Subsistence :Adaptation & The Environment

Adaptation: the process by which organisms achieve beneficial adjustments to their available environment.

Human beings exhibit a very high level of PLASTICITY (adaptability to many environments). They do this not through the process of genetic evolution, but through CULTURE! Culture is a adaptive system.

ECOSYSTEM: a system or functioning whole composed of both physical environment and organisms that live in it.

• each has a CARRYING CAPACITY. This is defined as the number of human beings it can support due to its limiting resource(s).
• Although you do not need to memorize the ecosystems in your text, notice that there are adaptation that are impossible or very difficult in some ecosystems. They may also have low carrying capacities for human beings and may entail major alterations of the environment to support them. these can be a great strain on the environment.
• tundra
• desert
• grassland
• temperate forest
• mountain zones
• icelands

Two basic kinds of subsistence systems.

• Food Gatherers
• hunters and gatherers (H/G)
• Food Producers
• horticulture (extensive)
• pastoral (animal focused)
• horticulture (plant focused)
• agriculture (intensive)
• agrarian (nonindustrial)
• industrial

*we will go over this more when we speak about ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

Hunting & Gathering Subsistence Strategies

• collect wild plants and animals
• bands (political organization)
• 25 people (small)
• egalitarian (social structure)
• sharing (reciprocity based economic system)
• diet: 95% plant food / 5% animal protein
• child spacing- 5 years
• prolonged nursing
• birth control 
• passive infanticide
• few material possessions
• bilateral (kinship patterns)
• dependence/independence training
• nomadic
• highly varied food sources
• very healthy population free from most disease

Hunting & Gathering Culture: Wadani of Rain Forest

Example of Australia
Evolution from Foraging to Pastoralism: film Links

Horticultural Subsistence Strategies (extensive agriculture-land expensive)

• domesticate plants &/or animals (focused on one)
• increased land use
• simple tool kit for production
• egalitarian/ranked (social structure)
• tribal (political organization)
• 100-250 people
• strategies do not alter the carrying capacity of the environment
• fecundity (high levels of childbirth)
• dependence training
• unilineal (kinship)
• communal ownership (economic exchange)

pastoral (animal focused)                                        horticulture (Plant focused)

transhumant                                                                sedentary

animal focused with no plant domesticates           plant focused with animal cash crops

mixed subsistence                                                     slash and burn (swidden)

patrilineal (kinship)                                                    matrilineal & patrilineal

Pastoral Systems (short definition-film link)

Example: pastoral system
Horticultural Systems: (short definintion -film link)

example: plant-based horticulture
Agricultural Stystems: (short definition) Film Link

Agricultural Subsistence Strategies (intensive agriculture)
Agraraian (non-industrial ) rice farming

Advanced agriculture (industrial) Israel 

• domesticate plants AND animals
• alter environment to increase carrying capacity of land
• fertilization
• irrigation
• plow/draft animals
• 500-millions of people
• chiefdoms and states (political structure)
• redistributive/surplus economies
• ranked and stratified political systems
• lineal kin ownership
• sedentary
• complex tool kit
• mono-crop production
• greater output on less land
• poor nutrition & famine prone

industrial agriculture

• individual ownership
• industrial tools & technologies
• increased population density and population
• increased productivity
• bilateral kinship