Anthropology 1025F/G Lecture : The Meaning of Progress and Development.docx
15 Apr 2012
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Document Summary
10,000 years ago, all human beings lived in small-scale, nomadic groups. There were between 30 and 100 people in each group, living by hunting, gathering, and fishing. There was a high yield of food relative to the labour expended. Had an informal and flexible political organization. Lived in kinship groups, cooperated, shared their food. Distinctions based only on sex and age. Over time they began to plant crops and domesticate wild animals. They became sedentary or lived in semi-permanent buildings. Lived in larger groups (200-2000 people), practiced swidden agriculture. Sedentary villages emerged comprised of several bands living together. Clans consisting of several groups claimed descent from a common ancestor. Over time, settlements combined forming state societies with populations in the thousands. Population land techniques the plow and irrigation agriculture increase and scarcity of led to new agricultural. Labour management became necessary to construct public works (roads, defense fortifications, religious structures, armies) Society became more complex, and leadership became hereditary (pharaohs)
