# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/41 "2005-11-18T03:34:28Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > 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. Bad seasons don’t happen in one small place. Walking from where there has been a bad season to where there has been a good one could be thousands of miles. Doing that while starving might not be a great prospect. Particularly since unless you are pioneering a new land, the place you move to will already be supporting a population without necessarily any room for you. Agriculturalists and herders have surplus resources. They can stockpile. Sure, they _can_ get wiped out, but it is less likely. You’re bucking every expert comment I have ever read on this subject. You are also bucking the trend of history. If H & G is so resilient and agriculture and herding so vulnerable, how come the latter has been almost totally replaced by the former? ---
**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 18, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/42 "2005-11-18T03:54:16Z")
> [@](#): > > If H & G is so resilient and agriculture and herding so vulnerable, how come the latter has been almost totally replaced by the former? Read the article linked in post [#28](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6805940&postcount=28) of this thread. It does overly romanticize h/g and insofar as I like digital pianos and Harry Potter and the feel of a 389 Pontiac accelerating as it rounds a well-paved, well-banked turn, _and_ insofar as I don’t have to work all that hard (albeit still many more hours than my h/g ancestors), I’m not inclined to agree with the author that taking up agriculture was truly a wrong turn. But ignoring that for a moment, there’s a well-written exposition on why h/g was driven to the fringes, which answers your question. ---
**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 18, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/43 "2005-11-18T04:01:33Z")
Actually I can probably quote the relevant couple paragraphs and still be within the fair-use ballpark: > [@](#): > > Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life. (Population densities of hunter-gatherers are rarely over on eperson per ten square miles, while farmers average 100 times that.) Partly, this is because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants. Partly, too, it’s because nomadic hunter-gatherers have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it’s old enough to keep up with the adults. Because farm women don’t have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years. > As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps toward agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth. Some bands chose the former solution, unable to anticipate the evils of farming, and seduced by the transient abundance they enjoyed until population growth caught up with increased food production. Such bands outbred and then drove off or killed the bands that chose to remain hunter-gatherers, because a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter. It’s not that hunter-gatherers abandonded their life style, but that those sensible enough not to abandon it were forced out of all areas except the ones farmers didn’t want ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/44 "2005-11-18T05:25:08Z")
I know all that. I read the article, heck, I’ve read the Jared Diamond’s book on the subject. It supports what I’m saying. Agriculturalists and herders outsurvive H/G’ers not the other way around, albeit that the former may have worse and shorter lives than the latter. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/45 "2005-11-18T05:40:40Z")
> [@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. It’s no coincidence that almost any time HGs can adopt agriculture they rapidly do so. The HG lifestyle simply wasn’t very pleasant. > > Which more or less answers the OP. Laziness simply wasn’t an issue in HG societies because HG societies were never geared towards labour. In normal seasons food was abundant. In bad seasons food wasn’t avialable no matter how much you worked. It was probably only for a few months every 10 years or so that laziness could possibly have become detrimental to HGs, and even then it was probably only a minor liability. I think this is about right. I’m not an anthropologist but I think such primitive societies do a much better job of integrating young people into the adult life than we do. Most of them have some sort of rite of passage, for boys at least, making them aware that they are now “part of the team.” And I think that the women did, and still do the agriculture while the men do most of the hunting. However, my WAG is that the excellent integration of young people into the society also results in few malcontents since most are satsified with the status quo and therefore they tend to be static societies that change little over time. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/46 "2005-11-18T06:24:08Z")
For a famous and interesting perspective on the relative tradeoffs of changing from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture, see Jared Diamond’s _[The Worst Mistake](http://www.mnforsustain.org/food_ag_worst_mistake_diamond_j.htm)_. Sailboat ---
**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, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/47 "2005-11-18T06:24:37Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Bad seasons don’t happen in one small place. Walking from where there has been a bad season to where there has been a good one could be thousands of miles. Doing that while starving might not be a great prospect. Particularly since unless you are pioneering a new land, the place you move to will already be supporting a population without necessarily any room for you. Your assuming a bad season for a HG is the same as one for a agriculturalist. A drought or wildfire, for an agriculturalist might mean no food, but for the HG it just means a longer walk. Why would they be starving? If they stayed in one area during a bad season they would use up the available resources, but being mobile expands the resources you can exploit. There might not be as much during a bad season, but it doesn’t turn everywhere into a barren wasteland. Your also assuming a population density that has not been constant for the history of HG, how many humans were there during the neolithic period? > [@Princhester](#): > > Agriculturalists and herders have surplus resources. They can stockpile. Sure, they _can_ get wiped out, but it is less likely. For the HG everything you don’t eat IS surplus. > [@](#): > > [@](http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html) While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here’s one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, “Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?” > > While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen’s average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size. It’s almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat 75 or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s. > [@Princhester](#): > > You’re bucking every expert comment I have ever read on this subject. The experts have gotten it wrong before! > [@Princhester](#): > > You are also bucking the trend of history. If H & G is so resilient and agriculture and herding so vulnerable, how come the latter has been almost totally replaced by the former? But you could also ask, if agriculture and herding is so resilient and HG so vulnerable, why did it take so long to develop? > [@](#): > > [@](http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html) > Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings. He might illustrate the results of his digs by a 24-hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture. ---
**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, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/48 "2005-11-18T06:31:35Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Bad seasons don’t happen in one small place. Walking from where there has been a bad season to where there has been a good one could be thousands of miles. Doing that while starving might not be a great prospect. Particularly since unless you are pioneering a new land, the place you move to will already be supporting a population without necessarily any room for you. Your assuming a bad season for a HG is the same as one for a agriculturalist. A drought or wildfire, for an agriculturalist might mean no food, but for the HG it just means a longer walk. Why would they be starving? If they stayed in one area during a bad season they would use up the available resources, but being mobile expands the resources you can exploit. There might not be as much during a bad season, but it doesn’t turn everywhere into a barren wasteland. Your also assuming a population density that has not been constant for the history of HG, how many humans were there during the neolithic period? > [@Princhester](#): > > Agriculturalists and herders have surplus resources. They can stockpile. Sure, they _can_ get wiped out, but it is less likely. For the HG everything you don’t eat IS surplus. > [@](#): > > [@](http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html) While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here’s one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, “Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?” > > While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen’s average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size. It’s almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat 75 or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s. > [@Princhester](#): > > You’re bucking every expert comment I have ever read on this subject. The experts have gotten it wrong before! > [@Princhester](#): > > You are also bucking the trend of history. If H & G is so resilient and agriculture and herding so vulnerable, how come the latter has been almost totally replaced by the former? But you could also ask, if agriculture and herding is so resilient and HG so vulnerable, why did it take so long to develop? > [@](#): > > [@](http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html) > Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings. He might illustrate the results of his digs by a 24-hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/49 "2005-11-18T06:45:42Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > For a famous and interesting perspective on the relative tradeoffs of changing from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture, see Jared Diamond’s _[The Worst Mistake](http://www.mnforsustain.org/food_ag_worst_mistake_diamond_j.htm)_. 1/ Read thread 2/ Post Yours would be the third link. 😉 ---
**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, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/50 "2005-11-18T07:07:06Z")
The Myth of Population Regulation > [@](#): > > [@](http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/for_rev2_lec.htm) The time honored approach among anthropologists is to assume that infanticide is one of several population regulation mechanisms designed to prevent hunter-gatherers from depleting environmental resources or degrading their environment. From this perspective, infanticide is a way to maintain the balance between people and the resources they exploit. With the influential publication of Susan Lees’ and Daniel Bates’ “The Myth of Population Regulation”, some anthropologists now view infanticide as a mechanism to maximize the reproductive success of individuals (and not the stability of groups). Bear in mind, we discussed a variety of so-called “population regulation” mechanisms (invalidicide, senilicide, abortion, and post-partum taboos). However, we gave special attention to Daly and Wilson’s crosscultural research on infanticide to suggest that such mechanisms actually insure the quantity and quality of children and the decision to commit infanticide is made by the parents and not the group: > > Consistent with evolutionary theory, Daly and Wilson predict that infanticide should occur under the following conditions: > > 1. uncertain paternity > 2. defects in offspring > 3. lack of parental resources to successfully rear the child > > From the HRAF Daly & Wilson analyzed the 60 societies in the probability sample. They found that 39 societies (65%) practiced infanticide. Of these, 35 gave reasons for infanticide with a total of 112 reasons for infanticide (many societies gave multiple reasons for infanticide). These reasons were placed into four categories: the three deduced from evolutionary theory and a fourth was were a collection of reasons that could not be classified from an evolutionary perspective by Daly & Wilson. > > Of the 112 reasons, 97 or 86% fell into the evolutionary explanations posited by Daly & Wilson. > > Reason 1: Is the infant the offspring of the mother’s current husband? > Number of instances 20 (17% of total) > > Breakdown: > > Adulterous conception 15 > Non-tribal sire 3 > Sired by mother’s first husband 2 > > Reason 2: What is the infant’s quality, and hence its ability to convert parental assistance into eventual fitness? > Number of Instances 21 (19% of total) > > Infant deformed or very ill 21 > > Reason 3: Are present circumstances favorable for child rearing? > > Number of Instances 56 (50% of total) > > Twins 14 > Birth too soon or too many children 11 > No male support 6 > Quarrel with husband 1 > Mother died 6 > Mother unwed 14 > Economic hardship 3 > Wrong season 1 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/51 "2005-11-18T07:19:22Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Your assuming a bad season for a HG is the same as one for a agriculturalist. A drought or wildfire, for an agriculturalist might mean no food, but for the HG it just means a longer walk. Potentially too long a walk to be viable. You are ignoring my point in that respect. And anyway, if there is only a local disaster, and if there are resources to be lived off elsewhere, farmers can walk too, ya know. So that is not a distinguishing point. It is the really bad widespread disasters that will make the difference, and that is where surplus resources come into play. A farmer may well have stored resources to eat or trade while an HG will not. > [@](#): > > Your also assuming a population density that has not been constant for the history of HG, how many humans were there during the neolithic period? Fewer. But HG will support fewer (much fewer) than agriculture. In neolithic times there may have been many fewer people, but the land was probably still supporting as many people as that land could support. So moving out of your usual territory due to a disaster may well just take you to into another territory that is already fully exploited for an HG lifestyle. > [@](#): > > For the HG everything you don’t eat IS surplus. Tosh. Everything HG don’t eat goes rotten or is eaten by animals. It doesn’t just lie around fresh as a daisy ready for a bad season. To create a good surplus, in one place, sufficient to justify the resources to build storage good enough to preserve that surplus from rot and animals at that place takes agriculture. > [@](#): > > But you could also ask, if agriculture and herding is so resilient and HG so vulnerable, why did it take so long to develop? Because the conditions required for its development are rare, is the probable answer from what I’ve read. Once it does develop it pushes HG aside. You could as easily ask: “if the internet’s so great, how come it wasn’t invented in 50,000 BC?” How resilient and pervasive something is once developed is not necessarily related to how easy it is to develop in the first place. ---
**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 18, 2005, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/52 "2005-11-18T14:11:31Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > If H & G is so resilient and agriculture and herding so vulnerable, how come the latter has been almost totally replaced by the former? Perhaps because the aggies are settled and pushing out the herders and hunter gatherers … and the aggies had surplus population that could dedicate itself to warfare without regards to removing themselves from the important food and resource production. When one has a farmstead, with outbuildings and crops in place, one _tends_ to be a bit possessive … why do you think we had range wars in the US when the farmers started fencing in land and water which prevented the herders from open ranging _across_ planted fields. Ever wonder why the little greekling came up with a moral story about how _good_ it was to be a good little cricket and horde food and prepare for winter? Buck up, and keep your head down and grind out that food? Or why the nomadic cultures were so demonized _cough_Atilla_cough_. Ever notice that in the ‘Golden Age’ of any culture the food was plentiful, people didnt have to work so hard, never had droughts or plagues, and life was perfect in its simplicity? ---
**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 18, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/53 "2005-11-18T18:09:18Z")
Why were nomads demonized? Well I suppose when nomads come in and kill the men, rape the women, and loot the houses that might have something to do with it. Pastoralists tend to be able to mobilize for war much more easily than farmers. Every herder on horseback is a potential light cavalry raider. Herders have strategic mobility…the entire nation can pick up and move to greener pastures, and if those pastures are currently the cropland of farmers, so much the worse for the farmers. The farmers can defend themselves, but they can’t strike back at the herder’s homeland. If the raid fails, the herders return home and the farmers pick up the pieces, but if they try to invade the herders the herders can just pick up and leave. However, herding can’t support the density of farming. So herders invade and loot and retreat, or take over, but become assimilated as the new ruling class until the next band of herders comes calling. And farmers can support many more specialists. Eventually the specialist farmers invented gunpowder and the days of the supremacy of cavalry are over. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/54 "2005-11-18T18:34:34Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Why were nomads demonized? > > Well I suppose when nomads come in and kill the men, rape the women, and loot the houses that might have something to do with it. > > Pastoralists tend to be able to mobilize for war much more easily than farmers. Every herder on horseback is a potential light cavalry raider. Herders have strategic mobility…the entire nation can pick up and move to greener pastures, and if those pastures are currently the cropland of farmers, so much the worse for the farmers. The farmers can defend themselves, but they can’t strike back at the herder’s homeland. If the raid fails, the herders return home and the farmers pick up the pieces, but if they try to invade the herders the herders can just pick up and leave. > > However, herding can’t support the density of farming. So herders invade and loot and retreat, or take over, but become assimilated as the new ruling class until the next band of herders comes calling. And farmers can support many more specialists. Eventually the specialist farmers invented gunpowder and the days of the supremacy of cavalry are over. How would you classify the Mongols under Genghis Khan? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/55 "2005-11-18T22:54:22Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Got a cite that murder was common in MOST HG societies? You’ll note I never used the word murder. Murder is socially unacceptable killing. It’s illegal. The words I used were slaughter and infanticide, Those are or can be legal and socially sanctioned. Very different concepts. Murder was extremely rare in most HG societies because the punishment was usually direct retribution in-kind from the victim’s relatives. If you want a reference that infanticide was common in most HG cultures then I suggest [chasing up the reference in this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=193060&highlight=infanticide) > [@](#): > > And no penicillin and no one to set your leg when you break it. Of course those things weren’t magically available as soon as people adopted farming either. Those techniques took a lot of time to learn. So it’s not like these are real differences between early farming and HG societies. Issues of infanticide and population control were real differences right from the outset. > [@AHunter3](#): > > **Blake** 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. No doubt there are many problems associated with subsistence farming. But looking at our specific objections: 1. HGs have at leats as strong a concept of ‘our land’ as any agriculturalists. Probably far more so. Once again this seems to be a someowhat romamticised idea of how HGs lived. These were not animals that wandered freely across the entire globe like migratory birds. They were nomadic animals with tightly defined and defended home ranges, akin to the other large mammalian predators. As a result HGs need to defend their land from intruders wishing to steal limiting resources just as any farmers do. However higher population densities will make it far easier to defend ‘our land’. So on this score at least farming is solely positive. 2. Because farmers can afford to invest resources in substantial dwellings and have an ability to store food they are less at the mercy of the weather than HGs. 3. You are certainly not mobile. As I pointed out above, that is the main strength of the HG system. Because you are not mobile, or not highly mobile, you can start investing in heavy tools, substantial housing and so forth. Not saying that subsistence farming isn’t a dicey way to make a living, but it has numerous advantages of HG techniques in most places. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/56 "2005-11-18T23:01:29Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > 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. And you have impressive Google skills. Unfortunately the references are totally invalid. I haven’t read thema ll in depth, but the everything I have seen has had no relevance to this discussion. Unfortunately you have made the assumption that nomadic and HG are interchangeable terms. That’s not the case. The Huns were nomadic herders, ie they were agricultral people, not HGs. A great many American Indians people were also nomadic agriculturalists. AFAI can tell all your references refer to naomdic agriculturalists, not nomadic HGs. If there are any exceptions then by all means highlight them specifically. But my comments referred specifically to nomadic HGs. Not just to nomads in general. Important distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/57 "2005-11-18T23:08:26Z")
> [@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. 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. 1)If you want wool and dairy from your animals you don’t eat them all the time. Which is why the Huns, the LApps and the Masai _didn’t_ eat their animals all the time. Milk/blood was the primary protein source of these nomadic herders AFIAK. That way you can have your wool and still us t the animals as food. That doesn’t make the people any less nomadic agriculturalists. 2)By this standard of HG the modern USA is a HG society. stags, boar, river fish and birds are all commonly hunted in the USA, along with various wild foods. Certainly Europe until late Reformation at least was HG by this standard. Poor farmers have always subsidised their herds/crops with wild food. That doesn’t make them any less farmers. If you want to argue that any society that hunts or gathers is a HG society no matter what the primary occupation and food soucres are then of course you are free to do so. But that is not the normal defintion, nor is it the one anyone prior to you used in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/58 "2005-11-19T00:31:10Z")
Where did I read that 30% of all HG males would be killed in tribal warfare - and after each decade about 10% of all tribes would have been completely wiped out by neighboring tribes. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/59 "2005-11-19T00:32:38Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > OK but where’s the proof? > 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. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it doesn’t explain why agriculturalists always managed to maintain higher populations than HGs. It is also slightly problematic that it defies the laws of physics. If HGs could always fond more food by simply moving, no matter what their population density, then why weren’t they always having more children? Contagious disease is rare amongst HGs, so what exactly kept their population low. You are saying it can’t be disease because there is always more food available by moving, evening the worst drought. And you are contending that they never practiced culling. OS why didn’t HG populations grow exponentially, everywhere, al the time? The normal explanation of why farmers sustained higher populations than HGs is because they had access to more food. It’s elegant and it’s supported by the evidence. Yet you have just claimed that HGs have access to unlimited amounts of food. No matter how much they use there will always be more avialable if they move, even in the worst droughts. SO now you have to explain why HG populations were so low. Then you have to explain how this gets around those damn laws of thermodynamics. Any system receives a finite amount of energy. So how can there always be more energy available simply by moving within that system, no matter how many people are using that energy? Where is all this free energy coming from? How can there be no limit to the amount of energy available to HGs? > [@](#): > > Why would they be starving? If they stayed in one area during a bad season they would use up the available resources, but being mobile expands the resources you can exploit. Yes, but it doesn’t make those resources infinite. You can’t make a dollar out of 65 cents no matter how much you move it around. The system is receiving a finite amount of energy. Changing location within that system doesn’t create more energy. The amount is fixed. So how does changing location allow HGs to obtain infinite amounts of energy from the system? This is a massive hole in your claim. It simply defies the fundamental laws of physics. Moving around doesn’t magically create more energy within a system. If the energy isn’t available it isn’t available. Yet you are claiming that HGs can always get a bit more energy by simply moving. How do they do that? Anyway I’ve provided my references for HGs limiting population through killing. Now I want a refernce from you to support your claim that HGs could always obtain more food by moving. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424/60 "2005-11-23T18:10:30Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > 1/ Read thread > > 2/ Post > > Yours would be the third link. > > 😉 And yet mine is the first link which, by including the subject matter, a dial-up user like myself can immediately TELL whether or not it’s Jared Diamond’s well-known essay. The other links are not clearly marked, and at dial-up speeds, I don’t always open every link even when I “1/ Read thread,” as you so eloquently put it. How about adding “3/ label your links clearly for the benefit of other users” to your list? Sailboat [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-hunter-subsistence-societies-what-happens-to-lazy-screw-ups-do-they-even-exist/331424.md?page=4)