# Efficiency of hunting and gathering versus agriculture **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 3, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543 "2011-05-03T03:11:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/41 "2011-05-03T07:24:52Z")
Almost everything that **mac\_bolan00** has posted in this thread is erroneous, ignorant nonsense. He clearly has no knowledge at all of this topic. I have clearly demonstrated that he is talking crap. If anybody actually believes anything that he has to say, then by all means quote it and I will confirm or debunk it. But there is clearly no point address \*mac \*herself. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/42 "2011-05-03T07:32:26Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Hawaii has never been home to HGs. The Polynesians were accomplished agriculturalists when they arrived. They brought their crops with them, including coconuts, pacific almonds, cordyline and many of the other species that have now become feral on the island. > > So yeah, of course the Hawaiians planted those coconuts, they didn’t carry them across 3, 000 miles of open ocean for decoration. They carried them to plant them in their gardens. > > It’s a bit sad that you are unaware that coconuts are a feral garden plant in Hawaii and not a native plant. It is even sadder that you believe that there were once HGs on Hawaii. my point was answering your question as to how only one step could divide gathering and actual farming. i cited the example of planting a sprouted coconut as opposed to just picking a nut from a tree growing in the wild. naturally, you’d focus on something else, bitching about my jokes that you don’t appreciate and understand so “ice farming” was suddenly transported from the arctic circle to dark africa. and thanks for the info that coconuts in hawaii were introduced. i didn’t believe michener at first. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/43 "2011-05-03T07:36:27Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And!!! You said that “even the buffalo followers were horse farmers” suggesting that you were refuting the claim that the buffalo followers were hunter-gatherers by the fact that they raised horses. This was obviously not true previous to the introduction of domesticated horses by Europeans. Not that I think you thought they did have them previously, it was just a bit of a head-scratcher. > [@Blake](#): > > No, there were not. > > HGs on the plains had territories far to small to follow the buffalo migration. Many of them in fact survived primarily by trading with the farmers of the river valleys, but none of them had a territory sufficiently large to follow migrating buffalo. > > The “Plains Indians” came into existence with the introduction of the horse. They were all descendants of farmers and displaced the local HGs, who were almost all exterminated before any European entered the area. We really only know about the HGs of the Great Plains from archeological evidence and oral tradition. Only a couple of lines of written records remain. > That is true. What you don’t seem to appreciate is how small the home territories were, and how far buffalo migrate in a year. The idea of HGs following buffalo migrations is as absurd as the idea that people in Africa followed wildebeest migrations. It would require a territory of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres. > > The typical pre-European Bison migration pattern was a loop about 400 miles long and 15o kilometres across. The idea that any one HG groups controlled that entire territory is absurd. Even the later horse herders never controlled a territory even even a fraction of that size. I think this is all really stretching what we _actually_ know about the situation. For one, though there is plenty of evidence that plains nomads traded with more sedentary people, but no reason whatsoever to believe they “primarily” survived on such trade. There is a large amount of (albeit largely circumstantial) evidence so suggest the contrary contention that pre-horse plains people subsisted primarily on bison and other large game. If you have some cite for the idea that pre-horse high plains people were _not_ hunter-gatherers I’d like to hear it, but it goes contrary to the bulk of the scholarship on the subject. I just so happen to have the definitive work on the subject on my shelf (on my desk now), but unfortunately it’s not online: [Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/Prehistoric-Hunters-Plains-Second-Archaeological/dp/012268561X) I can try to scan some key pages if you want, but I would think the title “Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains” gives you some idea. A couple of points on migration. Firstly, I’m not sure where you’re getting those figures for bison migration patterns. The migration of large animals in this region are more controlled by elevation and needn’t actually be geographically distant. Perhaps some of the eastern herds had such monumental migration patterns, but in the Rockies and the high plains, they more likely migrated between the mountains and the valleys/plains (as the surviving managed herds do today). Secondly, subsisting primarily on bison does not mean subsisting exclusively on them, and they were able to eat more ubiquitous game like deer and elk when not near a bison herd. The whole idea of “territories” is also somewhat questionable. The Plains Indians who lived in historic times had ranges that were indeed very large but were also ill-defined and overlapped with other groups. The archeologial record on this tells us almost nothing because the artifact groups’ ranges were immense and didn’t necessarily correspond to cultural groups. I see no reason why the pre-horse groups would function much differently than post-horse groups in this regard. You’re right that small HG groups can’t control large amounts of territory, but in this case it’s more likely that the groups were more concerned about controlling resources (like the herds) than territory. We have a hell of a lot of land out here and unless there’s something useful on it, there’s no point fighting over it. They certainly wouldn’t need to assert absolute control over your entire proposed 400 mile x 150 kilometer range all at once! I agree with the substance (if perhaps not the tone) of the main points you’re making in this thread, but your contention that there weren’t hunter-gatherers on the North American plains prior to the horse is a dead-end. Since you’re not disputing the existence of hunter-gatherers in historic times (just these particular ones), this is of little value to the main thread and so perhaps we should start another thread if you want to continue this particular tangent. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/44 "2011-05-03T07:50:12Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > If you do know more about the subject than him (I don’t remember your credentials), then I’m not seeing it. Well that’s fine. If you still believe that Hawaiins were HGs or that Pygmies are HGs or that Indians grew rice and that is why the US remained a major rice producing nation then there’s not much I can do about that. I can only post the facts. If you believe that those things are wrong and that Mac is just as credible as me when he says they are right, then I really can;t do anything about it. And I can only assume that you do believe him, since you claim that he is just as knowledgeable as I am. No skin off my nose. > [@](#): > > Right now, an interesting topic has become a boring shouting match where two sides are playing “I say”, instead of evidence. I have posted, for example, a link to a previous thread where we thoroughly tore apart the ridiculous notion that pygmies are HGs. If you can not be bothered to read the references I can’t do anything about that. If you care to dispute anything else that I have said then by all means say so and I will provide the references. A Wikipedia search confirms, for example, that cocunuts are not native to Hawaii, that Hawaiians have never been HGs and that \*Oryza \*is endemic to the Old World. I know from experience that it is not worth presenting references for Mac. You can see from his behaviour here what he does when he is shown to be wrong. He simply slinks away and doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the nonsense he posted. > [@](#): > > I just know that the wild rice, as it’s called here, is supposedly a different kind than the asian rice, that it grows wild (by itself) in the lakes and is harvested by the indians from boats, in a sustaining way (enough grains fall overboard to sprout next years plants), and that the Indians have been doing this “for a long time”. Now maybe the people who told me this were all misinformed, or that a long time refers back to the Spaniards. But maybe you could give some cites. Cites for what? Everything you say is perfectly true for the plant called Wild Rice. You can put the name into Wikipedia if you want a basic overview. That species is not rice, nor has it ever been cultivated, nor has it ever been exported commercially, which are the claims that were made. Mac claimed that Indians cultivated rice, not Wild Rice. He also claimed that it is major export of the US. > [@](#): > > I’m also surprised what you say about the plains Indians. My information was - esp. as Cecil in his column writes - that the plains aren’t able to support agriculture without help, because they’re too dry and windy, so grass-growing and “cattle” - hunting the bisons that graze there naturally - is the most sustaining form. That is all approximately true, and almost totally unrelated to what I have posted. > [@](#): > > I’ve also read that many of the Indians who hunted bisons did so during the migration season, when the buffaloes were together in big herds travelling from one area to the other; but in the spring they planted small plots of vegetables near their permanent homes (tipis only for travelling after the bisons, not all year round), and would harvest those in the autumn. That is also all approximately true, albeit probably only for post-Columbian times. In pre-Colombian times Indians in the west were mostly town and city dwellers in the river valleys. Their lifestyle was very similar to that of neolithic or bronze age Mesopotamia, with plants being the staple calorie source, but with hunting across the other regions forming an important part of the economy and diet. That hunting would have been done both by the city dwellers and through trade with itinerant HGs who were probably farm labourers for part of the year. In Mesopotamia people eventually domesticated grazing animals and that allowed the towns to spread out away form the river valleys. Americans never managed that, so they would have remained reliant on game. All that rapidly broke down with the introduction of European disease and the horse. In those days the bison probably didn’t form the herds that they did later. The first records of large herds of bison come a long time after Europeans first started entering the prairies, and they, paradoxically, got bigger over time. It seems likely that the initial release from hunting pressure caused by the epidemics, followed by hunting pressure from mounted Indians is what caused the big herds to form in the first place. In pre-Columbian times it appears that the herds were much smaller and more dispersed. Still numbering in the hundreds, but not the herds of millions seen later. But the salient point is that none of these people followed the buffalo herds. They hunted them when they passed through their territory for few weeks each year and then they disappeared, In fact many Indians had no idea where the bison came from or went. They thought they spawned out of caves underground and were an inexhaustible resource. They had simply never seen bison giving birth precisely because they could never follow them. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/45 "2011-05-03T07:50:31Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Almost everything that **mac\_bolan00** has posted in this thread is erroneous, ignorant nonsense. He clearly has no knowledge at all of this topic. > > I have clearly demonstrated that he is talking crap. If anybody actually believes anything that he has to say, then by all means quote it and I will confirm or debunk it. I have not seen any evidence from you, or clear demonstration. Please provide such for the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/46 "2011-05-03T07:52:27Z")
i’m just curious how long this will run. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/47 "2011-05-03T07:53:48Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > i cited the example of planting a sprouted coconut as opposed to just picking a nut from a tree growing in the wild. FFS, read carefully: COCONUTS ARE CULTIVATED PLANTS INTRODUCED TO HAWAII FOR CULTIVATION PURPOSES. They were never a “tree growing in the wild”. They were always cultivated plants. Some plants subsequently escaped from gardens and went feral. They were never wild plants that were planted in gardens. They have always been garden plants that sometimes grew in the wild. Such a simple concept. Such an uncontroversial fact. And you just don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/48 "2011-05-03T07:56:31Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I have not seen any evidence from you, or clear demonstration. Please provide such for the rest of us. Since you say that you have seen \*nothing \*demonstrated, does that mean that you believe that that pygmies are HGs? That this has not been demonstrated to your satisfaction? If that is the case then you have either just admitted that you didn’t bother to read the link that I posted, or else links to the most reputable journals in the field are not considered to be demonstration of fact for you. So which is it? Did you not read the references provided, or are the best peer-reviewed journals in the field not good enough? Either way, can you explain why should I bother to provide any more references for you? It appears that you will either not read them or have a standard of evidence that is impossible to reach. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/49 "2011-05-03T08:34:33Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > FFS, read carefully: > > COCONUTS ARE CULTIVATED PLANTS INTRODUCED TO HAWAII FOR CULTIVATION PURPOSES. > > They were never a “tree growing in the wild”. They were always cultivated plants. Some plants subsequently escaped from gardens and went feral. They were never wild plants that were planted in gardens. They have always been garden plants that sometimes grew in the wild. > > Such a simple concept. Such an uncontroversial fact. And you just don’t get it. more crap from you. you mean the ancestral coconut was cultured into the one we know now? cite. (clue: i’m no longer mentioning hawaii, where there remains contention as to dispersal of a species.) ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/50 "2011-05-03T08:58:56Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > You said that “even the buffalo followers were horse farmers” suggesting that you were refuting the claim that the buffalo followers were hunter-gatherers by the fact that they raised horses. This was obviously not true previous to the introduction of domesticated horses by Europeans. Not that I think you thought they did have them previously, it was just a bit of a head-scratcher. I still have no idea what is puzzling you. > [@](#): > > If you have some cite for the idea that pre-horse high plains people were _not_ hunter-gatherers I’d like to hear it, but it goes contrary to the bulk of the scholarship on the subject. I would say that the opposite assertion goes contrary to the bulk of scholarship , but this is not my field of expertise. In terms of references, I will have to leave you mostly with my past reference list, most of which I don’t have to hand any more. Anderson “The historic role of fire in the North American grassland.” in “Fire in the North American tallgrass prairies.” S. Collins and L. Wallace Actually upon searching I realise that most of the list is gone. But that’s a start. Hopefully i can find the rest of the list later. > [@](#): > > I just so happen to have the definitive work on the subject on my shelf (on my desk now), but unfortunately it’s not online: [Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/Prehistoric-Hunters-Plains-Second-Archaeological/dp/012268561X) I can try to scan some key pages if you want, but I would think the title “Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains” gives you some idea. Not really. Nobody disputes these people were hunters, as were all people living in North America. It is routine to describe the archetypal Plains Indians as “buffalo hunters”, but nobody disputes the fact that they were herdsmen with domestic horses. > [@](#): > > Firstly, I’m not sure where you’re getting those figures for bison migration patterns. Based on memory, but [first hit](http://www.britannica.com/facts/5/497271/American-bison-as-discussed-in-migration-animal)in Google for [bison migration] “American bison (Bison bison) migrated regularly through the Great Plains. Herds of as many as 4,000,000 animals moved from north to south in fall and returned when spring rains brought fresh grass to the northern part of their range. Bison travelled over more or less circular routes and spent the winter in areas 320 to 640 kilometres (200 to 400 miles) from the summer..” > [@](#): > > The migration of large animals in this region are more controlled by elevation and needn’t actually be geographically distant. Perhaps some of the eastern herds had such monumental migration patterns, but in the Rockies and the high plains, they more likely migrated between the mountains and the valleys/plains (as the surviving managed herds do today). There is no doubt that it varied across environments, but we are discussing bison in the places where people lived primarily on bison. The only time and place that actually happened to the best of my knowledge was the Great Plains, a region of generally low relief. In those regions the migration pattern was as it is for most of the grazers of the African or Asian plains: migration patterns of hundreds of kilometres following rains and encouraged by depletion of feed. > [@](#): > > Secondly, subsisting primarily on bison does not mean subsisting exclusively on them, and they were able to eat more ubiquitous game like deer and elk when not near a bison herd. There is no doubt that people ate whatever game was available and only used bison when they were available. But that isn’t what we are discussing. We are discussing these putative people who made a living exclusively or primarily by following bison. My issue is with Mac’s claim that the American Indians with acess to Bison were not farmers but were, instead, content to follow bison around. The only groups that followed bison were the “Plains Indians”, who could do that because they had horses that made them mobile and able to control large territories. Actual HG groups certainly killed bison, but they didn’t follow them > [@](#): > > The whole idea of “territories” is also somewhat questionable. The Plains Indians who lived in historic times had ranges that were indeed very large but were also ill-defined and overlapped with other groups. But Plains Indians of modern times: 1. Only came into existence \<400 years ago 2. Were herdsmen and thus not HGs. 3. Were universally descended from farmers. > [@](#): > > I see no reason why the pre-horse groups would function much differently than post-horse groups in this regard. Because they are less mobile. HG groups simply don;t control such huge territories except in the most extreme desert environs, and even there it is rare. The real question is why we should believe the US is \*different \*to Australia or Africa. > [@](#): > > You’re right that small HG groups can’t control large amounts of territory, but in this case it’s more likely that the groups were more concerned about controlling resources (like the herds) than territory. We have a hell of a lot of land out here and unless there’s something useful on it, there’s no point fighting over it. They certainly wouldn’t need to assert absolute control over your entire proposed 400 mile x 150 kilometer range all at once! The thing is that if you are entering someone else’s territory to follow the herds, they will kill you. Obviously no HG group has ever been able to physically occupy its entire territory. Nonetheless they defended it vigorously and killed any intruders they came across. Sure, intruders could sneak in, but they would not have been wandering across it for weeks on end following herds that the locals would also have been hunting. > [@](#): > > …your contention that there weren’t hunter-gatherers on the North American plains prior to the horse is a dead-end. Of course I have never made any such claim. If you think I have then please quote where I did so and I will clarify/correct it. Because I certainly never intended to make any such claim, and of course I do not believe that I did. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/51 "2011-05-03T09:05:54Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > more crap from you. you mean the ancestral coconut was cultured into the one we know now? cite. (clue: i’m no longer mentioning hawaii, where there remains contention as to dispersal of a species.) I mean what I said: COCONUTS ARE CULTIVATED PLANTS INTRODUCED TO HAWAII FOR CULTIVATION PURPOSES. I don’t care what tangent you want to go down that I have shown once again that you have no idea what you are talking about. I am correcting your original bullshit claim that coconut cultivation in Hawaii was somehow the step before agriculture. That claim is ignorant bullshit. Coconuts were a fully fledged cultivated species when they were introduced to Hawaii. they were introduced with the specific intention of cultivation. They always have been cultivated. They were never cultivated by “just picking a nut from a tree growing in the wild” as you claim. There are no wild coconuts in Hawaii. All coconuts on the islands are feral domestic plants that escaped cultivation. The fact is that you clearly believed that Hawaiians were HGs and that coconuts were Hawaii native pants. that level of ignorance in GQ is really sad. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/52 "2011-05-03T09:12:42Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I mean what I said: COCONUTS ARE CULTIVATED PLANTS INTRODUCED TO HAWAII FOR CULTIVATION PURPOSES. > > I don’t care what tangent you want to go down that I have shown once again that you have no idea what you are talking about. I am correcting your original bullshit claim that coconut cultivation in Hawaii was somehow the step before agriculture. > > That claim is ignorant bullshit. Coconuts were a fully fledged cultivated species when they were introduced to Hawaii. they were introduced with the specific intention of cultivation. They always have been cultivated. They were never cultivated by “just picking a nut from a tree growing in the wild” as you claim. There are no wild coconuts in Hawaii. All coconuts on the islands are feral domestic plants that escaped cultivation. > > The fact is that you clearly believed that Hawaiians were HGs and that coconuts were Hawaii native pants. that level of ignorance in GQ is really sad. ☹ you don’t know how read posts. i cited an example of coconuts freely growing on the beach and planted groves and you go into your claim that all coconuts in hawaii are cultivated, which is another subject (in which you’re wrong.) natural dispersal has been going on, proven by fossils long before polynesian migration. the results of DNA mapping of pan-tropical cocos aren’t out yet (haven’t heard any.) so stop sounding so sure. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/53 "2011-05-03T09:27:33Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > natural dispersal has been going on, proven by fossils long before polynesian migration. Please provide evidence of this fossil coconut found in Hawaii “long before Polynesian migration”. And while you’re at it provide all the other references for your ludicrous claims that have been requested. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/54 "2011-05-03T09:35:34Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Hey, this is just GQ, no need to jump onto people like that without provocation. > > Huh? That surprises me, given that the Canadian Indians are famous for their Oryza, or wild rice, which they grow in lakes. Are you saying they got this from the Spaniards half a continent away? Guys - WHITE rice = NON new world crop. It was INTRODUCED by us pasty white colonials. WILD rice - native to north america. Used as a resource by native americans. Stop being fucking idiots. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/55 "2011-05-03T10:02:16Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Guys - > > WHITE rice = NON new world crop. It was INTRODUCED by us pasty white colonials. > > WILD rice - native to north america. Used as a resource by native americans. > > Stop being fucking idiots. i thought that’s what i was suggesting. (i’m still a fucking idiot though.) ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/56 "2011-05-03T10:04:03Z")
Please provide evidence of this fossil coconut found in Hawaii “long before Polynesian migration”. And while you’re at it provide all the other references for your ludicrous claims that have been requested. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/57 "2011-05-03T10:05:56Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Please provide evidence of this fossil coconut found in Hawaii “long before Polynesian migration”. > > And while you’re at it provide all the other references for your ludicrous claims that have been requested. :rolleyes: wait your turn. meanwhile, try to digest the rice conundrum. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/58 "2011-05-03T10:16:33Z")
A very key point is not that agriculture is more “efficient” than hunting-fishing-gathering, but that it allows higher population densities. Gathering can be very “efficient” for a group of humans in fertile terrain with no competition from other humans. Thus, the reason farming largely replaced earlier economies is simply that the non-farmers were outnumbered. Rather than speak of “efficiency” one might want to deal with a nebulous “contentment.” Hunter-gatherers may have had a generally content life-style. Note that today’s humans often hope to retire or go on vacation … so that they can go hunting, gathering, and fishing! It’s interesting to compare the hunters and farmers of Europe 6000 to 8000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers often had advanced technologies but still delayed the adoption of farming. It is said, only half-jokingly, that the Funnel Beaker People near Denmark did not adopt farming until they learned the recipe for beer! ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/59 "2011-05-03T10:20:18Z")
Please provide evidence of this fossil coconut found in Hawaii “long before Polynesian migration”. Please provide evidence that Indians cultivated rice. Please provide evidence that a rice known to Indians was cultivated and is a major commercial export of the USA. You have made some wild claims in this thread. Either retract them or provide evidence please. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543/60 "2011-05-03T10:28:33Z")
one at a time because i can’t stand your multiple tangents [quote=“Blake, post:59, topic:580543”] Please provide evidence of this fossil coconut found in Hawaii “long before Polynesian migration”. [quote] this is what i posted: “natural dispersal has been going on, proven by fossils long before polynesian migration” you immediately concluded that i said fossils of coco nuciferus were found in the hawaiian islands. i didn’t say that, and i haven’t heard of such findings. what i know is that the coconut we know has been around since eocene times based on fossils found in western pacific and around the indian ocean. (that debunks your other crap that coconut is a domesticated and cultivated crop.) as to hawaiian relevance, fossils still of c nuciferus are found as far eastwards as western south america, also of pre-historic age. having said that, and basing available DNA data that the short version of CN was earliest seen around the india and west pacific area, i see no reason why it cannot disperse naturally as far north as the hawaiian islands. let’s wait for the results of the 2007 project, shall we? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/efficiency-of-hunting-and-gathering-versus-agriculture/580543.md?page=4)