# In hunter subsistence societies what happens to lazy screw-ups? Do they even exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424 "2005-11-17T01:40:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/21 "2005-11-17T06:07:17Z")
> [@groman](#): > > I think I see what you’re getting at, and it’s not immediately clear that this is so. It is equally likely that human development was a parallel process and agrarian culture is a parasitic brake. Maybe monorail, towers, steel and guns would be there in this time frame anyway, or even sooner if there wasn’t the agricultural lifestyle to leech from it. Definitely a great debate though. I don’t think so, largely because of what **Blake** said. A hunter gatherer society wouldn’t develop monorails, towers, etc. What agriculture did was create the idea of surplus. Not everybody had to gather food anymore. A smaller segment of the population could produce enough food for everyone, and even store enough of the food so that when the bad year came, everyone wouldn’t starve. This led to specialization. The chief could spend all his time ruling, the shaman could spend all his time appeasing the gods. They didn’t have to hunt and gather anymore. And you could have people who spent all of their time fighting…the idea of an army could develop, and became neccesary, because now our hypothetical culture has something worth protecting; their surplus food. And the army could also be used offensively, to get slaves and people to work the fields, because now population growth is a good thing. More people farming means more surplus food can be produced. This also lead to innovation and public works projects, just because now you could have people whose job it was to build them, or who had the time to invent things. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/22 "2005-11-17T07:10:18Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Were there examples of slavery in hunter-gatherer communities? Sacagawea was a slave and I believe the tribe she was a slave of was HG. Could be wrong, they may have done some agriculture. Somewhere I read that the plains Indians had been about to settle down to agriculture when the introduction of the horse sent them back to HG by making it easier to hunt buffalo. The Northwest coastal Indians also kept slaves and they were HG, albeit an advanced HG because of the salmon. So that may not be a valid example. But note that slaves in HG societies generally didn’t live much differently than the slaveowners. As for lazy people in HG societies, they generally were of lower status, but not slaves. There’s more work to be done than just hunting and gathering. Any item they have, whether clothes, weapons, or whatever, has to be either made by the owner or they have to trade for it. Trade something they made, usually. Laziess will not show up in not having enough food, but in not having as much other things that give high status. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/23 "2005-11-17T07:10:19Z")
> [@groman](#): > > I think I see what you’re getting at, and it’s not immediately clear that this is so. It is equally likely that human development was a parallel process and agrarian culture is a parasitic brake. Maybe monorail, towers, steel and guns would be there in this time frame anyway, or even sooner if there wasn’t the agricultural lifestyle to leech from it. Definitely a great debate though. As far as that goes there is no debate. HGs simply could never have produced monorail, towers, steel or guns. HG are necessarily nomadic, they need to move from place to place. As a result HG societies can not produce anything that can’t be carried by one person. A HG can’t afford to spend months or even days building something if that something has to be abandonded in a months time when she shifts camp. Even something as apparently simple as a log canoe is an invention unknown to HG societies. If it can’t be carried HGs won’t produce it. Monorails, towers and guns all require the production of numerous precursors that can’t be carried by one man. Even if the individual tools used to build a ziggurrat could be carried by one individual the sheer number required make it impossible to do so. Of course by the time you get to metalwork you require furnaces, mines and mining implements, none of which can be carried. As a result metal is imply out of the question for a HG society. The only exception to the “if you can’t carry it you won’t build it” rule for HGs is technology that can withstand being abandonded for years at a time and is eaisly repairable. So cave art can be produced since it is easily re-touched when the tribe returns. Stone fish traps were produced by some HGs, but once again they are easily patched up even if abandoned for years. A furnace or a theodolite doesn’t fit into that catregory, and so HGs never produced any such things. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/24 "2005-11-17T07:21:05Z")
Regarding this whole thing where HG’s have a 15 hour workweek: CITE? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/25 "2005-11-17T07:56:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > …That produces a pretty good life for those 6 years. But the 7th year was hell. Moreover the population was maintained at those low levels by the use of population control. Not primarily birth control which simply doesn’t exist in effective form in nature. Population was controlled by population control, which is a nice way of saying killing people. In most societies it was the children who were killed, but the elderly weren’t exempt either… Got a cite that murder was common in MOST HG societies? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/26 "2005-11-17T09:02:01Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > I would argue of course that the first few hundred thousand years also is basically meaningless. The number of human beings we’re talking about is microscopic compared to the number today. While most of human history was hunter-gathering, most of the humans that have lived throughout recorded time actually lived after agriculture was invented. That _may_ be a good point, or at least a highly relevant one. That depends on whether our _nature_ changes as a consequence of attaining some threshold population. And in a sense, it does, or did: if the rest of my surmise is correct, i.e., we dropped h/g when and only when he had to to take up farming, the “had to” prompter was most likely population in an area exceeding what the land would support left to its own devices. On the other hand, if that’s an inherent characteristic of who and how we are, that _still_ doesn’t make the x-hundred-thousand years that came before irrelevant. We’re now in mid-transition to a different way of existing, with heavier population pressures than ever but with a much lighter workload than the agrarians had, and a (consequent?) lightening of coercion and burgeoning of more egalitarian decision-making structures. I’ll have to give it further thought. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/27 "2005-11-17T09:16:00Z")
**Blake** : > [@](#): > > So the HG lifestyle was far from idyllic. Pretty pleasant some of the time, certainly very low in labour requirements, but emotionaly traumatic to say the least. The transition to farming certainly required more work, but with the benefit of greater security…and an option iot to have to slaughter your son or grandmother… Well, yeah. And no penicillin and no one to set your leg when you break it. I didn’t mean to sound like I was romanticizing it, so much as commenting on characteristics of social organization, and characteristics of human personality and behavior, and characteristics of culture, the long slow-changing belief-systems and attitudes about “how to human be”, if you will. > [@](#): > > It’s no coincidence that almost any time HGs can adopt agriculture they rapidly do so. The HG lifestyle simply wasn’t very pleasant I don’t know about that. Early farming was a rather close-to-the-edge kind of endeavor, too. You have to defend your tilled land from any bands of folks who still live the h/g lifestyle and who may not comprehend or respect this “our land” notion you’ve got going. You’re at the mercy of weather. And you’re not mobile. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/28 "2005-11-17T09:42:23Z")
[Here](http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html) is where you can find what the most doper-approved authority has to say about the transition to agriculture. Not everyone agrees with his interpretations, but most agree that his facts stand up. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/29 "2005-11-17T14:18:28Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > I think one of the reasons laziness has developed is that many people are totally divorced from the work we do. I sit in an office and enter data all day; my work has nothing to do with my sustenance or well-being except that I know I’ll make money if I do it, and that money=food. And still then, the equation is a little fuzzy; why is it again that I have to stay in the office all day when I have no tasks to complete? Whereas if the well-being of yourself, your family, and your tribe depends on your work, you have more of a motivation to work. I don’t think laziness is a natural human trait, or at least, it used to be much more rare than it is now. It’s the product of a disconnect between effort and result. I disagree. When I was in the Boy Scouts or at summer camp, there were always kids who would hold back when there were things to do like collecting firewood. I would argue that lazyness has existed as long as there has been work that is tedious or unpleasent. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/30 "2005-11-17T15:40:05Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > HG are necessarily nomadic, they need to move from place to place. As a result HG societies can not produce anything that can’t be carried by one person. A HG can’t afford to spend months or even days building something if that something has to be abandonded in a months time when she shifts camp. Even something as apparently simple as a log canoe is an invention unknown to HG societies. If it can’t be carried HGs won’t produce it. > > Of course by the time you get to metalwork you require furnaces, mines and mining implements, none of which can be carried. As a result metal is imply out of the question for a HG society. > > The only exception to the “if you can’t carry it you won’t build it” rule for HGs is technology that can withstand being abandonded for years at a time and is eaisly repairable. So cave art can be produced since it is easily re-touched when the tribe returns. Stone fish traps were produced by some HGs, but once again they are easily patched up even if abandoned for years. A furnace or a theodolite doesn’t fit into that catregory, and so HGs never produced any such things. Actually I beg to differ. Working with google here because my textbooks are packed away … In the absence of my copy of The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture by Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, more or less considered the _best_ work on the steppes peoples prior to the great Khan, I am googling. [This page](http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/millwarj/website%20images/centralasiaimages.htm) unfortunately has broken picture links for many handcrafted nomadic items, but it does show modern nomads raising the ger, and making felt, and a few metal crafted items from pre khanate graves. [Let me draw your attention to this page on nomadic art](http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Nomadic_Art/steppes_images.htm) chock full of beautiful metalwork. [And in this site there is a very good PDF book available](http://www.csen.org/csen.tofc/csen_tofc.html) on Eurasian Archeological theory that in part says Investigating nomadic material culture Nomad material culture may be ethnographically defined as having three main characteristics: (1) Site furniture (fixtures or portable objects), (2) durable or perishable objects and, (3) valuables or expendables (Cribb 1991). The widespread use of clay pottery is highly characteristic for early Eurasian nomads; almost every grave held some quantity of handmade earthenware. It should be noted that those vessels made on a potter’s wheel were usually imported from the region of a statehood. As recent research shows, nomad’s vessels could contain ordinary foods, such as milk, meat broth, and kasha (cereal or grain) (Koryakova and Daire 1997). The bronze cauldrons usually associated with unique burials contained animal bones that originally consisted of meat which was placed in the burial. The abundance of pottery in the burial, an item that could easily be broken and was especially vulnerable during migrations, provokes a fair question about its place within nomadic material culture. Indeed, we cannot answer this question fully because we do not know the complete content of the material culture, and because a substantial part of this complex was made from organic materials that are generally not preserved. Fortunately, we are able to make inferences from the ideal examples provided by the frozen tombs of the Altai nomads. It is known that these people produced many utensils made of wood (dishes, mugs, bowls), birch bark (boxes), and leather (some types of jar) (Rudenko 1960; Kubarev 1987; Polosmak 1994). An interesting question that has not been discussed relates to the method by which Eurasian nomads organized the manufacture of pottery and its preservation from breakage during transmigration. They could have manufactured it either in the summer camp or at the winter house, although the technology and organization of production would have been different in each locale. As our experiments have demonstrated, it is not difficult to make pottery in summer even when there is a paucity of wood (Koryakova and Fedorov 1993). It takes approximately 1.5 hours to make a pot and an additional 3–10 minutes to decorate it. According to ethnographic analogies and experimental archaeology, dried and pressed dung, abundantly available, is more than sufficient fuel to fire ceramics, and it would have been necessary to use wood only very minimally. Dried and pressed dung fires up very quickly and maintains its temperature for a long time. Firing occurs without flames with temperature reaching approximately 900—950 degrees for a duration of 2–3 hours (Koryakova and Fedorov 1993: 92-93). So they made pottery. And unfortunately the book on the Huns has a long and wonderful description on how the prevailing thought of these aforementioned bronze vessels found in the kurgans had them as trade goods made for the nomads _until_ [a few bronze works as recreated here](http://www.davidchapmansculpture.co.uk/reconstruction.htm) were noted in dig sites of nomadic summer and winter encampment areas. By the way, almost all nomadic tribes had what could be considered semi permanent winter camps - usually areas with fuel and water sources that could be depended on, and the traveling portion of the lives consisted of typical ‘ranges’ or territories that were _traditional_ to that particular group. I would also like to point out that the scythian gold working is not a large leap as nugget or placer gold was fairly commonly found in the streams in the area, and as such, the beaten gold repousse works and other drawn pieces would be manufacturable with very little in the way of tools. My own repousse setup [when I was actively working] consisted of a resin bowl, a small hammer, and about 9 tools that were about the size of the average dental tool. I made the small ‘sequins’ or decorative metal placques that the scythians sewed onto clothing. [This is an interesting FAQ on repousse work from a group of working artists.](http://www.anvilfire.com/FAQs/repousse_index.htm) [And this one has a picture part way down the page of a woman working with a pitch bowl.](http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/repousse.htm) As had been pointed out in a number of different places, early bronze makers were nomadic mainly because the surface works for obtaining the copper and tin would be mined out and they would have to prospect for new locations of ore. You go to where the materials are, they really didnt come to you. The theory is now held that coinage actually got started as small ingots of metals used to trade with - of copper, tin, gold and silver. Once traders started carrying these ingots, then the metal workers could stop traveling around and work with purified metals instead of having to rfine their own ores. [sorry, you managed to hit one of my lukewarm buttons - i did an overwhelming amount of research on my SCA persona, a nomadic steppes woman … and I got to appreciate how involved this _simplistic_ culture actually was =)] ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/31 "2005-11-17T18:24:43Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Got a cite that murder was common in MOST HG societies? We’re not talking about murder per se. Infanticide and abandonment of the elderly is/was a common method of population control. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/32 "2005-11-17T18:59:58Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Actually I beg to differ. Working with google here because my textbooks are packed away … But the steppe people weren’t hunter-gatherers. They were mostly herders. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/33 "2005-11-17T19:21:02Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Just curious. Modern society often appears rife with people who are lazy, inattentive and apathetic. If someone has these personality traits of laziness and/or apathy in a hunting subsistence society what happens to them? Are they tolerated and fed, do they care for the children, do they starve, are they killed as a drag on the tribe… what happens? Have you heard of the [Bog Bodies](http://images.google.com/images?hs=8ao&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=bog%20bodies&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=wi) from England, mainly? Some of the bodies were found with ropes around their necks and hands tied and what not. It is speculation, and speculation only, that these people were on the receiving end of punishments for being lazy in a hunter/gatherer society. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/34 "2005-11-17T20:16:01Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > Have you heard of the [Bog Bodies](http://images.google.com/images?hs=8ao&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=bog%20bodies&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=wi) from England, mainly? Some of the bodies were found with ropes around their necks and hands tied and what not. It is speculation, and speculation only, that these people were on the receiving end of punishments for being lazy in a hunter/gatherer society. Or perhaps human sacrifices. Must appease the god of the hunt! Yo lazy butt, come over here . . . ---
**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:** [November 17, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/35 "2005-11-17T21:27:10Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > But the steppe people weren’t hunter-gatherers. They were mostly herders. And what do you think they eat besides dairy from the herds? If you want wool and dairy from your animals you don’t eat them all the time. Marmot [a small woodchuck sort of critter], stags, boar, river fish and birds were the more common foods, along with wild onions, wild garlic, sedges and other greens. Meat was dried out and stored as was cheese curd. Nuts, berries, some beans and certain grains [mainly barley and rye]were harvested in the fall when they were nearing their winter camping areas. They hunt, and they gather. In period they traded items all along the silk route [which existed in the classical period] They traded pelts and leather goods, woolens and felt goods, roots and herbs used medicinally and as flavorings. Amber and bone carvings. Mercenaries and slaves. They even invented tiedying according to Herodotus [well actually he mentioned that they painted on fabric with dyes which left patterns as permanent as if they had been woven in … but just the same=)] Actually, if you are interested I can hook you up with a very nice man who has published a very interesting translation of a cookbook written just post mongolian takeover in China. Currently he is working on a text about veterinary practices of the same time period. A bit later than bronze age, but fascinating just the same=) ---
**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:** [November 17, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/36 "2005-11-17T21:40:59Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > Have you heard of the [Bog Bodies](http://images.google.com/images?hs=8ao&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=bog%20bodies&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=wi) from England, mainly? Some of the bodies were found with ropes around their necks and hands tied and what not. It is speculation, and speculation only, that these people were on the receiving end of punishments for being lazy in a hunter/gatherer society. IIRC, many of the bog bodies are from the more settled and agrarian end of the celtic culture. Wasnt Lindow Man from Roman Britain? \ [Yups - Lindow Man, 50-100 AD](http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/featured/lindowman.htm) Though having read the book, I don’t absolutely believe everything he said in it, but I will agree that an apparent well treated and non-slave/worker type does seem to be either a sacrifice or perhaps a robbery/murder victim. [This](http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/) looks to be an interesting site, will have to check it out further=) Boggies are _fascinating_ as is Oetzie the ice man =) Anything that lets us see into the past is worth checking out. People just have to _not_ jump to conclusions about matters we have no clue about until we manage to piece together enough actual evidence to prove something one way or the other [like the dental mineral deposites demonstrating where Oetzie spent his time letting them pinpoint where he lived instead of guessing all over the map.] ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/37 "2005-11-17T21:47:58Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > And what do you think they eat besides dairy from the herds? If you want wool and dairy from your animals you don’t eat them all the time. I do not doubt they hunted, fished, etc… But “hunter-gatherers” refer to societies relying nearly exclusively on hunting and gathering. Herders and farmers aren’t hunter gatherers. Horse riding shepherds with permanent and semi-permanent settlements don’t belong to this category. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/38 "2005-11-17T21:56:01Z")
Let’s be careful of the language we use here. In general the word “nomad” refers to pastoralists rather than HGs. And of course, for pastoralists eating animals from the herds is a last resort, the herds are capital…it’s much better to hunt, or to raid someone else’s animals. Early farmers did lots of hunting too. The earliest farmers were horticulturalists, like the Yanomamo. They farmed a few staples but most of their food was hunted/gathered. And hunter-gatherers didn’t typically wander wherever they liked…they had a home territory and a seasonal round. So large items could be left behind at the summer camp, or the fall berry-picking camp, or whatever. And I’ve gotta disagree with the contention that a log canoe is too much trouble for a HG society. Look at Alaskan eskimos. Pure hunter-gatherers, with a seasonal round. But they built large multiperson skin boats for whaling. Or hunter-gatherers from the pacific coast with huge permanent wood houses and war canoes and slavery and a hereditary aristocracy. These people were semi-sedentary due to the salmon. The thing to remember is that today most of the best land is taken up by agriculturalists, but that wasn’t the case 10,000 years ago. And hunter/gathering, pastoralism and farming aren’t sharp demarcations, but grade into each other. Pastoralists hunt, but also raid farmers, or set themselves up as rulers over the farmers. Farmers hunt until all wild land around them is under cultivation. HGs often cultivate a few staples and trade with neighboring farmers. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/39 "2005-11-17T23:01:10Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > IIRC, many of the bog bodies are from the more settled and agrarian end of the celtic culture. Wasnt Lindow Man from Roman Britain? Of course, this is why I qualified my statement, which I should point out was made by professor who specializes in iron age Germany. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/40 "2005-11-18T02:36:57Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > We’re not talking about murder per se. Infanticide and abandonment of the elderly is/was a common method of population control. OK but where’s the proof? Is IaAotE common in modern HG cultures? What evidence do we have for it in ancient HG culture? Blake’s description of the problems facing HG groups forgets in large part why HG worked. Mobility is the most powerful tool the HG’s had. So what if there’s a drought, eat what’s here then we move on to the next camping area, there’s always more to be found. Drought for agriculturists is a real problem, a poor harvest is starvation. Herders face similar problems, disease can take out your animals overnight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424.md?page=3)