Anthropology › Section G · Economic anthropology › Topic G.3
Gathering and hunting
For almost all of the human past, people lived by gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals. Studying the groups who still do so overturns old assumptions about a hard, hungry life, and raises sharp questions about how much the present can tell us about the deep past.
In this topic
- Why gathering comes first
- Who forages today?
- Mobility and flexible bands
- Sharing and levelling
- Worked example: Eating Christmas in the Kalahari
- Not all foragers are alike
- Did women hunt?
- The original affluent society
- Worked example: how many hours is work?
- Living people, not living fossils
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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