Chapter 5
Chapter Summary
1. What is adaptation?
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. Other modes of adaptation are agriculture, which includes the domestication of
plants and animals, and pastoralism, which is the movement of domesticated herds and flocks on a
seasonal basis in search of pasture lands.
2. How do humans adapt?
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. These cultural patterns in turn affect the laws,
customs, and traditions of human societies, helping structure marriage, kinship, and legal syste
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