PREHISTORIC FOOD GATHERERS AND PRODUCERS

The distinctions among food gatherers and producers are traditionally used to reveal differences in subsistence strategies among prehistoric societies with different types of culture and livelihoods. Each kind of food gathering and production (and its variants) has a social, economic, cultural, ritual, and ecological implication.

HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT

Since Dicaearchus it was recognized that humankind had passed four stages of natural resource exploitation: primitive hunting, fishery, and gathering; nomadic cattle breeding; agriculture; and specialized agriculture. It was clearly expressed by Soviet researchers M. Levin and N. Cheboksarov in 1955 and is grounded on the assumption that the population inhabited a certain environment and attributed to a certain stage of social and economic development that should inevitably elaborate on, rather than form, a strictly definite, constant model of behavior. Major phylums are hunters, gatherers, and fishermen; simple farmers; and plow farmers. Each of them could be subdivided into chronological stages (phases) and territorial groups.

METHODS FOR RECONSTRUCTION

The most important information about food gathering and/or production of a prehistoric population is obtained during the interdisciplinary excavations of archaeological sites when methods and data of paleontology, zoo-archaeology, palinology and paleo-ethnobotany are engaged. Analysis of fossil micro- and macrofaunal assemblages allows scientists to define animal species structure, to reconstruct herd age and sex structure and seasonality, and to find morphological traces of domestication on their bones. Studies of macro- and microbotanical remains, analysis of spore and pollen species in samples taken from cultural layers, chemical analysis of plant residues in soil and on artifacts, plant impressions on pottery and soil, and other methods are used to define plants used by prehistoric populations. Analysis of spatial organization of prehistoric sites, such as the interpretation of excavated objects (pits, wells, and storage places), provides information about the presence and importance of different human activities (tool and food production, storage, distribution, processing, and consumption).

Food gathering (or foraging) is the earliest subsistence strategy inherent to humankind. The origin of regular food gathering in the forms of hunting; plants, seeds, and mollusks gathering; and primitive fishing with utilization of specially designed tool kits traditionally is referred to with the origin of the first representatives of the genus Homo (Homo habilis species) more than 2 million years ago. Hunting is usually regarded as the basic subsistence strategy practiced in prehistoric times. Since the origin of contemporary humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) several types of hunting are distinguished:
• Group mobile hunting: oriented mainly on big-sized and mobile, gregarious game (mammoth, bison), dominated in Europe during the Late Paleolithic; surrounding, driving out, and shooting animals are the most widespread means of such hunting.
• Fixed group hunting: applied for catching regularly migrating herds (such as reindeer) at suitable places (mainly river crossings), which are repeatedly used.
• Silent hunting with the help of traps, nets, and hunting holes—controlled by the group sporadically.
• Individual hunting for small-sized nongregarious game with the help of distant weapons (bow and arrows), which enable aiming, its peak during the Mesolithic (Early Holocene) time marked with disappearance of the traditional Paleolithic hunting game of the European population.

The gathering of edible plants, roots, berries, mushrooms, and seeds (often called phytogathering) rarely becomes a subject of special study as far as it is regarded as an auxiliary component of the human diet obtained sporadically and often processed without special implement. Traditionally, phytogathering is regarded as important component of women’s household activity that secured their status in the food exchange network and guaranteed the realization of their gender function.

The peculiar practice of mollusks and cereals gathering typical for Early Holocene (Mesolithic) societies of coastal regions and in densely populated regions with fertile soils usually functioned as an important source of basic nutrition of human groups faced with a shortage of traditional hunting game. Special objects and tools involved in this practice usually occur at relatively longterm sites. Fish catching, as hunting, was a secure source of protein food. The origin of soil cultivation, crop harvesting, and livestock raising is regarded as the main criteria of transition to the next stage of human society and culture development, generating from hunter- gatherer communities and directly preceding the formation of state and private property. V. G. Childe proposed one of the earliest explanations of food production origin in his idea of Neolithic revolution. According to him, drought and supply shortage stimulated food production in the oasis. Most researchers tend to interpret the origin of agriculture as an inevitable response to the crisis of the traditional hunter-gatherer economy and necessity to secure a subsistence system in a new ecological situation. The earliest evidence of plant domestication is traced to the Natufian settlements of Palestine and Shanidar and Ali Kosh in Iran and Iraq and is dated about 9000–7000 b.c.e.

Food production activity in prehistoric times developed in connection with human needs in nutrition (food demand) correlated with features of their natural habitat (relief, climate, faunal and fl oral resources). Two basic forms of food production in prehistory are traced archaeologically: land cultivation and cattle breeding.

Land cultivation originates from simple seeds gathering at the end of the Mesolithic and as early as beginning of the Neolithic. The introduction of metal processing and utilization of early metal tools in the process of land cultivation brought an increase in productivity, which contributed to the general growth of sedentism in human societies at the beginning of the Bronze Age. It was accompanied with the origin of plow agriculture, the introduction of the two- and three-field rotation system, draft animals exploitation, and natural soil fertilizer application.

The first phase of cattle breeding is connected with the crisis of hunting activity traced to the second half of the Mesolithic. Captured during successful hunting, animals (mainly juveniles) were preserved and fed for a while as a specific form of “live meat stocks,” which could be consumed at hungry times. Horse domestication marks the origin of a principally new form of animal treatment—nomadic cattle breeding.

Shepherds used a wide spectrum of meat and dairy products, fresh milk excluded (traditionally its introduction is associated with sedentary agriculturist food production). The analysis of Bronze Age pottery indicates that early nomads used to make sour milk products, cottage cheese, and creams suitable for durable storage.

By Olena V. Smyntyna in "Encyclopedia of World History", editors Marsha E. Ackermann, Michael J. Schroeder, Janice J. Terry, Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur and Mark F. Whitters, Facts On File, Inc. (Infobase Publishing), USA, 2008, excerpts volume 1 p.151-152. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa