A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging,[1][2] that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially wild edible plants but also insects, fungi, honey, bird eggs, or anything safe to eat, and/or by hunting game (pursuing and/or trapping and killing wild animals, including catching fish). This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores. Hunter-gatherer societies stand in contrast to the more sedentary agricultural societies, which rely mainly on cultivating crops and raising domesticated animals for food production, although the boundaries between the two ways of living are not completely distinct.
Hunting and gathering was humanity's original and most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.[3] Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change were displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world.[4] Across Western Eurasia, it was not until approximately 4,000 BC that farming and metallurgical societies completely replaced hunter-gatherers. These technologically advanced societies expanded faster in areas with less forest, pushing hunter-gatherers into denser woodlands. Only the middle-late Bronze Age and Iron Age societies were able to fully replace hunter-gatherers in their final stronghold located in the most densely forested areas. Unlike their Bronze and Iron Age counterparts, Neolithic societies could not establish themselves in dense forests, and Copper Age societies had only limited success. [5]
In addition to men, a single study found that women engage in hunting in 79% of modern hunter-gatherer societies.[6] However, an attempted verification of this study found "that multiple methodological failures all bias their results in the same direction...their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies".[7] Only a few contemporary societies of uncontacted people are still classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism.[8][9]
- ^ Ember, Carol R. (June 2020). "Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers)". Retrieved 14 September 2022.
- ^ Wade, Nicholas (2006). Before the Dawn. London: The Penguin Press. ISBN 1594200793.
- ^ Richard B. Lee & Richard Daly, “Introduction: Foragers & Others,” in: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters & Gatherers (Cambridge University Press, 1999), ISBN 052157109X, pp. 1–20.
- ^ Stephens, Lucas; Fuller, Dorian; Boivin, Nicole; Rick, Torben; Gauthier, Nicolas; Kay, Andrea; Marwick, Ben; Armstrong, Chelsey Geralda; Barton, C. Michael (2019-08-30). "Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use". Science. 365 (6456): 897–902. Bibcode:2019Sci...365..897S. doi:10.1126/science.aax1192. hdl:10150/634688. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 31467217. S2CID 201674203.
- ^ Gavashelishvili, A; et al. (2023), "The time and place of origin of South Caucasian languages: insights into past human societies, ecosystems and human population genetics", Scientific Reports, 13 (21133): 21133, Bibcode:2023NatSR..1321133G, doi:10.1038/s41598-023-45500-w, PMC 10689496, PMID 38036582
- ^ Ocobock, Cara; Lacy, Sarah (November 1, 2023). "The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong". Scientific American. Retrieved February 23, 2024.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Greaves, Russell D.; et al. (2016). "Economic activities of twenty-first century foraging populations". Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century. Santa Fe; Albuquerque: School for Advanced Research, University of New Mexico Press. pp. 241–62. ISBN 978-0826356963.