Economy and Adaptation

Human diversity understood in terms of environment & technologyEmphasis on:

Constraints: land, technology, populationSystematic, integrative relationshipsAdaptation

Major Theories & Theorists

19th century social & cultural evolutionism (L.H. Morgan, E. B. Tylor)Multilinear evolution & cultural ecology (J. Steward, M. Sahlins)Neo-evolutionism (L. White, M. Harris)World systems theory (E. Wallerstein)Political Ecology

Patterns of SubsistenceFood Getting – FORAGING

hunters & gatherers, gatherers & hunters, fishing

Food Production – CULTIVATIONThe cultivation continuum •horticulture (ecological agriculture)•Agriculture•Pastoralism

IndustrialismAdaptive strategies & constraints

Environment, technology, population

Subsistencethe market as economic organizing principle is very recent in terms of human historyeconomy oriented toward subsistence (food getting & production) the norm for most of human historyagriculture (cultivation) also recent (10,000 yrs ago)for 100,000 years of human history - foraging (food getting) was the economy of human life

Adaptation and the Anthropology of Subsistence

Long standing disciplinary concernBasis for materialist theoretical orientations

Theories of social & cultural evolution

Cultural Ecology

Julian Steward - relationship between culture and the environmentcultural variation found in adaptation to environmental circumstancesHuman ecology is the system & systematic relationships between humans, material life, & environmentenvironment not determinant -- societies react to their ecologytypology of cultures, patterns, sequences

Steward’s cultural ecologyconstellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities & economic arrangements

social, political, religious patterns as are empirically determined to be closely connected with those arrangements

Specific or multi-linear evolution

specific evolution - adaptive processes in a particular society in a particular environment; changes in one society rather than human society in generalMulti-linear evolution - cultures have followed different lines of development (rather than general processes), particular to each environmentStrategies of adaptation - adjustments that individuals make to obtain & use resources and to solve immediate problems

Neo-Evolution or General Evolution

Leslie WhiteLevels of socio-cultural evolution

TechnologyEnergy inputs-outputsSocial/cultural complexity

Leslie Whitedegree of cultural development varies directly as the amount of energy per capita per year harnessed and put to workamount of energy per capita harnessed & put to work within the culturetechnological means with which this energy is expendedhuman need-serving product that accrues from the expenditure of energyE (energy) T (technology) = P (product)

WORLD SYSTEMS (Wallerstein)Global economic relations between subsistence strategies, regions, nationsCapitalism and common political, social, economic, structure

Core, peripheries, & semi-peripheries

Relationships of dependencyWorld economy — development and predominance of market trade = capitalism

POLITICAL ECOLOGY

Putting cultural ecology in historical motionStill strongly about human/environment relationsinter-relationships between groups within a world system of political, economic relationsAttention to an international division of laborTemporal framework is history rather than evolution

Levels of Socio-Cultural Integration & Subsistence

From foragers to cultivators

band, tribe, chiefdom, stateTypology of ideal types

FORAGING

hunters & gatherers, gatherers & hunters, fishingfood getting is dependent on naturally occurring resources, plants & animals

Naturally occurring?

Little or no human modification

modern day foragersfew forgers remainingSan (!Kung) - Africa; Kalahari desertMbuti - equatorial forests of west & central AfricaMadagascar and SE AsiaAborigines of AustraliaInuit - hunters (now using snow mobiles & rifles)

Features of Foraging

small communities in sparsely populated areas

few hundred people related by kinship & marriage

mobile lifestyle - no permanent settlements

no individual land rights

size of community may vary from season to season, culture to cultureBand form of social organization

Foraging & Social Organization

Egalitarian band societies – little social stratificationsocial stratification by age & gender (no classes)division of labor - age & gender

Foraging and Gender

gender - great deal of diversity

tendency is for men to hunt & women to gathergathering contributes more to daily diet than huntingwomen & men share equal status - more or less, egalitarian societyWhere hunting & fishing dominate - the status of women is lower

Eleanor Leacock on Foragers and Social Stratification

egalitarian societies do exist where men and women can do different jobs and remain separate but equal

Dual sex societies

Control over exchange of scarce resources is related to social stratification in foraging groups

The Problem of Man the Hunter

man the hunter model ignored evidence for modern foragers: women do some of the huntingfemale gathered goods account for more than half & at times nearly all of what is eatenProblem of the archaeological record

woman the gatherer

Re-focused model of human evolutionkey importance of female gathering"lost" female tools in arch. record - fiber carrying nets & basketsfood sharing rather than hunting key to human evolution

Food sharing & the need for social relations

Conceptualizing Foragers

The gender problemThe “analogy” problem

“living fossils of early humans,” in 19th century unilineal evolutionism

Rousseau and HobbesNoble savages or maximizing brutish life

The “affluent society” (Sahlins)

Forager Mode of ProductionCollective ownership of means of production (land and its resources)Right to reciprocal access

Little emphasis on accumulation (ethos opposing hoarding)

Total sharing throughout camp

Equal access to tools necessary to acquire food Individual ownership of tools

Professional Primitives

H-G do not exist apart from more complex societies ecological “symbiosis” rural proletariat of the political economic (world system) model

“freedom fighters” of indigenous perspectives

The Cultivation Continuum

Horticulture or ecological agricultureAgriculturePastoralism

Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture

Some human modification of environment

gardens & fields & technology

cultivation method that works in a variety of environments - most common in temperate and tropical forests & savannasCultivation that works with, and to varying extents, mimics the natural ecology

Horticulture/Ecological Agriculture

growing crops of all kinds with relatively simple tools and methods, in the absence of permanently cultivated fieldsbreak up soil only using hand tools, hoes, spades, sharpened sticksclear land for planting with simple tools, knives, axes, and fire is used to remove trees and grassesLittle if any use of fertilizersLittle if any effort towards increase supply of water to the fields

Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture

cultivation method that works in a variety of environments - most common in temperate and tropical forests & savannas

Horticultural MethodsSlash & burn

Associated with poor tropical soilsInitially big trees are clearedBrush is cut and left to dryBurned before arrival of rains providing a little fertilisation and clears the plot of weedsAfter several years of use must lie fallow

Swidden- a garden cultivated by the slash and burn technique.

Kinds of Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture

Slash & burn orshifting cultivationSwiddenextensive agriculture

dependence on tree cropsLong term use

Slash and Burn

characteristic features - horticulture

size of settlements are larger than foragersmore stable sources of food available

tend to aggregate into villages - settlements are more permanent, investments of labor into fields, encourages sedentismcompared to foragers horticulturalists their family and kin invest labor in improving a specific and relatively well defined territory

property rights = access to resourceseach group laying claim to a specific area for clearing, plantings, residence by applying their labor to it

Social Stratification

more densely populated areas, sedentary livesdivisions of labor - age & genderland & inheritance - family claims to land; heads of families, resources, claims, political & judicial orgsincreased specialization - food producers vs. non food producers

Public Perceptions of Horticulturalists

they’re inefficient, wasteful, ignorant Destroyers of the rain forest

• or

they rotate cropsthey’re efficient and sustainablethey have great knowledge of forest resources and desire to maintain the forest their livelihoods are threatened by state and international political and economic processes

Agriculture - intensive cultivationa variety of techniques employed that

enable the cultivation of permanent fieldsLarge-scale human modification of land, plants, animals

Agricultural Techniquesnutrients back into the fields, use of fertilization and multi croppingPlant species are manipulated & fully domesticateddomesticated animals and fertilization, turned loose into fields after harvest, manure, nutrients back into soilmore intensive weedingIrrigation, dams and runoff, stored water & reservoirs, streams rechanneled, terracing controls water on hillside & mountains

Investmentsgreater control over land ->increased outputs/yieldsIncreased inputs – Leslie Whitelong term production, dependable output

characteristic featuressedentism, large permanent communities - villages, towns, citiesgrowth in population size & densitysurpluses - a cultivator can feed many more people than just him or her self and familymore need to coordinate land, labor, resourcesmore need to regulate relations through governing bodies tributes, taxes, rents, private property

Agriculture as Maladaptation (J. Diamond)

Homo sapiens from genetic standpointhumans are still late paleolithic preagricultural hunters and gatherers (35,000yrs ago)

Rise of new disease profileDecline in environmental/ecological diversityDecline in food diversity

PastoralismPastoral societies are those in which a sizeable proportion of their subsistence is based on the herding of animals within a set of spatially dispersed natural resources (vegetation, water, etc.).

Pastoralismherders acquire much of their food by raising, caring for, and subsisting on the products of domesticated animalsmany pastoralist/herders cultivatemany acquire bulk of their calories from their crops rather than their animals or through tradeherds subsist on natural forage and must be moved to where the forage naturally occursSome move all the time, others move seasonally

characteristic featuresnomadism - entire group moves or transhumance - only part of the group moves; some groups sedentaryinterdependence between pastoral and agricultural groups

trade animal products for agri. products from cultivatorssell livestock, hides, meat, wool, milk, cheese, or other products for moneyuse livestock as beasts of burden

advantages of herding as adaptation

vegetation of grasslands & arid savannas & of tundra is indigestible by humanslivestock turn it into milk, blood, fat, meat all of which can be eaten or drunk by herderslivestock provide insurance against unpredictable environments of drought & low yieldsmobility - herds can be moved to fresh grass and water, avoid the tax man

Pastoralists and the State

Problems nomads pose for territorial states

Alberta Pastoralisms or Industrial Beef Production?

First Nations Pastoralisms or Foraging?