the language of the people, is a thinly inhabited, warm and semi-arid coastal natural area of the Río de la Plata basin, shared among Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where it is attached to the Pantanal region. This area is often called the Chaco ...

In today’s modern times, many have heard of the popular “Paleo Diet” that has become somewhat of a craze for individual’s attempting to change their bodies. The Paleo Diet, advertised to allow individuals to live well and longer, consists primarily of fish, organic meats, fruits and vegetables, eggs, oils, nuts, and seeds. Foods such as dairy, refined sugar, processed foods, salt, etc. are forbidden. While this diet has grown in popularity, one wonders how accurate the menu is compared to what our ancestors ate in the Paleolithic Era. During the Palelithic Era, according to an article by ...

HOW DOES RELIGION AND GENDER STRUCTURE PLAY A ROLE IN SWAHILI PORTS TOWN BEFORE AND AFTER 1500’s THROUGH THE CONCEPT OF WEALTH IN PEOPLE? How does Religion and Gender Structure Play a Role in Swahili Port Towns Before and after the 1500’s Through the Concept of Wealth in People?

Introduction

During the ancient period, the coast of East Africa where the Swahili cities that comprises the civilization in the region are thriving from maritime trade, which in time became the source of immense wealth for most of its people. In the acquisition of wealth among the people of ...

Jared Diamond contests the progressivist belief that agriculture has brought humankind great benefits compared to the hunting and gathering form of life that people from 10,000 years ago used to live. Although the claims of progressivists that agriculture has provided food for more people without having to go through the “nasty, brutish, and short life” that the hunters and gatherers were subjected to on a daily basis, and that it provided farmers more time to engage in art, bear some truths, paleopathology proved that negative effects caused by agriculture far outweigh its positive effects. Paleopathology provides information on ...

Introduction

The human species are claimed to have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. According to history, years ago people used to be nomadic pastoralist who moved from one place to another thus did not have a permanent home. A transition occurred, which caused the people to change their nomadic lifestyle where they used to hunt and gather fruits and began doing agriculture. This transition caused them to change and start staying in one place. The transition from the old ways of nomadic movement to the point where the people are actually staying in one place is what is described ...

Introduction

Throughout the years, man has developed different ways of producing food in his plate. The earliest way of man to survive is to hunt and gather for his food. Some societies like the Arctic Inuit hunts animals for their meat, while others like the Kung of Southern Africa forages lands for plants. At such early times, they were able to identify between edible and poisonous ones from experience (Chauhan, 2012). As man settles to form villages, they also learned to domesticate animals and plants. There were stories that surrounds the discovery how planting of seeds and growth of ...

Lewis' placed the society of neediness inside family, concentrating on the society of machismo among Mexican and Puerto Rican men, youngsters' enthusiastic ties with their moms, and the effect of movement on family progress. Lewis contended that these gimmicks helped the generation of a society of neediness from which poor populaces were not able to digest themselves. So also, the Moynihan Report contended that family structure was a focal clarification for the progressing instructive and monetary drawbacks confronting low-wage American blacks: the Negro group has been constrained into a matriarchal structure which, in light of the fact that it is too out ...

Analysis of Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”

When reading about human history, there are patterns surrounding certain parts of the world, while other places don’t fit into these patterns; hunters and gatherers became farmers, spoken words became written language, villages became cities, etc. Most history books published in past decades contain a perspective that focuses on Europe when talking about the development of human societies. In the very same history books, it becomes obvious that the people of Europe and Asia were some of the first in the development of technology and their economy, but sometimes they were invaders and attacked others. This makes a person question ...

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

In the above quotation, Jared diamond 1987 asserts that, the agricultural revolution marked a backward step in societal development. In his theory, he postulates that Agriculture led man to hell as it did not deliver the splendors of civilization. Based on the evidence on the reduced physical conditions of the human race, diamond argues that, the expansion of agriculture has resulted into malnutrition, spread of epidemic disease, and famine. In his work, he believes that ancient hunters and gatherers were better off than the contemporary lifestyles. These pessimistic views overlooks most of the problems that agriculture has solved and seek ...

I agree with Jared Diamond that the worst mistake in history of thehuman race was transiting from hunters and gathers lifestyle to a life dominated with agriculture. There is no doubt that agriculture brought some good changes in man from time he was mere apes to what he is today. However, man fails to see how agriculturally based life destroys him in silence. Man is blinded by the good life he lives today, a life that he enjoys the benefits of agriculture starting from abundant and a variety of good foods, the best working tools, the best material goods to a healthy long ...

The origin and the culture of blacksmiths in Kuku society date 1790 – 1960s. Kuku consisted of a large ethnic group of southerners in Sudan (Poggo 169). The cultural and the linguistic group were among the Eastern Nilotes. The Eastern Nilotic Group occupied the Kajo-Kaji territory. The territory was originally the home of the Moru – Madi Sudanic community. As Kuku crossed the River Nile, they absorbed some of the communities living in that territory at that period. The interaction of the Kuku and Lugabra from the southern region, Kakwa from the west, and the Bari from the north led to the ...

Hunting and gathering can be defined as subsistence mode through which people obtain food from wild resources without relying on domesticated animal or plants. Hunting and gathering dominated in two and half million years ago before people took agriculture seriously. Some people practice the same system of living, but the percentage has lowered due to increased population. Just like domestication of animals and plants, hunting and gathering is a way of living that requires less time and concentration. Some of the misconceptions on hunting and gathering include the notion that people had to hunt for meat whereas they used ...

Introduction

The san Bushmen are also known as Kalahari hunter gathers. They are the oldest inhabitants of southern part of Africa. Their territory include most parts of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Angola and Botswana. The san are part of the khoisan group. Although they were traditionally related to khoikhoi, they are mostly hunter gatherers. There is a big linguistic difference between Bushmen living in southern area and the ones living on the northern parts. The san in Kalahari Desert are believed to have lived for more than 20,000 years. San communities are almost up to 25 men, children and ...

The historical Japanese art covered a wide range of styles such as pottery, sculptures, calligraphy and ink painting. Most of the art and Japanese culture during this time was highly influenced by the Koreans. The Nara period as described in the history of Early Japanese Art featured the period between the years 645-794. It was recognized to the rise in power of the Buddhism religion (Mobile, 37). This was the period characterized by the construction of many temples in order to accommodate the rising number of worshippers and clergymen. Emperor Shomu was credited to the immense efforts of developing Buddhism. ...

Critical thinking kinship organization

Foraging societies were small in size due to inadequacy of food. This shows that food is essential for the growth of a society. It also shows the hard kind of lifestyle that human beings used to undergo in the past. Today, life is a bit bearable as compared to the past. The environment is crucial to human beings since most of the resources required for existence, their natural source is the environment. A family gives one the sense of belonging. A family is the basic unit of organization where roles are divided making it easy for the society to beat the ...

Gender issues are important aspects of social science. It is through the understanding of the different issues concerning the differences in gender roles that we are able to accept the modern world role of each gender. It is therefore, quite important to develop an understanding of how the differing gender roles in the society evolved and how they have been subsequently carried on over the centuries as well as over the decades. An understanding of the role of each gender in the hunting and gatherers as well as on the agriculturally based stages of human beings evolution is an ...

In the contemporary society, a lot of philosophers have tried to define culture as something which can exist on its own separate from the people. This makes it to be different from philosophy thus existence of the two as separate spheres in sociology. However, from a critical perspective, culture is sociology and sociology is in philosophy. This is supported by the many ideas presented by some critical thinkers and philosophers who believe that culture is way of life and not something that can exist on its own on this world (Mary, 2). One of such philosophers is Bitek from ...

While we do not have written records from the Paleolithic Era, the vast majority of our information has been gleaned from archaeological and ethnographic comparisons to other hunter and gatherer cultures that exist more contemporaneously, to gain a bit of insight as to how these individuals lived. In the Paleolithic era, also known as the "Old Stone Age," which lasted until approximately 12,000 BC, human beings (homo sapiens) were effectively evolved to more or less how we appear now. Our brains were nearly the size of modern humans, and we were used to standing on two feet, which freed ...

Abstract

In this research paper, we will use the culture of the Batek people of Malaysia. This paper will show how primary mode of subsistence affects other aspects of cultural behavior and why culture acts the way it does. We will identify and analysis the culture of this peoples primarily mode of subsistence on gender relation, values and beliefs and political organization.

Introduction

Batek people are among other diverse cultural groups of the Orangi Asli people who live in central Malaysia. This indigenous people live in the rainforest of peninsular Malaysia their name means “original people”. This name was given to ...

A hunter-gatherer society is defined as a society in which most of its food is acquired from wild plants and animals. This is different to agricultural societies that rely on domesticated animals and home grown vegetables. Hunting and gathering traces its roots to the earliest humans, that is the Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Collin Turnbull’s “The Forest People” studies the last group of Central Africa pygmies. The pygmies are one of the few remnants of the hunting and gathering cultures in existence today (Turnbull 11). Evidence points out that the pygmies are descendants of the original human inhabitants ...

Abstract

Social inequality is simply how different categories of individuals are prescribed by the society. The society uses basic characteristics such as gender, sex, education, and ethnicity among other factors in order to categorize an individual. The social inequalities determine the access to limited goods such as market labor force, education, health care facilities, and other forms of participation in the society. Different forms of social inequalities are constructs of geographical distribution, and status within the country, however, cultural aspects, mostly integrated with cultural identities, of society are perceived to be the major contributor of social inequality. Discourses have, therefore, ...

Q1. Stanner's assessment of the Dreaming is the aboriginal idea of a communal afterlife, which is eternal and ongoing. Human beings have 'souls,' as do every other living creature; these lifeforms help to create a complicated system that leads back to the Totemic Spirit Beings that exist within the Dreaming, forming the Creation. I believe that it can most certainly be described as a dualism, due to the fact that the Dreaming exists both before and after the individual life; it inhabits both flesh and spirit, and blends the physical and spiritual worlds together. Peterson, N. 1976. ‘The Natural and ...

What were the settlements and lifestle of the people living in during the Mesolithic (i.e. Kebarans discussed in Ristvet, Ch 2)? The settlement and lifestyle of the people who lived in the Mesolithic period comprised of people who had a nomadic lifestyle .They were hunter gatherers who had adopted fishing as one of their characteristics. What are the consequences of farming, in terms of both physical health of people and changed social relations, economics, etc? (Diamond 1987 and Ristvet Ch. 2) The adoptability of farming brings forth the improvements of the health of people .farming enables ...