If hunting and gathering requires the lowest energy input, then why aren't there more hunter-gatherers in the

Question

If hunting and gathering requires the lowest energy input, then why aren't there more hunter-gatherers in the world?

Answer 1

Hunting and gathering does require a h**l of a lot less energy than agriculture.  Modern hunter/gatherers usually only have to work about 20 hours a week, according to anthropologists' calculations, and those guys tend to be in less fertile areas, like deserts and jungles.  It must've been a lot easier in, like, Ireland, back in the day.

The problem with h/g is that you don't get a lot of food.  The carrying capacity for land varies, of course, but you can generally feed a lot more people in a square mile by farming it.  Cities weren't developed until agriculture was.  People were able to settle somewhat, maybe moving between summer and winter camps, but the population densities had to stay relatively small so that they wouldn't overgraze the land.  As humans grew more and more numerous, we began to farm more and more.  This wasn't an overnight thing, gathering one day and making a garden the next.  It probably took a bit to make the transition.  But as it grew harder to find the good stuff, people would plant more things.  Eventually, planted crops made up the majority of our food, with only some things still being gathered today (truffles, ramp, wild berries, and stuff like that).

Answer 2

Well I'm not an anthropologist so I don't know if you are referring to any specific research but I would guess the answer is a simple "it doesn't".

Hunting down your food, tracking your prey for hours to then get enough food to feed your family, and an unsuccessfully hunt would lead them starving. and tracking for hours to find sources of naturally growing food would, I would imagine, take far more energy then leading the cows that you have locked up in your field into your slaughter house, or picking the crops you have all grown conveniently in the same place, or just walking down to Tescos and allowing someone else to do it.

Farming techniques were developed in the first place to save time and energy with a far more efficient, economic and successfully system, so that one man can produce MUCH more food with much less energy.