True … but even African hunters in the hot weather aren’t tracking and running down prey every hour of the day every day … hunting animals, especially large animals is a one time event. It’s done once, provides a big source of food, the food gets processed, hopefully preserved for a while and it nourishes people for a period of time, usually several days or even weeks … then the hunters restart the process again.
What many people ignore about the whole hunter / gatherer lifestyle is the amount of hunger and starvation that goes along with it. Just because someone says they are a full time hunter … doesn’t always mean that they are capable of going into the wilderness, finding an animal, killing it and eating it that day. It is all dependent on luck and if the resources are available at the time … and that can change due to weather, timing, seasons, cycles and a dozen other things. Before the modern era, my parents had stories of starvation and famine happening here in northern Ontario 70/80 years ago.
There’s a reason why human evolution moved into the agricultural revolution because it was a more stable food source for everyone.
Hunting and gathering is always glorified as the epitome of apex human activity … but no one ever counts the millions and millions of hunter/gatherers that died along the way because they were just unlucky and couldn’t find enough food.
True … but even African hunters in the hot weather aren’t tracking and running down prey every hour of the day every day … hunting animals, especially large animals is a one time event. It’s done once, provides a big source of food, the food gets processed, hopefully preserved for a while and it nourishes people for a period of time, usually several days or even weeks … then the hunters restart the process again.
What many people ignore about the whole hunter / gatherer lifestyle is the amount of hunger and starvation that goes along with it. Just because someone says they are a full time hunter … doesn’t always mean that they are capable of going into the wilderness, finding an animal, killing it and eating it that day. It is all dependent on luck and if the resources are available at the time … and that can change due to weather, timing, seasons, cycles and a dozen other things. Before the modern era, my parents had stories of starvation and famine happening here in northern Ontario 70/80 years ago.
There’s a reason why human evolution moved into the agricultural revolution because it was a more stable food source for everyone.
Hunting and gathering is always glorified as the epitome of apex human activity … but no one ever counts the millions and millions of hunter/gatherers that died along the way because they were just unlucky and couldn’t find enough food.