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How sure are we that hunting gather societies were more common than forager-horticulture? Is it possible most societies had some component of horticulture and

by enkid 5y ago

How sure are we that hunting gather societies were more common than forager-horticulture? Is it possible most societies had some component of horticulture and the hunter-gather societies only exist because of favorable environmental conditions? It seems that many human developments have been attributed to occurring earlier and earlier, such as language, tool use, and art. Is there a reason to think horticultural wouldn't be the same? It seems like it would leave little trace for anthropology or archeology to discover, so may have been happening longer than we expected. It's sort of like how we call it the "stone age" even though wooden tools were likely much more common because stone tools are more survivable, and therefore more likely to be found. Our current conception of how early humanity lived their lives is dominant by what we don't know instead of what we do know. That is, unless I am mistaken and there is evidence that early humans didn't use some form of horticulture.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
Horticulture is usually defined by domestication, so we're pretty darn confident that early human subsistence strategies didn't rely on it based on their presumed lack of time machines and the fact that there's so much time between the evolution of AMHs and observable domestication. You can double or triple the known dates and still have 90%+ of human history left over. In a broader sense, pretty much everyone in the field would say that there's a huge amount of overlap in those terms and trying to pigeonhole a particular society into one or the other over a long period of time is more frustrating than fruitful. Human subsistence strategies were hugely diverse and we only have a small glimpse into that diversity with ethnographic analogy and the material record. Disclaimer: I know one of the authors, but wasn't involved with the research at all

by enkid 5y ago

AlotOfReading 5y ago

Horticulture is usually defined by domestication, so we're pretty darn confident that early human subsistence strategies didn't rely on it based on their presumed lack of time machines and the fact that there's so much time between the evolution of AMHs and observable domestication. You can double or triple the known dates and still have 90%+ of human history left over. In a broader sense, pretty much everyone in the field would say that there's a huge amount of overlap in those terms and trying to pigeonhole a particular society into one or the other over a long period of time is more frustrating than fruitful. Human subsistence strategies were hugely diverse and we only have a small glimpse into that diversity with ethnographic analogy and the material record. Disclaimer: I know one of the authors, but wasn't involved with the research at all