Lesson 6: Subsistence systems

A complex of ideas, activities, and technologies that enable people to survive and even thrive.

A system, or a functioning whole, composed of both the natural environment and all the organisms living within it.

Culture change over time; not to be confused with progress.

The notion that humans are moving forward to a better, more advanced stage in their cultural development toward perfection.

In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples whose ancestral cultures were already somewhat alike.

In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditionsby peoples whose ancestral cultures were already somewhat alike.

A geographic region in which a number of societies follow similar patterns of life.

Cultural features that are fundamental in the society's way of making its living--including food-producing techniques, knowledge of available resources, and work arrangements involved in applying those techniques to the local environment.

Hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods.

The number of people that the available resources can support at a given level of food-getting techniques.

The number and intensity of interactions among the members of a camp.

The new stone age; prehistoric period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which peoples possessed stone-based technologies and depended on domesticated plants and/or animals.

The profound culture change beginning about 10,000 years ago and associated with the early domestications of plants and animals, and settlement in permanent villages. Sometimes referred to as Neolithic revolution.

The cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.

An extensive form of horticulture in which the natural vegetation is cut, the slash is subsequently burned, and crops are then planted among the ashes; also known as sweden farming.

The cultivation of food plants in soils prepared and maintained for crop production. Involves using technologies other than hand tools, such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the wooden or metal plow pulled by harnessed draft animals.

Breeding and managing large herds of domesticated grazing animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle, horses, llamas, or camels.

A rural cultivator whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers that uses the surpluses both to underwrite its own standard of living and to distribute the remainder to groups in society that do not farm but must be fed for their specific goods and services in turn.