Making a living: modes of subsistence
Every society must get food. How it does so shapes settlement, family size, property, and power.
Foraging
Foragers, also called gatherer-hunters, live on wild plants and animals. Most move seasonally in small bands of a few dozen people, share food widely, and own little property. For most of human history all people lived this way, and foraging peoples often worked fewer hours for food than early farmers did.
Pastoralism and horticulture
Pastoralists herd domesticated animals such as cattle, camels, or reindeer, often moving with the seasons to find pasture. Horticulturalists grow crops with simple tools and often practise shifting cultivation: clearing a plot, farming it for a few years, then letting it rest while they farm elsewhere.
Agriculture and industrialism
Intensive agriculture uses ploughs, animals or machines, irrigation, and fertiliser to farm the same fields year after year. It supports dense populations, cities, specialised jobs, and large inequalities. Industrialism moved most labour into factories and services, and today's global economy links producers and consumers across the planet.
Flashcard
The way a society obtains its food
Check your understanding
A group farms a forest clearing for three years, then moves to a new plot and lets the first one regrow. This is: