Sunday, November 16, 2014

                                 How cooking frees men


   1) How did cooking of food allow our ancestors to restructure the working day?
    - Cooking food has allowed our ancestors as well as all human beings to restructure our working day as if we wouldn’t cook and rather consume food raw, which meant chewing it for more than 5 hours a day. Cooking makes the food very soft to swallow and chew so it basically gives us a lot of free time.

    2) What is the sexual division of labor and why does its evolution center on hunter-gatherers?
    - Sexual division of labor means working according to their own gender. 
    Example-in the Kung  society men were hunters and female were gatherers. Women’s were in    charge of gathering different fruits, nuts in the other hand men were in charge of hunting animals. The women’s never go hunting or the men do not go gathering. 


      3) What are the two major features of the sexual division of labor represented by Hadza?
       -The two main features are :
1) The male and female hunt (male) and gather (female) on their own.
2) When they return back from hunting and gathering they share what they have collected with each other

4) How has the division of labor by sex been thought to have affected the society as a whole?
  - They division of labor by sex has affected in different ways as it has promoted strong relationship bond within the family as they share all they have collected with each other but it has also raised questions such as: which of the sexes manage to serve more calories of food to the hunter-gatherers family. People used to believed that the females were the ones who were able to gather more calories of food each day than the men among the Hadza tribe, since the males were sometimes unable tot track and kill animals. However, researches showed that among other tribes, the males were the ones who would serve up more calories of food. This was true particularly in cold regions where edible plants were rare and hunting was the main option for food.

      5) Why does the author believe that cooking food was an essential factor in allowing for the     sexual division of labor?
 - Cooking food had solved the chewing problem and gave people a lot of free time rather than chewing raw food for many hours. This gave the men opportunity to hunt for longer time and eat cooked meals right after they come back. Women can now have their meals prepared with fire and share it with her husband when he returns back form hunting. Cooking food has made life simpler for the Hadza and all the tribes. It has also made a strong bond between different sexes by sharing food. 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014


                                   PATTERNS OF SUBSISTENCE 

Foraging

It is the most ancient of human subsistence that had started 10,000 years ago. It is the method of acquiring food through hunting and gathering. They use only one domesticated animal that is dog.

1) Equestrian (hunting on horseback)
2) Pedestrian (hunting on foot)
3) Aquatic (hunting on boats)

Pastoralism

It is the raising and caring of farm animals like goat, horses, and sheep. All the animals being raised are herbivorous. Owning large herds are symbol of wealth. They only do small scale of farming.

1) Nomadism: they are very independent and have no permanent location to live.

2) Transhumance: the change their location according to the seasons.


Horticulture

It is farming which is done in small scale of domesticated food plants. Some horticulturalists are not only farmers they even produce, sell and exchange in local market. Horticulturalist migrate form one place to another in search of more fertile land and adequate resource of water. They do not use fertilizers, pesticides and mechanical items. 


Intensive agriculture

It began 5000 years ago. It is farming which done in large scale. The use of fertilizer, pesticide and mechanical items are used. The development of intensive farming methods became necessary as the human population grew in some major river valleys to levels beyond the carrying capacity of the environment using horticulture and pastoralism