View source for Hunter-gatherer

{{Short description|Peoples who forage or hunt for most or all of their food and life}}
{{Redirect|Hunting and gathering|other uses |Hunting and Gathering (novel)|and|Hunting and Gathering (film)}}
{{Redirect|Plant gathering|the hobby or academic activity|Plant collecting}}
[[File:Living on the rainforest.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|[[African Pygmies|Central African foragers]] in the [[Congo Basin]] in August 2014]]
A '''hunter-gatherer''' or '''forager''' is a [[human]] living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived [[Lifestyle|lifestyle]], in which most or all [[food]] is obtained by [[foraging]],<ref>{{cite web |title = Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers) |date = June 2020 |url = https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/hunter-gatherers |access-date = 14 September 2022 |last1 = Ember |first1 = Carol R. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-first=Nicholas |author-last=Wade |title=Before the Dawn |location=London |publisher=The Penguin Press |year=2006 |isbn=1-59420-079-3|title-link=Before the Dawn (Wade book)}}</ref> that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources or by [[hunting]] game. This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are [[omnivore]]s. Hunter-gatherer groups, usually a few dozen people,  were and are [[Nomad|nomadic]] or [[Nomad|semi-nomadic]]. Hunter-gatherer [[Society|societies]] are contrasted with more [[Sedentism|sedentary]] [[Agrarian society|agricultural societies]], which rely mainly on cultivating [[crop]]s and raising [[domesticated animal]]s for food production.

Hunting and gathering emerged with ''[[Homo erectus]]'' about 1.8 million years ago and was humanity's original and most enduring successful [[Competition (biology)|competitive]] [[adaptation]] in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of [[Prehistory|human (pre)history]].<ref>Richard B. Lee & Richard Daly, "[https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Cambridge_Encyclopedia_of_Hunters_an/5eEASHGLg3MC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover Introduction: Foragers and others]", in:  ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters & Gatherers'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), {{ISBN|052157109X|}}, pp. 1–20.</ref> Following the [[Neolithic Revolution|invention of agriculture]], hunter-gatherers who did not change were displaced or conquered by farming or [[Pastoralism|pastoralist]] groups in most parts of the world.<ref name="Stephens 897–902">{{Cite journal|last1=Stephens|first1=Lucas|last2=Fuller|first2=Dorian|last3=Boivin|first3=Nicole|last4=Rick|first4=Torben|last5=Gauthier|first5=Nicolas|last6=Kay|first6=Andrea|last7=Marwick|first7=Ben|last8=Armstrong|first8=Chelsey Geralda|last9=Barton|first9=C. Michael|date=2019-08-30|title=Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use |bibcode-access=free |s2cid-access=free |doi-access=free |journal=Science|language=en|volume=365|issue=6456|pages=897–902|doi=10.1126/science.aax1192|pmid=31467217|bibcode=2019Sci...365..897S|issn=0036-8075|hdl=10150/634688|s2cid=201674203|hdl-access=free}}</ref> In Western Eurasia, farming and [[Metallurgy|metallurgical]] societies gradually replaced hunter-gatherers, but dense forests remained their last refuge until [[Bronze Age|Bronze]] and [[Iron Age]] societies fully overcame them.<ref name="Gavashelishvili1">{{Citation
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Socially, they were generally [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]], emphasizing [[sharing]] and resisting [[hierarchy]], though inequalities and [[Division of labour|divisions of labor]] existed; women often contributed to hunting as well as gathering.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Ocobock |first1=Cara |last2=Lacy |first2=Sarah |date=November 1, 2023 |title=The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/ |access-date=February 23, 2024 |website=Scientific American |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4"/> Only a few contemporary societies of [[Uncontacted peoples|uncontacted people]] are still classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with [[horticulture]] or [[pastoralism]].<ref name=":0"/><ref>{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century|last=Greaves|first=Russell D.|display-authors=etal|publisher=School for Advanced Research, University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-8263-5696-3|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque|pages=241–62|chapter=Economic activities of twenty-first century foraging populations}}</ref>

[[Archaeology|Archaeological]] and [[Ethnography|ethnographic]] evidence shows wide variation depending on environment, from [[mammoth steppe]] hunters in [[Siberia]] to semi-sedentary [[Fishing|fishers]]. Their diets varied by climate, balancing plant foods, game, and aquatic resources, with [[fat]] as a critical nutrient. Over time, many bands specialized in particular resources and tools, and some transitioned into agriculture, which led to permanent settlements, governments, and social stratification. While most hunter-gatherers eventually adopted farming or were displaced, some groups—such as the [[San people|San]], [[Yaruro people|Pumé]], and [[Sentinelese]]—continue aspects of this lifestyle today.

==Archaeological evidence==
{{Economic systems sidebar}}
Hunting and gathering was presumably the [[subsistence]] strategy employed by human societies beginning some 1.8 million years ago, by ''[[Homo erectus]]'', and from its appearance some 200,000 years ago by ''[[Archaic humans|Homo sapiens]]''. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in groups that consisted of several families resulting in a size of a few dozen people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/article/991/prehistoric-hunter-gatherer-societies/|title=Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Societies|last=Groeneveld|first=Emma|date=9 December 2016|website=[[World History Encyclopedia]]|access-date=9 April 2018}}</ref>

[[File:Mammoth House (Replica).JPG|thumb|The [[Mal'ta–Buret' culture|Mal'ta-Buret']] people in the Baikal region of Siberia lived in dwellings built of [[mammoth]] bones, similar to those found in [[Upper Paleolithic]] Western Eurasia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dolitsky |first1=Alexander B. |last2=Ackerman |first2=Robert E. |last3=Aigner |first3=Jean S. |last4=Bryan |first4=Alan L. |last5=Dennell |first5=Robin |last6=Guthrie |first6=R. Dale |last7=Hoffecker |first7=John F. |last8=Hopkins |first8=David M. |last9=Lanata |first9=José Luis |last10=Workman |first10=William B. |title=Siberian Paleolithic Archaeology: Approaches and Analytic Methods [and Comments and Replies] |journal=Current Anthropology |date=1985 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=361–378 |doi=10.1086/203280 |jstor=2742734 |s2cid=147371671 |issn=0011-3204|quote="The Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of the European region spanned by France, Czechoslovakia, and the Ukraine led a hunting life resembling that of the people of Mal'ta and Buret' and built similar dwellings of matching construction from the bones of extinct large mammals"}}</ref>]]
The Late Pleistocene witnessed the [[early human migrations|spread]] of [[early modern human|modern humans]] outside of [[Africa]] as well as the extinction of all other human species. Humans spread to the [[Australia (continent)|Australian continent]] and the Americas for the first time, coincident with [[Quaternary extinction event|the extinction]] of numerous predominantly [[Pleistocene megafauna|megafauna]]l species.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sandom|first1=Christopher |last2= Faurby|first2=Søren|last3= Sandel|first3=Brody|last4= Svenning|first4=Jens-Christian|date= 4 June 2014|title=Global late Quaternary megafauna extinctions linked to humans, not climate change |journal=[[Proceedings of the Royal Society B]] |volume=281 |issue= 1787|article-number= 20133254|doi=10.1098/rspb.2013.3254|pmid=24898370 |pmc=4071532 }}</ref> Major extinctions were incurred in Australia beginning approximately 50,000 years ago and in the Americas about 15,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Smith|first1=Felisa A.|display-authors=etal.|date=April 20, 2018 |title=Body size downgrading of mammals over the late Quaternary|journal=Science |volume=360 |issue=6386|pages=310–313|doi=10.1126/science.aao5987 |pmid=29674591|bibcode=2018Sci...360..310S |doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Ancient North Eurasians]] lived in extreme conditions of the [[mammoth steppe]]s of Siberia and survived by hunting [[mammoth]]s, bison and woolly rhinoceroses.<ref>{{cite news |title=Genetic Analysis Reveals Previously Unknown Group of Ancient Siberians |url=https://www.sci.news/genetics/ancient-north-siberians-07267.html |work=Sci.News |date=7 June 2019}}</ref> The [[settlement of the Americas]] began when [[Upper Paleolithic|Paleolithic]] hunter-gatherers entered North America from the North Asian mammoth steppe via the [[Beringia]] land bridge.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Koch|first1=Paul L.|last2=Barnosky|first2=Anthony D.|date=2006-01-01|title=Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate|journal=Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics|volume=37|issue=1|pages=215–250|doi=10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415|s2cid=16590668}}</ref>

During the 1970s, [[Lewis Binford]] suggested that [[Homo (genus)|early humans]] obtained food via [[scavenging]], not [[hunting]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Binford | first1 = Louis | year = 1986 | title = Human ancestors: Changing views of their behavior | journal = [[Journal of Anthropological Archaeology]] | volume = 3 | pages = 235–57 | doi = 10.1016/0278-4165(84)90003-5 }}</ref> Early humans in the [[Lower Paleolithic]] lived in [[forest]]s and [[woodland]]s, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view, they used carcasses of such animals that had either been killed by [[Predation|predators]] or that had died of natural causes.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Last Rain Forests: A World Conservation Atlas|first1=Mark|last1=Collins|first2=David|last2=Attenborough|date=1990 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-520836-6}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}}</ref> Scientists have demonstrated that the evidence for early human behaviors for hunting versus carcass scavenging vary based on the ecology, including the types of predators that existed and the environment.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Domínguez-Rodrigo |first=Manuel |date=2008 |title=Conceptual Premises in Experimental Design and Their Bearing on the Use of Analogy: An Example from Experiments on Cut Marks |journal=World Archaeology |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=67–82 |doi=10.1080/00438240701843629 |jstor=40025314 |s2cid=55311378 |issn=0043-8243}}</ref>

[[File:World in 2000 BC.svg|thumb|left|Hunter-gatherers (yellow) 4,000 years ago (rough estimate)]]
Starting at the transition between the [[Middle Paleolithic|Middle]] to [[Upper Paleolithic]] period, some 80,000 to 70,000 years ago, some hunter-gatherer bands began to specialize, concentrating on hunting a smaller selection of (often larger) game and gathering a smaller selection of food. This specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as [[fishing net]]s, hooks, and bone [[harpoon]]s.<ref>Fagan, B. (1989). ''People of the Earth'', pp. 169–81. Scott, Foresman.{{ISBN?}}</ref>
[[File:ArchaeoGLOBE FHG.gif|thumb|A global map illustrating the decline of foraging/fishing/hunting/gathering around the world.<ref name="Stephens 897–902"/>]][[File:World in 1000 BCE.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Hunter-gatherers (yellow) 3,000 years ago (rough estimate)]]
[[File:Arri Raats, Kalahari Khomani San Bushman, Boesmansrus camp, Northern Cape, South Africa (20540522615).jpg|thumb|A [[San people|San]] man in the [[Kalahari Desert]] in South Africa. Many San still live as hunter-gatherers.]]Archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Blades | first1 = B | year = 2003 | title = End scraper reduction and hunter-gatherer mobility | journal = American Antiquity | volume = 68 | issue = 1| pages = 141–56 | doi=10.2307/3557037| jstor = 3557037 | s2cid = 164106990 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Verdolivo|first=Matthew|date=2020-11-04|title=Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201104194446/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/|archive-date=November 4, 2020|access-date=2020-11-19|website=National Geographic|language=en}}</ref>

==Common characteristics==

{{Further|Cultural universal}}
[[File:BuffaloHunters.jpg|thumb|[[Bison hunting|Bison hunt]] under the wolf-skin mask, [[George Catlin]], {{circa|1832}}]]

===Habitat and population===
Some hunter-gatherer cultures, such as the [[indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast]] and the [[Yokuts]], lived in particularly rich environments that allowed them to be sedentary or semi-sedentary. Amongst the earliest example of permanent settlements is the Osipovka culture (14–10.3 thousand years ago),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dIuADwAAQBAJ&dq=Osipovka+culture+%2814%E2%80%9310.3+ka+BP%29&pg=PA346|title=Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impacts and Human Adaptation|first=Eustathios|last=Chiotis|year= 2018|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-1-351-26023-7|via=Google Books}}</ref> which lived in a fish-rich environment that allowed them to be able to stay at the same place all year.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/cooking-secrets-of-the-neolithic-era-revealed-in-groundbreaking-scientific-tests/|title=Cooking secrets of the Neolithic era revealed in groundbreaking scientific tests|website=siberiantimes.com}}</ref> One group, the [[Chumash people|Chumash]], had the highest recorded population density of any known hunter and gatherer society with an estimated 21.6 persons per square mile.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/brine-revolution/ |title=The Brine Revolution |journal=[[Hakai Magazine]] |first=Heather |last=Pringle |date=22 April 2015 |access-date=24 June 2019 |publisher=Tula Foundation and [[Hakai Institute]]}}</ref>

===Social and economic structure===
Hunter-gatherers tend to have an [[egalitarian]] social ethos,<ref name="PropertyEquality">{{cite book |last1=Widlok |first1=Thomas |last2=Tadesse |first2=Wolde Gossa |title=Property and Equality |date=2006 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-84545-213-1 |pages=ix–x |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3b6uo2ZLz_EC&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |access-date=6 July 2019 |language=en}}</ref><ref>Erdal, David; Whiten, Andrew; Boehm, Christopher; Knauft, Bruce (April 1994). "On Human Egalitarianism: An Evolutionary Product of Machiavellian Status Escalation?" ([http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/erdal.pdf PDF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031131752/https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/erdal.pdf |date=2021-10-31 }}). Current Anthropology. 35 (2): 175–183.</ref> although settled hunter-gatherers (for example, those inhabiting the Northwest Coast of North America and the [[Calusa]] in [[Florida]]) are an exception to this rule.<ref name="Lourandos">{{cite book |last1=Lourandos |first1=Harry |title=Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-35946-7 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tTy-I8no1MwC&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |access-date=6 July 2019 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Fitzhugh">{{cite book |last1=Fitzhugh |first1=Ben |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FLH-fMsjyM8C&q=egalitarian+hunter-gatherer |title=The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific |date=2003 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-306-47853-6 |pages=4–5, 242 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Singh |first=Manvir |title=Beyond the !Kung |url=https://aeon.co/essays/not-all-early-human-societies-were-small-scale-egalitarian-bands |access-date=2023-06-23 |website=Aeon |language=en}}</ref> For example, the [[San people]] or "Bushmen" of southern Africa have social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods.<ref name="Cashdan">{{cite journal |last=Cashdan |first=Elizabeth A. |title=Egalitarianism among Hunters and Gatherers |journal=American Anthropologist |date=1980 |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=116–20 |jstor=676134 |issn=0002-7294 |doi=10.1525/aa.1980.82.1.02a00100}}</ref> [[Karl Marx]] defined this socio-economic system as [[Primitive Communism|primitive communism]].<ref>Scott, John; Marshall, Gordon (2007). ''A Dictionary of Sociology''. US: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0198609872}}.{{page needed|date=January 2022}}</ref>

[[File:Mbendjele meat sharing.jpg|thumb|left|Mbendjele meat sharing]]

The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]s, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an [[Alpha (ethology)|alpha male]]. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by [[Paleoanthropology|paleoanthropologists]] that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of [[Consciousness|human consciousness]], [[language]], [[kinship]] and [[social organization]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Erdal | first1 = D. | last2 = Whiten | first2 = A. | year = 1994 | title = On human egalitarianism: an evolutionary product of Machiavellian status escalation? | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 35 | issue = 2| pages = 175–83 | doi=10.1086/204255| s2cid = 53652577 }}</ref><ref>Erdal, D. and A. Whiten 1996. "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution". In, P. Mellars and K. Gibson (eds), ''Modelling the early human mind.'' Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs.{{ISBN?}}</ref><ref>Gintis, Herbert. 2013. "The Evolutionary Roots of Human Hyper-Cognition". ''Journal of Bioeconomics'' 15 (1): 83–89.</ref><ref>Gintis, Herbert, Carel van Schaik, and Christopher Boehm. 2019. "Zoon Politikon: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Socio-Political Systems". ''Behavioural Processes, Behavioral Evolution'', 161 (April): 17–30. {{doi|10.1016/j.beproc.2018.01.007}}.</ref>

Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers do not have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed.<ref name="gowdy">{{cite book |last=Gowdy |first=John M. |title=Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment |publisher=Island Press |year=1998 |isbn=1-55963-555-X |location=St Louis |pages=xv}}</ref><ref name=Dahlberg>{{cite book |last=Dahlberg |first=Frances |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eTPULzP1MZAC&q=Gathering+and+Hominid+Adaptation&pg=PA120 |title=Woman the Gatherer |location=London |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1975 |isbn=0-300-02989-6}}</ref><ref>Erdal, D. & Whiten, A. (1996) "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian Intelligence in Human Evolution" in Mellars, P. & Gibadfson, K. (eds) ''Modelling the Early Human Mind''. Cambridge MacDonald Monograph Series. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

[[File:Group of Andaman Men and Women in Costume, Some Wearing Body Paint And with Bows and Arrows, Catching Turtles from Boat on Water.jpg|thumb|Group of [[Andamanese peoples|Andamanese]] hunting {{circa|1903}}]]

Within a particular tribe or people, hunter-gatherers are connected by both [[kinship]] and [[Band society|band]] (residence/domestic group) membership.<ref name=Kiefer>{{cite web |url=http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |title=Anthropology E-20 |access-date=2008-03-11 |author-first=Thomas M. |author-last=Kiefer |date=Spring 2002 |work=Lecture 8 Subsistence, Ecology and Food production |publisher=Harvard University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410021259/http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |archive-date=2008-04-10 |url-status=usurped }}</ref> Postmarital residence among hunter-gatherers tends to be matrilocal, at least initially.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Marlowe | first1 = Frank W. | year = 2004 | title = Marital residence among foragers | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 45 | issue = 2| pages = 277–84 | doi=10.1086/382256| s2cid = 145129698 }}</ref> Young mothers can enjoy childcare support from their own mothers, who continue living nearby in the same camp.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hawkes | first1 = K. | last2 = O'Connell | first2 = J. F. | last3 = Jones | first3 = N. G. Blurton | last4 = Alvarez | first4 = H. P. | last5 = Charnov | first5 = E. L. | year = 1998 | title = Grandmothering, Menopause, and the Evolution of Human Life-Histories | url = http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=biol_fsp| journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 95 | issue = 3| pages = 1336–39 | doi=10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336 | pmid=9448332 | pmc=18762| bibcode = 1998PNAS...95.1336H | doi-access = free }}</ref> The systems of kinship and descent among human hunter-gatherers were relatively flexible, although there is evidence that early human kinship in general tended to be [[Matrilineality|matrilineal]].<ref>Knight, C. 2008. "Early human kinship was matrilineal". In N. J. Allen, H. Callan, R. Dunbar and W. James (eds.), ''Early Human Kinship''. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 61–82.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

The conventional assumption has been that women did most of the gathering, while men concentrated on big game hunting. In recent years, however, this assumption has been challenged by new research findings. Women in many hunter-gatherer societies hunted small game and, in some cases, even participated in big-game hunting.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Aizenman |first=Nurith |date=July 1, 2023 |title=Men are hunters, women are gatherers. That was the assumption. A new study upends it. |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i }}</ref> An illustrative account is Megan Biesele's study of the southern African Ju/'hoan, 'Women Like Meat'.<ref>{{cite book|last=Biesele|first=Megan|year=1993|title=Women Like Meat. The folklore and foraging ideology of the Kalahari Ju/'hoan|location=Witwatersrand|publisher=University Press|isbn=0-253-31565-4}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}}</ref> A 2006 study suggests that the sexual division of labor was the fundamental organizational innovation that gave ''Homo sapiens'' the edge over the Neanderthals, allowing our ancestors to migrate from Africa and spread across the globe.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210022722/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-date=December 10, 2006 |title=Sex-Based Roles Gave Modern Humans an Edge, Study Says |work=National Geographic News |author-first=Stefan |author-last=Lovgren |date=December 7, 2006}}</ref>

A 1986 study found most hunter-gatherers have a symbolically structured sexual division of labor.<ref>{{cite book|last=Testart|first=Alain|year=1986|title=Essai sur les fondements de la division sexuelle du travail chez les chasseurs-cueilleurs|location=Paris|publisher=Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales|lang=fr|lccn=86146185|oclc=14099593}}{{page needed|date=July 2021}}</ref> However, it is true that in a small minority of cases, women hunted the same kind of quarry as men, sometimes doing so alongside men. Among the [[Ju'/hoansi]] people of Namibia, women help men [[Tracking (hunting)|track]] down quarry.<ref name="biesele and barclay">{{Cite journal |first1=Megan |last1=Biesele |first2=Steve |last2=Barclay |title=Ju/'Hoan Women's Tracking Knowledge And Its Contribution To Their Husbands' Hunting Success |journal=African Study Monographs |volume=Suppl. 26 |pages=67–84 |date=March 2001 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32171204}}</ref> In the Australian Martu, both women and men participate in hunting but with a different style of gendered division; while men are willing to take more risks to hunt bigger animals such as kangaroo for political gain as a form of "competitive magnanimity", women target smaller game such as lizards to feed their children and promote working relationships with other women, preferring a more constant supply of sustenance.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Why women hunt: risk and contemporary foraging in a Western Desert aboriginal community|journal = Current Anthropology|date = 2008-08-01|issn = 0011-3204|pmid = 19230267|pages = 655–93|volume = 49|issue = 4|first1 = Rebecca Bliege|last1 = Bird|first2 = Douglas W.|last2 = Bird|doi=10.1086/587700|s2cid = 22722107}}</ref> In 2018, 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter along with a toolkit of [[projectile points]] and animal processing implements were discovered at the [[Andes|Andean]] site of Wilamaya Patjxa, [[Puno District]] in [[Peru]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=Wei-Hass|first=Maya|date=2020-11-04|title=Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217213250/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions|archive-date=February 17, 2021|access-date=2021-06-13|website=National Geographic|language=en}}</ref> A 2020 study inspired by this discovery found that of 27 identified burials with hunter gatherers of a known sex who were also buried with hunting tools, 11 were female hunter gatherers, while 16 were male hunter gatherers. Combined with uncertainties, these findings suggest that anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters were female.<ref name=":2" /> A 2023 study that looked at studies of contemporary hunter gatherer societies from the 1800s to the present day found that women hunted in 79 percent of hunter gatherer societies.<ref name=":3" /> 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".<ref name=":4">{{cite journal|title=Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter|vauthors=Venkataraman et al|date=May 7, 2024|journal=Evolution and Human Behavior|volume=45 |issue=4 |article-number=106586 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513824000497|doi=10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.04.014|bibcode=2024EHumB..4506586V |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

[[File:Native Encampment by Skinner Prout, from Australia (1876, vol II).jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A 19th-century [[engraving]] of an [[Indigenous Australians|Indigenous Australian]] encampment.]]

At the 1966 "[[Man the Hunter]]" conference, anthropologists [[Richard Borshay Lee]] and [[Irven DeVore]] suggested that [[egalitarianism]] was one of several central characteristics of nomadic hunting and gathering societies because mobility requires minimization of material possessions throughout a population. Therefore, no surplus of resources can be accumulated by any single member. Other characteristics Lee and DeVore proposed were [[flux]] in territorial boundaries as well as in [[demography|demographic]] composition.

At the same conference, [[Marshall Sahlins]] presented a paper entitled, "[[Original affluent society|Notes on the Original Affluent Society]]", in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers lives as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", as [[Thomas Hobbes]] had put it in 1651. According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more [[leisure]] than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Their "affluence" came from the idea that they were satisfied with very little in the material sense.<ref name=sahlins>Sahlins, M. (1968). "Notes on the Original Affluent Society", ''Man the Hunter.'' R.B. Lee and I. DeVore (New York: Aldine Publishing Company) pp.&nbsp;85–89. {{ISBN|020233032X}}. See also: Jerome Lewis, [http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf "Managing abundance, not chasing scarcity"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513015838/http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf |date=May 13, 2013 }}, ''Radical Anthropology'', No. 2, 2008, and John Gowdy, [http://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy "Hunter-Gatherers and the Mythology of the Market"], in Lee, Richard B (2005). ''Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers''.</ref> Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work on average, about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.<ref>Sackett, Ross. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles. via [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Time%2C-energy%2C-and-indolent-savage-%3A-a-quantitative-Sackett/d9bafd90f1443433556068dc6b5f92d20283052c#paper-header Semantic Scholar Corpus ID: 146347757]</ref> Sahlins' theory has been criticized for only including time spent hunting and gathering while omitting time spent on collecting firewood, food preparation, etc. Other scholars also assert that hunter-gatherer societies were not "affluent" but suffered from extremely high infant mortality, frequent disease, and perennial warfare.<ref>{{cite book |author=Lawrence H. Keeley |url=https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/war-before-civilization-9780195119121?cc=us&lang=en& |title=War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-19-511912-1 |pages=272}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hawks |first1=John |title=Hunter-gatherer mortality |work=john hawks weblog |date=28 February 2007 |url=http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/aging_evolution/hill_2007_hiwi_mortality.html |publisher=}}</ref>

Researchers Gurven and Kaplan have estimated that around 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. Of those that reach 15 years of age, 64% continue to live to or past the age of 45. This places the life expectancy between 21 and 37 years.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Guenevere |first1=Michael |last2=Kaplan |first2=Hillard |year=2007 |title=Longevity amongst Hunter-gatherers |url=https://gurven.anth.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.anth.d7_gurven/files/sitefiles/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=33 |issue=2 |page=326 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x}}</ref> They further estimate that 70% of deaths are due to diseases of some kind, 20% of deaths come from violence or accidents and 10% are due to degenerative diseases.

Mutual exchange and sharing of resources (i.e., meat gained from hunting) are important in the economic systems of hunter-gatherer societies.<ref name=Kiefer /> Therefore, these societies can be described as based on a "[[gift economy]]".

[[File:AinuBearSacrificeCirca1870.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|The [[Ainu people|Ainu]] ''[[Iomante]]'' ceremony (bear sending). Japanese scroll painting, {{circa|1870}}]]

A 2010 paper argued that while hunter-gatherers may have lower levels of inequality than modern, industrialised societies, that does not mean inequality does not exist. The researchers estimated that the average [[Gini coefficient]] amongst hunter-gatherers was 0.25, equivalent to the country of Denmark in 2007. In addition, wealth transmission across generations was also a feature of hunter-gatherers, meaning that "wealthy" hunter-gatherers, within the context of their communities, were more likely to have children as wealthy as them than poorer members of their community and indeed hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate an understanding of social stratification. Thus while the researchers agreed that hunter-gatherers were more egalitarian than modern societies, prior characterisations of them living in a state of egalitarian primitive communism were inaccurate and misleading.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smith |last2=Alden |first2=Eric |last3=Hill |first3=Kim |last4=Marlowe |first4=Frank W. |last5=Nolin |first5=David |last6=Wiessner |first6=Polly |last7=Gurven |first7=Michael |last8=Bowles |first8=Samuel |last9=Borgerhoff Mulder |first9=Monique |author-link9=Monique Borgerhoff Mulder |last10=Hertz |first10=Tom |last11=Bell |first11=Adrian |year=2010 |title=Wealth transmission and inequality among hunter-gatherers |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=19–34 |doi=10.1086/648530 |pmc=2999363 |pmid=21151711}}</ref>

This study, however, exclusively examined modern hunter-gatherer communities, offering limited insight into the exact nature of social structures that existed prior to the Neolithic Revolution. Alain Testart and others have said that anthropologists should be careful when using research on current hunter-gatherer societies to determine the structure of societies in the [[paleolithic]] era, emphasising cross-cultural influences, progress and development that such societies have undergone in the past 10,000 years.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers [and Comments and Reply] |first1=Alain |last1=Testart |author1-link=Alain Testart |first2=Bernard |last2=Arcand |author2-link=Bernard Arcand |first3=Tim |last3=Ingold |author3-link=Tim Ingold |first4=Dominique |last4=Legros |first5=Antje |last5=Linkenbach |first6=John |last6=Morton |first7=Nicolas |last7=Peterson |first8=D. R. |last8=Raju |first9=Carmel |last9=Schrire |author9-link=Carmel Schrire |first10=Eric Alden |last10=Smith |first11=M. Susan |last11=Walter |first12=Marek |last12=Zvelebil |author12-link=Marek Zvelebil |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=1 |date=February 1988 |pages=1–31 |publisher=The [[University of Chicago Press]] |doi=10.1086/203612 |jstor=2743319 |s2cid=42136717 |language=en}}</ref>

==Diet==
[[File:Journal of a second voyage for the discovery of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific - performed in the years 1821-22-23, in His Majesty's ships Fury and Hecla, under the orders of (14801456013).jpg|thumb|[[Inuit]] [[Seal hunting|seal hunters]], {{circa|1821}}]]
As one moves away from the [[equator]], the importance of plant food decreases and the importance of aquatic food increases. In cold and heavily forested environments, edible plant foods and large game are less abundant and hunter-gatherers may turn to aquatic resources to compensate. Hunter-gatherers in cold climates also rely more on stored food than those in warm climates. However, aquatic resources tend to be costly, requiring [[boat]]s and [[fishing]] technology, and this may have impeded their intensive use in prehistory. Marine food probably did not start becoming prominent in the diet until relatively recently, during the [[Late Stone Age]] in southern Africa and the [[Upper Paleolithic]] in Europe.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-17613-2 |pages=45–46 |edition=2nd}}</ref>

[[Fat]] is important in assessing the quality of game among hunter-gatherers, to the point that lean animals are often considered secondary resources or even starvation food. Consuming too much lean meat leads to adverse health effects like [[protein poisoning]], and can in extreme cases lead to death. Additionally, a diet high in [[protein]] and low in other [[macronutrient]]s results in the body using the protein as energy, possibly leading to protein deficiency. Lean meat especially becomes a problem when animals go through a lean season that requires them to [[Metabolism|metabolize]] fat deposits.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-17613-2 |page=74 |edition=2nd}}</ref>

In areas where plant and fish resources are scarce, hunter-gatherers may trade meat with horticulturalists for [[carbohydrate]]s. For example, tropical hunter-gatherers may have an excess of protein but be deficient in carbohydrates, and conversely tropical horticulturalists may have a surplus of carbohydrates but inadequate protein. Trading may thus be the most cost-effective means of acquiring carbohydrate resources.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |title=The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-17613-2 |page=75 |edition=2nd}}</ref>

==Variability==
[[File:Pume 1b.tif|thumb|[[Yaruro people|Savanna Pumé]] couple on a hunting and gathering trip in the llanos of Venezuela. The man carries a bow, three steel-tipped arrows, and a hat that resembles the head of a jabiru stork as camouflage to approach near enough to deer for a shot. The woman carries a steel-tipped digging stick and a carrying basket for collecting wild [[Tuber|tubers]].]]
Hunter-gatherer societies manifest significant variability, depending on [[climate zone]]/[[life zone]], available technology, and societal structure. Archaeologists examine hunter-gatherer tool kits to measure variability across different groups. Collard ''et al.'' (2005) found temperature to be the only statistically significant factor to impact hunter-gatherer tool kits.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Collard |first1=Mark |last2=Kemery |first2=Michael |last3=Banks |first3=Samantha |year=2005 |title=Causes of Toolkit Variation Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Test of Four Competing Hypotheses |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |issue=29 |pages=1–19 |url=http://www.ceacb.ucl.ac.uk/ceacb_files/misc/Collard_et_al_2005.pdf}}</ref> Using temperature as a proxy for risk, Collard ''et al.'s'' results suggest that environments with extreme temperatures pose a threat to hunter-gatherer systems significant enough to warrant increased variability of tools. These results support Torrence's (1989) theory that the risk of failure is indeed the most important factor in determining the structure of hunter-gatherer toolkits.<ref>{{cite book |last=Torrence |first=Robin |chapter=Retooling: Towards a behavioral theory of stone tools |pages=57–66 |editor-last=Torrence |editor-first=Robin |title=Time, Energy and Stone Tools |date=1989 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-25350-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rEE9AAAAIAAJ}}</ref>

One way to divide hunter-gatherer groups is by their return systems. James Woodburn uses the categories "immediate return" hunter-gatherers for egalitarianism and "delayed return" for nonegalitarian. Immediate return foragers consume their food within a day or two after they procure it. Delayed return foragers store the surplus food.<ref name=kelly>{{cite book |last=Kelly |first=Robert L. |author-link=Robert Laurens Kelly |title=The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Life ways |page=31 |location=Washington |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |year=1995 |isbn=1-56098-465-1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Woodburn |first=J |date=1982 |title=Egalitarian Societies |journal=Man |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=431–451 |doi=10.2307/2801707 |jstor=2801707 }}</ref>

Hunting-gathering was the common human mode of subsistence throughout the [[Paleolithic]], but the observation of current-day hunters and gatherers does not necessarily reflect Paleolithic societies; the hunter-gatherer cultures examined today have had much contact with modern civilization and do not represent "pristine" conditions found in [[uncontacted peoples]].<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Portera, Claire C. |author2=Marlowe, Frank W. |title=How marginal are forager habitats? |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=59–68 |date=January 2007 |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2006.03.014 |bibcode=2007JArSc..34...59P |url=http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/how%20marginal%20are%20forager%20habitats.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227022654/http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/how%20marginal%20are%20forager%20habitats.pdf |archive-date=February 27, 2008 }}</ref>

The transition from hunting and gathering to [[agriculture]] is not necessarily a one-way process.
It has been argued that hunting and gathering represents an [[adaptation|adaptive strategy]], which may still be exploited, if necessary, when environmental change causes extreme food stress for agriculturalists.<ref name=cambridge>{{cite book |editor1=Lee, Richard B. |editor2=Daly, Richard |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-60919-4 }}</ref> In fact, it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line between agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, especially since the widespread adoption of agriculture and resulting cultural diffusion that has occurred in the last 10,000 years.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hayes-Bohanan|first=Pamela|year=2010|editor-last=Birx|editor-first=H. James|title=42: Prehistoric Cultures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fsF1AwAAQBAJ&q=42%3A+Prehistoric+Cultures++PAMELA+HAYES-BOHANAN&pg=PT435|journal=21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook|volume=1|pages=409–18|via=Gale Virtual Reference Library|isbn=978-1-4522-6630-5|doi=10.4135/9781412979283.n42|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Some scholars speak about the existence within [[cultural evolution]] of the so-called mixed-economies or dual economies that imply a combination of food procurement (gathering and hunting) and food production or when foragers have trade relations with farmers.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Svizzero | first1 = S. | last2 = Tisdell | first2 = C. | year = 2015 | title = The Persistence of Hunting and Gathering Economies | url = http://www.sociostudies.org/journal/articles/363702/ | journal = Social Evolution & History | volume = 14 }}</ref>

==Modern and revisionist perspectives==
[[File:Shoshoni tipis.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|right|A [[Shoshone]] encampment in the [[Wind River Range]] of Wyoming, photographed by Percy Jackson, 1870]]
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2022}}
{{disputed section|date=June 2022}}
Some of the theorists who advocate this "revisionist" critique{{Clarify|reason=What revisionist critique?|date=July 2021}} imply that, because the "pure hunter-gatherer" disappeared not long after [[colonialism|colonial]] (or even agricultural) contact began, nothing meaningful can be learned about prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of modern ones (Kelly,<ref name=Kelly>{{cite journal |last=Kelly |first=Raymond |title=The evolution of lethal intergroup violence |doi= 10.1073/pnas.0505955102 |journal=PNAS|volume=102 |date=October 2005 |pages=15294–98 |pmid=16129826 |issue=43 |pmc=1266108|doi-access=free }}</ref> 24–29; see Wilmsen<ref name=Wilmsen>{{cite book |last=Wilmsen |first=Edwin |title=Land Filled With Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1989 |isbn=0-226-90015-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/landfilledwithfl00wilm_0 }}
</ref>)

Lee and Guenther have rejected most of the arguments put forward by Wilmsen.<ref name=ca-lee>{{cite journal |last1=Lee |first1=Richard B. |last2=Guenther |first2=Mathias |year=1995 |title=Errors Corrected or Compounded? A Reply to Wilmsen |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=298–305 |doi=10.1086/204361|s2cid=144885091 }}</ref><ref name=aa-lee>{{cite journal |last=Lee |first=Richard B. |year=1992 |title=Art, Science, or Politics? The Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=94 |pages=31–54 |doi=10.1525/aa.1992.94.1.02a00030|hdl=1807/17933 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Marlowe |first=Frank W. |title=Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers and the 'Other' |year=2002 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |page=247 |url=https://archive.org/stream/WhyTheHadzaAreStillHunter-gatherers#page/n0/mode/2up}}</ref>{{Clarify|reason=What are these arguments?|date=July 2021}} Doron Shultziner and others have argued that we can learn a lot about the life-styles of prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers—especially their impressive levels of egalitarianism.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shultziner |first=Doron |title=The causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial: A multi-disciplinary perspective |journal=Biology and Philosophy |year=2010 |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=319–46 |url=https://www.academia.edu/416145 |doi=10.1007/s10539-010-9196-4|s2cid=21340052 }}</ref>

[[File:Bathurst Island men.jpg|upright=1.15|right|thumb|Three [[Aboriginal Australians]] on [[Bathurst Island (Northern Territory)|Bathurst Island]] in 1939. According to Peterson (1998), the island population was isolated for 6,000 years until the 18th century. In 1929, three-quarters of the population supported themselves on [[bush tucker]].<ref name=peterson>{{cite journal |title=Demographic transition in a hunter-gatherer population: the Tiwi case, 1929–1996 |last1=Peterson |first1=Nicolas |last2=Taylor |first2=John |year=1998 |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies |url=https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-21167358/demographic-transition-in-a-hunter-gatherer-population |journal=Australian Aboriginal Studies |volume=1998}}</ref>]]

There are nevertheless a number of contemporary hunter-gatherer peoples who, after contact with other societies, continue their ways of life with very little external influence or with modifications that perpetuate the viability of hunting and gathering in the 21st century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-first Century|editor-last=Codding|editor-first=Brian F.|editor-last2=Kramer|editor-first2=Karen L.|publisher=School for Advanced Research, University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-8263-5696-3|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque}}</ref> One such group is the [[Pila Nguru]] (Spinifex people) of [[Western Australia]], whose land in the [[Great Victoria Desert]] has proved unsuitable for European agriculture (and even pastoralism).{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}} Another are the [[Sentinelese people|Sentinelese]] of the [[Andaman Islands]] in the [[Indian Ocean]], who live on [[North Sentinel Island]] and to date have maintained their independent existence, repelling attempts to engage with and contact them.<ref name="Pandya2009">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9UzX63tCpXQC&pg=PA357|title=In the Forest: Visual and Material Worlds of Andamanese History (1858–2006)|last=Pandya|first=Vishvajit|date=2009|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-7618-4272-9|page=357|oclc=673383888}}</ref><ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/kJQuYKYxdVI Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20140107175922/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQuYKYxdVI&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQuYKYxdVI|title=North Sentinel Island: A Glimpse Into Prehistory|date=15 September 2013 |via=YouTube|access-date=30 May 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The Savanna [[Yaruro people|Pumé]] of Venezuela also live in an area that is inhospitable to large scale economic exploitation and maintain their subsistence based on hunting and gathering, as well as incorporating a small amount of manioc horticulture that supplements, but is not replacing, reliance on foraged foods.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Why Forage? Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century|last1=Kramer|first1=Karen L.|last2=Greaves|first2=Russell D.|publisher=School for Advanced Research Press and University of New Mexico Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-8263-5696-3|editor-last=Codding|editor-first=Brian F.|location=Santa Fe; Albuquerque|pages=15–42|chapter=Diversify or replace: what happens when cultigens are introduced into hunter-gatherer diets.|editor-last2=Kramer|editor-first2=Karen L.}}</ref>

==Americas==
{{Main|Paleo-Indians}}

{{See also|Aboriginal peoples in Canada#Paleo-Indians period|Lithic period in Mesoamerica}}
[[File:Glyptodon old drawing.jpg|thumb|right|Illustration of [[Paleo-Indians]] hunting a [[glyptodon]]]]
Evidence suggests big-game hunter-gatherers crossed the [[Bering Strait]] from Asia (Eurasia) into North America over a land bridge ([[Beringia]]), that existed between 47,000 and 14,000 years ago.<ref name=national>{{cite web
 |title=Atlas of the Human Journey-The Genographic Project
 |publisher=National Geographic Society.
 |date=1996–2008
 |url=https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003
 |access-date=2009-10-06
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501094643/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003
 |archive-date=2011-05-01
}}</ref> Around 18,500–15,500 years ago, these hunter-gatherers are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct [[Pleistocene]] [[megafauna]] along ice-free corridors that stretched between the [[Laurentide Ice Sheet|Laurentide]] and [[Cordilleran Ice Sheet|Cordilleran]] ice sheets.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.physorg.com/news169474130.html |title=The peopling of the Americas: Genetic ancestry influences health |work=Scientific American |access-date=2009-11-17}}</ref> Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using [[boat#History|primitive boats]], they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America |journal=American Antiquity |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=55–69 |series=1 |date=January 1979 |jstor=279189|last1=Fladmark |first1=K. R. |doi=10.2307/279189 |s2cid=162243347 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Eshleman |first1=Jason A. |last2=Malhi |first2=Ripan S. |last3=Smith |first3=David Glenn |title=Mitochondrial DNA Studies of Native Americans: Conceptions and Misconceptions of the Population Prehistory of the Americas |journal=Evolutionary Anthropology |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227659833 |publisher=University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |pages=7–18 |year=2003 |access-date=2009-11-17|doi=10.1002/evan.10048 |volume=12|s2cid=17049337 }}</ref>

Hunter-gatherers would eventually flourish all over the Americas, primarily based in the [[Great Plains]] of the United States and Canada, with offshoots as far east as the [[Gaspé Peninsula]] on the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic coast]], and as far south as [[Chile]], [[Monte Verde]].{{citation needed |reason=Removed previous citation to a non-expert's personal website; a reliable source should be cited in its place. |date=March 2014}} American hunter-gatherers were spread over a wide geographical area, thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the individual groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making [[knapping]] styles and progress identifiable. This early Paleo-Indian period [[lithic reduction]] tool adaptations have been found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 25 to 50 members of an extended family.<ref name=TENNESSEE>{{cite web |title=Paleoindians in Tennessee |first=John |last=Broster |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1033 |publisher=Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. Tennessee Historical Society. Online Edition provided by: The University of Tennessee Press |year=2002 |access-date=2009-11-21}}</ref>

The [[Archaic period in the Americas]] saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more [[arid]] climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna.<ref>{{cite web |title=Blame North America Megafauna Extinction On Climate Change, Not Human Ancestors |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011025072315.htm |publisher=ScienceDaily |year=2001 |access-date=2010-04-10}}</ref> The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers. Individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally, however, and thus archaeologists have identified a pattern of increasing regional generalization, as seen with the [[Archaic Southwest|Southwest]], [[Paleo-Arctic tradition|Arctic]], [[Poverty Point culture|Poverty Point]], [[Dalton tradition|Dalton]] and [[Plano cultures|Plano]] traditions. These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, with a more mixed [[economy]] of small game, [[fish]], seasonally [[Vegetable|wild vegetables]] and harvested plant foods.<ref name=Fiedel>{{cite book |title=Prehistory of the Americas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yrhp8H0_l6MC&q=Paleo-Indians%20tradition&pg=PA151 |first=Stuart J. |last=Fiedel |page=151 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-521-42544-5 |access-date=2009-11-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas|first=Frank Salomon |last=Stuart B. Schwartz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqEQWch7woQC&q=Formative%20stage%20in%20the%20americas&pg=PA256 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=2009-11-17 |isbn=978-0-521-63075-7 |date=1999}}</ref>
[[File:Índios em uma fazenda.jpg|thumb|Indigenous people at a Brazilian farm plantation in [[Minas Gerais]] {{circa|1824}}]]
Scholars like [[Kat Anderson]] have suggested that the term Hunter-gatherer is reductive because it implies that Native Americans never stayed in one place long enough to affect the environment around them. However, many of the landscapes in the Americas today are due to the way the Natives of that area originally tended the land. Anderson specifically looks at California Natives and the practices they utilized to tame their land. Some of these practices included pruning, weeding, sowing, burning, and selective harvesting. These practices allowed them to take from the environment in a sustainable manner for centuries.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Anderson|first=Kat|title=Tending the Wild|year=2013|isbn=978-0-520-28043-4|pages=1–10|publisher=Univ of California Press |language=English}}</ref>

California Indians view the idea of wilderness in a negative light. They believe that wilderness is the result of humans losing their knowledge of the natural world and how to care for it. When the earth turns back to wilderness after the connection with humans is lost then the plants and animals will retreat and hide from the humans.<ref name=":1" />

==See also==
[[File:Negritos.png|thumb|[[Negrito]]s (''Negrillos'') in the Philippines, 1595]]
[[File:Groupe d´Indiens Ona.jpg|thumb|The [[Selkʼnam people|Selkʼnam]] of [[Tierra del Fuego]], {{circa|1915}}]]
[[File:The Hadzabe house.jpg|thumb|[[Hadza people|Hadza]] hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, 2022]]
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Beachcombing]]
* [[Nomads]]
* [[Cro-Magnon]]
* [[Homo floresiensis]]
* [[Human migration]]
* [[Human history]]
* [[Indigenous peoples]]
* [[Neanderthals]]
* [[Neolithic Revolution]]
* [[Origins of society]]
* [[Paleolithic]]
* [[Prehistoric music]]
* [[Primitive skills]]
* [[Stateless society]]
* [[Tribe]]
* [[Clan]]
* [[Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer]]
* [[Comb Ceramic culture]]
* [[Pitted Ware culture]]
* [[Uncontacted peoples]]
{{div col end}}

===Modern hunter-gatherer groups===
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Aka people]]
* [[Andamanese people]]
* [[Angu people]]
* [[Awá-Guajá people]]
* [[Batek people]]
* [[Efé people]]
* [[Fuegians]]
* [[Hadza people]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast]]
* [[Inuit]]
* [[Iñupiat]]
* [[Jarawa people (Andaman Islands)]]
* [[Kawahiva people]]
* [[Ket people]]
* [[Maniq people]]
* [[Mbuti people]]
* [[Mlabri people]]
* [[Moriori people]]
* [[Nukak people]]
* [[Onge people]]
* [[Orang Rimba]]
* [[Penan people]]
* [[Pirahã people]]
* [[Raute people]]
* [[San people]]
* [[Semang people]]
* [[Sentinelese people]]
* [[Tjimba people]]
* [[Twa]]
* [[Yaruro people|Yaruro (Pumé) people]]
* [[Ye'kuana people]]
* [[Yupik people]]
{{div col end}}

===Social movements===
* [[Anarcho-primitivism]], which strives for the abolishment of civilization and the return to a life in the wild.
* [[Freeganism]] involves gathering of food (and sometimes other materials) in the context of an urban or suburban environment.
* [[Gleaning]] involves the gathering of food that traditional farmers have left behind in their fields.
* [[Paleolithic diet]], which strives to achieve a diet similar to that of ancient hunter-gatherer groups.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}

;Books
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SU-tuR9t5KoC |title=Hunter-gatherers in history, archaeology and anthropology |publisher=Berg |year=2004 |isbn=1-85973-825-7|editor=Barnard, A. J. }}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5F-bmYoOr6cC |title=Hunter-gatherers: archaeological and evolutionary theory |publisher=Plenum Press |year=1991 |isbn=0-306-43650-7|author=Bettinger, R. L.}}
* {{Cite book |url=http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-cooperative-species-human-reciprocity-and-its-evolution-by-Bowles-and-Gintis.php |title=A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution|last2=Gintis |first2=Herbert |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-691-15125-0|last1=Bowles |first1=Samuel }} (Reviewed in ''[http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-cooperative-species-human-reciprocity-and-its-evolution-by-Bowles-and-Gintis.php The Montreal Review]'')
* {{Cite book |title=The Other Side Of Eden: hunter-gatherers, farmers and the shaping of the world |url=https://archive.org/details/othersideofedenh00brod |url-access=registration |last=Brody |first=Hugh |publisher=North Point Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-571-20502-X}}
* {{Cite book |title=Why forage?: hunters and gatherers in the twenty-first century |editor1-last=Codding |editor1-first=Brian F.|editor2-last=Kramer |editor2-first=Karen L. |publisher=School for Advanced Research Press, University of New Mexico Press|year=2016 |isbn=978-0-8263-5696-3|location=Santa Fe, Albuquerque}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8onGWvNpw18C |title=Man the hunter |publisher=Aldine de Gruyter |year=1968 |isbn=0-202-33032-X|editor1-last=Lee |editor1-first=Richard B. |editor2-first=Irven |editor2-last=DeVore }}
* {{cite book
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jWgZPz6oXSwC
|title=First peoples in a new world: colonizing ice age America
 |last=Meltzer
 |first=David J. |publisher=University of California
 |year=2009
 |isbn=978-0-520-25052-9
 |location=Berkeley
 }}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6IAUKE7xv_cC |title=Forager-traders in South and Southeast Asia: long term histories |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-521-01636-3|editor1 =Morrison, K. D. |editor2 =L. L. Junker }}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7yCpBRAY22UC |title=Hunter-gatherers: an interdisciplinary perspective|publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-521-77672-4|editor1 =Panter-Brick, C.|editor-link =Catherine Panter-Brick|editor2 =R. H. Layton |editor3 =P. Rowley-Conwy }}
* {{Cite book |title=The Forest People |publisher=Touchstone |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-671-64099-6 |author=Turnbull, Colin |url=https://archive.org/details/forestpeople00coli }}
{{Refend}}

{{Refbegin}}

;Articles
* {{cite journal |last1=Mudar |first1=Karen |last2=Anderson |first2=Douglas D. |date=Fall 2007 |title=New evidence for Southeast Asian Pleistocene foraging economies: faunal remains from the early levels of Lang Rongrien rockshelter, Krabi, Thailand |journal=Asian Perspectives |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=298–334 |doi=10.1353/asi.2007.0013 |url=http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/17269/1/AP-v46n2-298-334.pdf |hdl=10125/17269 |s2cid=56067301 |hdl-access=free}}{{subscription required}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Nakao |first1=Hisashi |last2=Tamura |first2=Kohei |first3=Yui |last3=Arimatsu |first4=Tomomi |last4=Nakagawa |first5=Naoko |last5=Matsumoto |first6=Takehiko |last6=Matsugi |date=30 March 2016 |title=Violence in the prehistoric period of Japan: the spatio-temporal pattern of skeletal evidence for violence in the Jomon period |journal=[[Biology Letters]] |publisher=The [[Royal Society]] publishing |volume=12 |issue=3 |article-number=20160028 |doi=10.1098/rsbl.2016.0028 |pmid=27029838 |quote=Our results suggest that the mortality due to violence was low and spatio-temporally highly restricted in the Jomon period, which implies that violence including warfare in prehistoric Japan was not common. |pmc=4843228}}
* {{cite web |last1=Ember |first1=Carol R. |title=Hunter Gatherers (Foragers) |url=http://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/hunter-gatherers |website=Explaining Human Culture |publisher=Human Relations Area Files |access-date=22 February 2018 |quote=Most cross-cultural research aims to understand shared traits among hunter-gatherers and how and why they vary. Here we look at the conclusions of cross-cultural studies that ask: What are recent hunter-gatherers generally like? How do they differ from food producers? How and why do hunter-gatherers vary?}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Hunter-gatherers}}
* [https://ishgr.org/ International Society for Hunter Gatherer Research (ISHGR)]
* [https://chags.univie.ac.at/history/ History of the Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS)]
* [http://www.foragers-association.org The Association of Foragers: An international association for teachers of hunter-gatherer skills.]
* [http://foragers.wikidot.com/start A wiki dedicated to the scientific study of the diversity of foraging societies without recreating myths]
* {{Cite web|last=Balmer |first=Yves |title=Ethnological videos clips. Living or recently extinct traditional tribal groups and their origins |publisher=Andaman Association |year=2013 |url=http://www.andaman-video.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111014239/http://andaman-video.org/ |archive-date=January 11, 2014 }}
* [https://hgcosmos.org/ Hunter-gatherer bibliographic site (HGCOSMOS)]


{{Prehistoric technology|state=expanded}}
{{Types of societies}}
{{Hunting topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter-Gatherer}}
[[Category:Anthropological categories of peoples]]
[[Category:Nomads]]
[[Category:Stone Age]]
[[Category:Hunter-gatherers| ]]
[[Category:Human evolution]]
[[Category:Economic systems]]
[[Category:Foraging]]