Hunting Gathering and Pastoral mode

1. WELCOME

2. Four Modes of
Resource Use
Source: Madhav Gadgil and
Ramachanra Guha, This
Fissured Land: An Ecological
History of India

3.  From the long sweep of human history, we
can distil four distinct mode of resource use
1. Hunting- Gathering
2. Pastoralism
3. Settled Cultivation
4. Industrial mode

4. Characterisitcs of each mode
To be studied
 Aspects of technology
 Aspects of economy
 Aspects of social organization
 Aspects of ideology
 Nature of ecological impact

5. Hunting-Gathering- Technology
 Largest period of human history was spend within the
hunting- gathering mode of resource use
 Period in which hunting and gathering were main stay
of subsistence
 In this mode societies depend largely on human muscle
power
 They also depend on naturally available plants,
animals, stones etc. to fulfill their material requirements
 The ability to store food and materials is limited as is
the ability to transport materials over long distances

6.  The diversity of plant and animal matter consumed
from the social groups immediate surroundings is high
 But actual variety of resources used altogether is small,
while the quantities consumed are restricted to
subsistence needs
 Hunting societies respond to variations in the resource
availability by fine tuned adaptations to local conditions
 In the harsher environment, they subsist as nomadic
bands, in the more suitable environments, they exist as
tribal groups confined to small territories

7. Social organization
 The sizes of social groups are small; kin groups of the order of a
few hundreds.
 There were hardly an transactions outside such groups
 Division of labour within these group is also minimal primarily
based on age and sex
 Women mainly involved in gathering plant foods and smaller
animals and men in hunting larger animals
 In gathering mode, there is little variation among members of a
group in terms of access to resources
 Notion of private property was not developed
 Kinship based organization might have broken up only when
gatherers came into contact with people who work within more
advanced modes of resource use

8. Economy
 Flow of resources are largely closed on spatial
scales.
 While there may be some flow of materials like
stone tools or shells over larger distances , they
are rather insignificant when compared to food
and other resources utilized by man
 So the demand on the resource base may be
small compared to the overall availability
 In course of time, technological innovations like
bow and arrow opened up a new range of species
to prey upon.

9. Ideology
 To gatherers, with their limited knowledge base,
nature is beyond human control
 They regard human as merely part of a
community of beings that include all living- non
living elements
 They attribute sacred qualities to trees, rivers,
mountains etc.
 These ideologies of nature worship, are supported
by specific social practises which orient societies
in the gathering mode towards the prudent use of
nature

10. Ecological impact
 Gatherer societies with low population density
and low per capita resource demands number
of practices that promote sustainable
resource use.
 Though widespread extinction of large
mammalian species was a consequence of
human hunting, ecological impact was
minimal.

11. Pastoralism – Technology
 Domestication of animals coincided with the
withdrawal of glaciers 10000 years ago
 Climatic and changes in vegetation prompted
man to intensify resource use- initiate agriculture
and animal husbandry.
 The two process often gone in hand in hand
 Cultivation has been of greater significance in
tracts of moderate to high rainfall and temperature
 Animal husbandry in tracts of low rainfall and at
the higher altitudes

12.  Animal husbandry base in such tracts on
moving herds from place to place often over
several hundred kilometers
 Pastorals have access to animal muscle
power, an important additional source of
energy.
 Animals also serve as a source of food
 The period witnessed increasing flexibility in
the use of different habitats

13. Economy
 Nomadic pastorals were critical in creating flow of
resources over distance scales greater than those
on gatherer societies
 They also served as carriers of information about
resources of distant regions and technologies of
other societies
 They acquired resources from settled agricultural
societies in exchange for materials

14. Social set up
 Social groups remain limited to kin groups
 To a small extent, they came in contact with other
groups
 Division of labour is fairly limited. Women involved
in feeding, milking and tending animals whereas
men decided the migration routes and herd
animals while on the move
 In this mode, private property began to emerge
 Herds were owned by separate household but
pastoral lands were held in common.

15. Ideology
 Nomadic pastorals were the first societies to
perceive human communities as separate
from nature and therefore in a position to
dominate it.
 Unlike gatherers or settled cultivators, they
have little need to pacify nature.
 In the event of shortage, they move
themselves to more resource abundant area

16. Ecological impact
 Forcible extraction of resources controlled by settled
communities constitute a significant part of their
strategy of resource acquisition
 They were unlikely to evolve a strong tradition of
careful resource use.
 Pastorals also contributed to a gradual overgrazing and
expansion of arid regions
 Though at minimal level, they contributed to ecological
degradation through trade and diffusion of technology
over long distance and perhaps most importantly by
disseminating the belief in man’s control over nature.

17. THANK YOU