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Essay / An overview of the hunting and gathering mode of production
“Until about 12,000 to 11,000 years ago, when agriculture and animal domestication emerged in southwest Asia and In Mesoamerica, all people were hunters and gatherers. Their strategies have been very diverse, depending largely on the local environment; Foraging strategies include hunting or trapping large game, hunting or trapping smaller animals, fishing, gathering shells or insects, and gathering wild plant foods such as fruits , vegetables, tubers, seeds and nuts. Most hunters and gatherers combine various strategies to ensure a balanced diet. The hunting and gathering lifestyle was also called foraging culture, any group of people who rely primarily on wild foods for their sustenance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay “Early Holocene communities gathered plant food with stone mowing knives or dug up tubers with digging sticks and hunted with spears and bows. Like their Paleolithic predecessors, they exploited resources by moving across their landscapes, usually in small groups, meeting occasionally during annual salmon runs or similar resource-rich locations. The majority of Holocene hunter-gatherer societies were defined by flexibility and were small-scale in nature. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture was a major shift in human adaptation. The population became increasingly sedentary, in territories connected to varied and plentiful resources, which replaced the mobility associated with most hunter-gatherer groups. “Domestication is a biological process that involves changes in the genotypes and physical characteristics of plants and animals as they become dependent on humans for their reproductive success. Domestication can often be unintentional, resulting from ongoing interaction between human and wild species. Domestication began when hunter-gatherers moved from involuntarily collecting plants to voluntarily managing specific plant species. The conversion from food collection to food production has definitively increased the Earth's capacity to support a much larger population. Another biological implication was also culture. Scarre defines cultivation as the phenomenon of intentionally preparing fields, sowing, harvesting, and storing seeds or other plants. This required substantial development of human technology, livelihood and prospects. Hunter-gatherers were more than casual observers of the history of plant and animal use, they also modified the species on which they depended. “An important trait for the development and spread of human societies as well as their ability to interact with their environment. was "the adoption of technological means to overcome the difficulties imposed by hostile environments."4 Stone tools, wooden spears, stone bolas, wood, hides and fire enabled these groups to adopt a mobile existence and moving into more hostile ecosystems. Technology was particularly important in increasing humans' ability to hunt. More specifically, the bow and arrows as well as the snares, traps and. 1992.