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Forger Societies (hunter gatherer societies)
- Very often ignored or overlooked -Chief focus is usually on modern societies within the field of sociology. -Represent the Human EEA (Evironment of evolutionary adaptation) -As organisms to a considerable extent, we exhibit certain traits that have adapted to hunter gatherer skills which we still exhibit today. -This societal type, that for the longest time our ancestors have lived in. How do we study these old societies?
- Fossil records -Provide info on camp site location -Diet -Dates of the emergence of modern human beings
- Ethnographic Record -Record of observations that survived around recent times. -Observations made by people who have studied these groups of people -Somewhere around 200-250 groups of hunter gatherer societies. -Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) by G.P. Murdock These socities that our ancestors lived in were relatively small in size. Around 40 people. At the low end around 25-100 people. *Evidence that indicates that certain HG societies even exceeded 700-800 individuals. Probably relied heavily on fishing (a specialized form of hunting). Larger socities tend to be fishing societies. Kwakiutl- An Native American society that specialized in salmon fishing and numbered in the thousands. The population density tends to be very low in these societies. Typically less than 1 person per square mile. Communites that don't establish permanent settlements. They are nomadic and establish camp sites, lasting from anywhere between several days, weeks, or even months. They don't move in random directions, but rather a certain area of land in predictable patterns. ! (click) Kung San- A tribe in Africa, One of the most well-documented HG societies. Access to water is crucial, so in their loosely defined area of land, they move at certain times to find water resources that spring up. They even send out a band to retrace their steps to use the same resources. Fertility patterns: Relatively high. Crude Birth Rate(CBR) Measure of the # of live births per year per 1,000 population. Tend to be around 25 per thousand. In the US today its around 14. Check on Fertility
- Lengthy period of nursing. Up to 5 years of nursing. Prolactan (milk). Fatty tissue has to be around 12% in order to have a normal productive cycle. A fetus needs to survive by the mother
having enough resources in her body to give it which drains calories.Eventually they would lose enough weight to become sterile.
- Intercourse prohibitions. Some societies you cant have intercourse with your wife untill she was done nursing which took years.
- They don't know of abortion or contraceptive techniques. Only abortion through hitting of the abdomen to kill the baby. Contraception Included certain chemicals that acted as spermicide.
- Infanticide,usually more aimed towards females than males. Long-term check on fertility. Mortality Crude Death Rate (CDR) -Number of deaths in a given year per 1000 population. -Around 25 per 1000, accounts for why they didn't grow as fast. -Relatively short life expectancey. Roughly 30 years. -Accidents and infections took a very huge toll. -Excercised and ate relatively healthy diets. -They don't suffer like us from what is known as "diseases of civilization" (obesity, tooth decay, hypertension, heart disease, and cancers are virtually absent). -Discordance hypothesis: Traits that emerged within an environmental ....... Our ancestors only had two foods to satisfy them, ripe fruit and honey. *We come into this world with traits that our ancestors used that were adaptive to their own environment. The Paleolithic Prescription- a book written by S.B. Eaton, M. Shartask, M. Konner
For the sex that invests more heavily, "usally but not always females", the prinicipal constraint on reproductive success is access to materials. By contrast for the sex that invests less heavily, the principal constraint on reproductive success is sexual access to the sex that invests more heavily. Polygamy 83.5% Monogamy 16.0% Polyandry 0.5%
Neolithic Revolution: The Stone age, domestication of plants. Horticultural Societies, plant cultivation in small garden plots. Herding of grazing animals. Appeared first in dry temperate climates that allowed for cultivation. This transition involved a technological improvement. Individuals who lived in these socities were able to produce greater amounts of food and there were able to sustain larger populations. Relative to forgers however, HC societies face a decline in living standards. HC work more hours of the day and week and earn a less adequate diet. At 8000 BC the world population was roughly 10million CBR- 40: Children are typically weened by the time they are age 3 They tend to cultivate products that can be prepared properly so that young children can eat them. CDR- 40: Death rates skyrocket because: In any society that cultivate a very small number of crops, sometimes just one, or just the hearding of one type of animal, and by relying so extensicley on just one type of foood, it represents a monotinous diet with a lack of important nutrients and calories. If something threatens that fundamental food supply, it poses really big problems for them. One bad harvest is a real problem and 2 or 3 is a complete disaster. Increasing population density. More fights between individuals and between groups, warfare, and the risk of disease. Social Structures:
Yanamao: Feirce men are known as unokais. They value this and its obtained by killing a man and other acts of heroicness. They have greater prestiege and a weild more authority when its decision making time. Also the "Big Man" of the village has some amount of prestiege, like leading or swaying opinion. It is sacreligious to speak the name of dead ancestors if you belong to that family. Unokais had an average of 1.63 wives and 4.91 children. Non Unokais males had 0.63 wives and 1.59 children. There begins to be more male to male competition for wives. Multi-community societies. Men in some villages get in alliances with men from other villages. They could be attacked at any time so its vital to have alliances, or when they want to raid a village. Alliance FOrmation: Trading Mutual Feasting Very male dominated society. Veiw women as objects that can be traded to men for other villages in exchange for their women. Males in Horticultural Societies try to control Female Sexuality, FGM. Cliteradectomy (fidelity issue, if she doesn't feel anything good from sex, she is less likely to cheat. Infubulation (virginity insurance). Relative parental confidence. Pastoral Herding Societies Good book about PHS (Red Tent) Societal Type: Agrarian SOcieites/states
Begin appearing about 5,000 years ago in the near east. Mesopotaimia, Egypt, Inca empire, Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica. Large fields, genuine agriculture, large citites permananent urban areas. Greater degrees in inequality and differentiation. Occupational specialization, people concentrate on not only growing food but specific crafts and guilds. Metal smiths, weavers, etc. The percentage of the town that was urban was around 10% very small. 90% or more were agrarian peasents, engaging in difficult work associated with rain crops. All agrarian socitites were centered around grain crops like barely and shit. Extrordinary inequality, political and economic. Perhaps the greatest in history. The ruling classes made about about 1-3% of the population and typically controlled 50% of the wealth produced, sometimes much greater than that. Average decline of living standards. HOurs worked per day, number of days and weeks worked, strenuois work. Declining average life expectancy. The rise of Pristine States: The emergence of a formal governmental apparatus. Robert Carnerio: He published an article called the theory of the origin of the state. What do we mean when we talk about the state? "An autonomus political unit, encompasing many communities within its territory, and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work and war, and decree and enforce laws." V. Gordan Childe "States were a natural outgrow of the agricultural revolution." SOcieties were able to produce a surplus of food, more than what was need to survive, making it possible for some individuals to remove themselves from that hard labor and being to specialize in other things like pottery, black smiths, manufacture of copper tools, masons and whatnot. People have many different interests and that is why states had come about so that people could do different things (something like that)
There is usually a steady growth, untill a catasrophy happens like war or disease, and the number plummets quickly. Followed by a revovery and the pattern continues. It seems as if they were affected by a cieliing, which their numbers couldn't pierce. French Historian: Fernand Braudel wrote the structures & everyday life. Proposes an explaination for this pattern of growth, argues that this pattern the biological old order (ancieu regime) which is common to all old societies
- In all of these societies, we observe a high level of fertility and mortality rates (40 per 1000) mortality rates fluctuate a lot.
- In all of these socities, we observe high rates of infant mortality. 3)We observe individuals having to content with famine, widespread starvation. One of the risks of living in any cultivation economy is that when you depend on one crop, and theres a bad harvest, there's gonna be real serious problems. Periodic Famine*
- The populations suffered from Chronic malnutrition. A decline in average living standards. Bulk of diet was bread and watered down ale (beer) mainly a peasent diet.
- Periodic outbreak of vicious disease, communal disease. Largely a function of the larger population sizes and density. Smallpox, measles, etc. Black death is a good example. All of this is related to the vast decline of living standards. The peasents (majority of this society) had to perform backbreaking labor and go with the demands of the ruling class.
There's a close correlation between economic growth & political inequality and polygamy. HG societies, was relatively mild and as wealth and inequality grew, so did polygamy. In agrarian societies, economic resources were very unequal, as well the amount of polygamy. A small percentage of men though, had vast amounts of wives (King soloman had 700 wives and 300 concubines) he controlled sexual access to this amount of women. Men like this monopolized sexual access to women. Matt Ridley: The Red Queen.
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Coevolutionary theory: Theories of this nature have been set forth by: o Charles Lumsden & E.O. Wilson o Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson o William Durham Attempt to show that social evolution is a product of both genetic transmission and social or cultural transmission, and that the two are closely intertwined. Has not been especially effective in either describing or explaining social evolution over the long term. Evolutionary Materialism: Set forth by Stephen Sanderson Set forth in a highly detailed propositional manner. Builds directly on Harris's cultural materialism and is seen as a formalization and extenstion of it. It accepts Harris's division of societies into infrastructure, structure, and superstructure but slightly reformulates the notion of infastructure. Harris had divided economy into two: subsistence (placed in infrastructure) and political economy (placed in structure). Sanderson kept them both together and placed them in infastructure.
- Infrastructure: The raw materials and social forms relevant to human survival and adaptation. o Technology: The info, tools and techniques that underlie economic action. o Economy: The organized system whereby goods and services are produced, distributed, and exchanged among individuals and groups. o Ecology: The totality of the physical or natural environment to which humans must adapt. o Demography: The nature and dynamics of human populations and the technology of birth control.
- Structure: The organized patterns of social behavior carried out among the members of a society, excluding those social patterns that belong to the infrastructure. o Stratification Systems: Class and caste divisions and the relationships between such groups.
Ex: The Ik of Uganda lost their only way of subsistence when their land was turned into a game preserve. Their population dwindled and they lost any social cohesion. Also when a society grows too big to sustain itself and collapses (i.e. the Roman Empire) Social Extinction: involves the complete obliteration of a society. What is meant by calling social evolution an adaptive process? Social patterns are created by humans as rational responses to the problems of existence that they confront, and when the nature of these problems changes, as invariably happens, the responses must change as well.
Pages 32- Hunter Gatherer societies live in small groups called local bands. These are groups of roughly 25-50 men, women and children who cooperate with each other in the quest for subsistence. Each band is a more or less politically autonomus and economically self-sufficient unit. Tribe: Local bands connected by intermarriage into a much larger cultural unit. A network of bands all of whose members share the same cultural patterns and speak the same language. Weapons (technology) used for hunting and gathering: Spears, bows and arrows, nets, and traps, and digging sticks used for gathering plants. Crude and simple, usually made of bone, wood, stone, and other natural materials. There is typically no methods of food preservation so food is eaten immediately or within a short span of time. HG societies lack any type of occupational specialization beyond subsistence tasks. Failure to produce an economic surplus, an excess of goods over and above what is needed for subsistence. Simple hunter-gatherers = those who don't store food. Complex hunter-gatherers = those who do store food. What is the most important food to the !Kung San?
With a diet consisting of primarily vegetables, the mongongo or mangetti nut is the most important. While hunter gatherer societies seem to be shitty to live in, they actually provide adequate amounts of food with not too much work to be done and not much in the way of starvation. In reality, agricultural societies face these problems and more in much greater severity and frequency. Primitive Communism: Developed by Marx A type of society in which people subsisted by hunting and gathering or by simple forms of agriculture or animal herding, and in which all of the vital resources of nature were held in common. Marx believed that private ownership of resources by individuals or small groups was not found in these types of societies. Contemporary social science proves Marx correct. Everyone has equal acess to game and plants, no one "owns" resources, they use them. Reciprocity: HG's generally distribute economic goods through this process. It's the obligation to repay others for what they have given to or done for us; the actual act of repaying others. There are two types of reciprocity: o Balanced: occurs when individuals are obligated to provide equivilent and often immediate repayment to others. Lack of exploitation. o Generalized: occurs when individuals are obligated to give to others without expecting any immediate or equivilent repayment. Does not involve any direct or open agreement, just a general understanding that you will be repayed with no time limit. It is extremely important to their overall economy and hoarding and boastfullness are serious threats to this. They look out for one another because in return they will be looked after. HG socities lack social stratification but still face some inequality to a certain degree. Men typically have more power than women Older people are more trusted than younger people Certain characteristics are looked highly upon such as courage or hunting skills and are given a certain prestige to them. Typically people in these categories take leadership postions because they are trusted. This doesn't mean they get special privileges or anything like that, rather they are first among equals. Everyone has the same oppurtunites. No one gets to be in a prestigious postion based on any social heirarchy or heredity.
Redistribution: When this occurs, products are funneled from individual households to a central source and then returned to those households in some sort of systematic manner. It differes from reciprocity in that redistribution is a more formalized process involving the movement of goods into the hands of some person or group that serves as the focal point for their reallocation. There are two types: o Pure: The redistributive process is complete in the sense that the redistributive agent reallocates all goods and keeps no extra portion for himself. o Partial: The redistributive process is incomplete inasmuch as the redistributive agent retains a portion of the goods for his own use. Big men: Extremely ambitious men who seek prestige and renown through their roles as organizers of economic production. If they fail in their duties (keeping too much for themselves, not sufficiently generous) they're typically killed. Rank Societies: Defined by Morton Fried A society in which positions of valued status are somehow limited so that not all those of sufficient talent to occupy such statuses actually achieve them. Douglas Oliver: The Siuai of Bougainville's principal ethnographer. Intensive horticultural societies: Dependent on cultivated garden products for the bulk of their food supply. Cultivate by slash and burn method. Some have domesticated animals and other hunt or fish for animal protein. Ex: Hawaii, Polynesia, Tonga, Tahiti, etc. How do simple and intensive horticultural societies differ? The length of time that land is allowed to fallow. Intensive usually cuts it down to less time (5-10 years) thus cropping a given plot of land almost continuously. Ex: Ancient Hawaii. To compensate for the over cropping of the land, more fertililzer is added to the soil such as animal manure. People work harder and longer The use of hoes to cultivate the land More productive per unit of land Bigger economic surpluses Higher standard of living Paramount Ownership:
An evolutionary variation on the theme of lineage ownership. This type of ownership is ordinarily found among more intensive horticultural societies. Prevails when a powerful individual (a cheif) who is the head of a lineage, of an entire village, or a vast network of integrated villages, claims personal ownership of the land within his realm and attempts to deprive those persons living on this of full rights to its use. Social Stratification: Three Main social classes o Cheifs o subcheifs o Commoners These classes are distinguished by their differences in: o Social Rank o Power o Dress & Ornamentation o Patterns of consumption of luxury goods o Direct involvment in economic production o availability of leisure time o general styles of life The dominant class was a small minority consisting of powerful people who lived off the economic surpluses of those below them in rank. An intermediate class of officials and specialists served the fancies of the dominant class and carried out some of the lesser functions of political rule. The lowest class consisted of the large marjority of ordinary people who were in charge of producing enough goods to the support the top two classes. Politically, they have been organized into chiefdoms. Marked by the integration of many seperate villages into a centrally coordinated complex whole governed from the top down.
Pages 57- Agrarian Societies: First arose approximately 5,000 years ago in Egypt and mesopotamia and slightly later in China and India. There are no true agrarian societies left in the world.
A majority of people are subjected to into conditions of extreme poverty and degradation. An immense gap in power and priviledge and prestige that existed between the dominant and subordinate classes. Most highly stratified of all preindustrial societies. Social Classes in Agrarian societies: o A political-economic elite consisting of the ruler and his royal family and a land owning governing class o King or monarch and the and the people who owned the land and who recieved benefits from it. A great portion of wealth typically goes to this class. o The retainer class o People directly employed to serve the ruling class (professional soldiers, officals, household servants, etc.) o The Merchant class o Engaged in commercial activity and were a vital part of the agrarian urban economy. o The Priestly class o Close allies with rulers. o The peasentry o Treated like shit and taxed alot, but it varied among regions and time periods. Looked down upon (compared to livestock) and were considered less than human. o Artisans o Trained Craftsmen, made a shitty salary, even worse than peasents and lived in shitty conditions. o Expendables o Bottom of the barrel people. Prostitutes, beggars, thieves, outlaws, etc. Had a very high death rate. People were born into classes (heredity) and there was little to no possibility of upward mobility, mostly downward. Corvee (forced labor) system: Peasants were obligated to provide so many days of labor either for their lord or for the state.
When the chiefdom is backed by the administrative machinery necessary to overpower resistance, the political society known as "the state" has evolved. This type of political structure prevails in nearly all agrarian societies. Holding a monopoly of force is crucial to the state. Characteristics of the state: The state emerges under conditions in which the significance of kinship ties is reduced. Rulers can be assholes because they're not ruling over their families but a mass of unrelated individuals. Promote elaborate legitimizing ideologies. Rulers commonly attempt to convince people of their moral right to rule. Religion is often used to assure authority. Unlike cheifdoms states have generally not been redistributive centers. The flow of surplus has always been one way, to the ruling class. Pastoralism (Pastorial Nomadism): a highly specialized subsistence adaptation found in arid regions of the world poorly suited to agriculture. Its based on the tending of animal herds rather than the growing of crops. It is an alternative to agriculture in environments where aridity makes cultivation of the land difficult or impossible. Animals kept include sheep, goats, camels, etc. They get their vegetables by trading with agricultural neighbors. They travel in small groups that usually dont exceed 100-200 people. Population densities are low, usually around fewer than 5 persons per square mile. Most famous historical group are the mongols. Many pastoral societies are organized into uncentralized tribes that are highly egalitarian and in which political leadership is informal and leaders lack any real power or authority. Ex: The Nuer of Sudan, and by contrast Basseri of Iran who have built a society considerably more developed than pastoral groups like the Nuer. Evolution of Subsistence Technology: Ester Boserup proposed that people have no desire to advance their level of technology and people wish to make a living as easily as possible. New Technologies have people working much harder. They only swith when conditions compel them to do so. o Population Pressure: Exists when population growth causes people to press against food resources. As the number of mouths to feed increases, people eventually deplete their resources and have to intensify production. o As populations grew, people entered a food crisis and therefore had to increase production. They became willing to work harder because they had more to gain from it. Intensification of agricultural production Surplus theory:
