AN101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Pastoralism
Document Summary
Adaptation is both a physical process and a social process. The manner in which different groups and societies adapt to their environment is referred to as their subsistence round, or their mode of production. Human groups have adapted to a wide variety of environments and practise an equally wide variety of ways to make a living. Foraging, which includes hunting, gathering, and fishing, is one of the oldest adaptations of humanity and requires a set of social structures that are compatible to mobile societies. Horticulture is almost as old as foraging and was the first adaptive strategy of humans; it relied on the domestication of plants. This adaptive strategy required settling down and building villages, which in turn required social adaptation. The adaptive strategy a human group chooses has a profound impact on its social adaptation, the enactment of rules and norms, and the form of social order.
