Southern Scandinavian Hunters And Gatherers Essay, Research Paper
To discuss how the environment may have affected the subsistence and social organization of the late Hunter-Gatherer communities of Southern Scandinavian you must take in affect the Basic Evidence. This form of Basic Evidence consists of such topics, as were the hunters and gatherers were settled, also what was the type of environment around them. You also have to take in effect were the resources where in their environment and finally what was the number of hunter and gatherers that, that environment and those resources had to support. All this will be briefly answered and briefly explained.
When you talk about the settlement of a hunter-gatherer group or a type of tribe you could be talking about many settlements with in the same area because of the need of certain resources in an environment full of growth and prosperity. A settlement of a hunter-gatherer would most likely at that time of Erteb?lle Culture around 4,000 B.C. and would be consisted of some type resourceful sources of freshwater, like lakes or streams. Also that settlement of area would have to accommodate many types of animals in many different types of seasons, due to the fact that not many if any types or methods of storage of food over a long period of time were known during this time. This settlement of area would also have to accommodate many types of nuts, berries, fruit and birds. The problem of storing food does fluctuate from settlement to settlement; so different groups of hunter-gatherers may have had different advantages over their neighbors. Freshwater sources would also have to have abundant sources of fish and that the hunter-gatherer would have to have the knowledge of many than one type of fishing during many seasons. An example is if there were to be an ice patch over the source of water during certain winter months. Still the prize of many hunters and gatherers were the large game, such as deer, elk and roe, which would bring meat for food, skins for clothes and warmth and bones and antlers for tools and weapons. Hunters and gatherers would stay in a certain or specific area for as long as that areas resources could sustain their number of people for many seasons.
With this type of settlement in staying in one area comes few to many problem of, if that environments resources can stand up to demands of a hunter-gatherer society of growth, possible war, and seasonal changes in needs. For example if an hunter-gatherer group grows in numbers in a short time, the question arises will their be enough food for the whole group to survive over possible changes season to season and if another settlement of hunter-gatherer moves in close to the previous group. And if so will that settlement be able to keep providing for that group of expanding population. If that area cannot with hold the expansion of population than the hunter-gatherer has one other option. First they can expand their boundaries of their settlement area. This may cause war against their neighbors if there are any. Or second that hunter-gatherer can maybe split their numbers to survive, with one group leaving and the other stay. Another problem that could happen today and definitely back than was the possibility of one or more types of diseases or any other natural problem the big game, fish, or vegetation starts to reduce in population and plentiful ness. Than this also could cause war within maybe the same group of hunter-gatherer or between neighboring tribes.
Another positive thought is if the hunter-gatherer finds any way to store food for the future than this can play a huge effect in the preserving a growing population and also maybe the possible war not a curing. Also what could be on the good side of the hunter-gatherer is that if they learn to develop methods and ways and also types of tools to grow any type of vegetation. These two are huge advantages for any population of people anywhere at this time in history. This also could cause problems of just being limited to one area and that means than the men of the tribe may have to go out to look for game, that means those men will be gone for maybe days. This alone causes problems if another neighbor attacks that hunter-gatherer tribe while they are men are away, that alone can be disastrous. With the development of learning how to create and lay traps of some sort and be set and left, this would mean that those men did not have to go out on hunting parties to catch their needs.
With the advancement of certain technology such as storage of food, methods of trap setting, to new types of tools for agriculture and also new weapons for hunting and protecting ones tribe. With this technology the tribe could have more time on their hands to figure out even more technology and have more time for the family and community. Also with this technology there had to be some sort organization among a hunter-gatherer tribe. This meant that the possibility of social classes and gender roles could and would be started. This is shown in example of how certain graves were found with certain items for the age of the ones in the graves.
Through the Basic Evidence and knowledge of the late hunter-gatherer found by many archaeologist around the world it is easier for us non-archaeologist to find and understand were we came from. Through this understanding of their social organization and the environment they lived to the understand what their resources were we can almost come to a close in, what were their lives like and how us humans now developed from those than.