Advantage of hunters and gatherers over agriculture?

Question

What is the advantage that hunters and gatherers have that agriculture societies don't have?

Answer 1

I have the same question for my global hw. I won't find it surprising that you read Jared Diamond's article.

Hunter gatherers achieve a balance between means and ends by wanting little. In our society, we create scarcity by generating infinite wants. Hunter gatherers also spend less time gathering food. Comparing to working, they only spend three to four hours a day to collect food. Hunter gatherers are also strong believers of egalitarianism. They do not have social classes. Over all, hunter gatherers live a better and more prosperous life.

On the other hand agriculture was the cause for all the inequality, disease, and tyranny in this world. One evidence proved that there was a dramatic height difference between the hunter-gatherers and the farmers. Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was 5’9” for men and 5’5” for women. However, after agriculture had developed, men averaged about 5’3” and 5’ for women. Agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. Besides disease and health, agriculture also promoted social inequality. Hunter gatherers have little or no stored food, live off the wild plants and animals they obtain. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could healthy, non-producing elite set itself above the others. Farming also encourages sexual inequality. Women were often made beasts of burden. I think that the piece citing about disease was the most convincing piece. I believe that epidemics tend spread faster in a crowded society than in a family.

Answer 2

There are virtually no advantages of hunting and gathering over agriculture.  The life span of hunter gatherers is shorter because they are constantly subject to harsh weather and hunting conditions that lead to premature aging.  They do indeed have class structures and human history tells us women were usually at the bottom of the class system due to likelihood that they were not directly involved in killing game for meat.  Survival depends on ability of hunters to feed the group.  Hunter gatherers cannot stay in one place for long because once the game, berries and fruit are depleted they must move on.  Anthropologists excavating such sites have revealed they left garbage piles of broken pottery, broken arrowheads and other crude tools behind when they moved on.  They spent the majority of their time living from hand to mouth trying to keep their bellies full.  The great discoveries that led to modern inventions and conveniences we now enjoy happened because agriculture allowed greater ability to trade goods with others which enriched everyone's life.  The more goods one could trade, the more money and goods one could acquire.  The harsh life of hunter gatherers gave way to civilized societies where fewer people died at such a young age and science flourished, including medical science and discoveries regarding how unclean living conditions lead to illness.  Contrary to other answers given to your question, agriculture led to more leisure time to pursue education, art and travel.  Life span of people has nearly doubled from the days of hunter gatherers because they need not live from hand to mouth suffering feast or famine conditions.  Sorry, but there are no realistic advantages to hunting and gathering compared with agricultural societies.  They had their own forms of pollution, including outhouse conditions that led to illness and contamination of water. They had to keep moving after killing all the game, eating all food that could be gathered, burning all the wood in an area, and polluting an area with sewage.  Hunting with a spear involves killing animals while risking your life, gutting out the animal, using animal carcass parts like skin, fur and sinew to hand make clothing and shelter to stay warm in winter, and is very harsh.  If you are seriously injured and everyone else is too busy hunting and gathering to take care of you, you will die unless you can manage to feed and clothe yourself in spite or rain, freezing temperatures, and hungry carnivorus animals that want to make you their supper.

Answer 3

Listen to Lady Lgi, she knows what she is talking about.  I think Mr. Diamond is as full of it as a Thanksgiving Turkey.

Answer 4

They are different ways to do the same things.  However, agricultural societies are sedentary and that is required in order to build infrastructure like hospitals.  Being sedentary also causes problems though becuase sedentary populations can't just pick up and move in dangerous weather or war.  Hunter gathers (and pastoralists, for that matter) might have a hard time surviving in an extreme change of location but sedentary populations would have to start over entirely.  Also, there are 'modern' ways to be hunter-gatherers besides the semi-sedentary Inuit - the Romany are one example.  We don't really think of them as hunter-gatherers because they don't live in jungles or tundras and they eat food like the larger society.

Answer 5

Hunter gatherer societies can move whenever weather, food or other conditions don't suit them.