handout 3

• During the Paleolithic Period, which lasted from the beginnings of human life until about 10,000 BCE, people were nomads
• Subsistence strategies of hunting and gathering societies

  • Hunting or trapping wild animals
  • Fishing
  • Gathering shellfish, insects, and wild plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, tubers, seeds, and nuts
• They move from one place to another in search for new food supplies, eat a large kill, because of seasonal changes and conflict within the group
• Kin groups in hunting and gathering societies

  • Nuclear families
  • Extended families
• Economic institutions are not very complex in hunting and gathering societies
• The work was divided between men and women; men hunting game animals and women gathering fruits, berries, and other edibles
• Human beings lived in this manner from earliest times until about 10,000 BCE when they started to cultivate crops and domesticate animals
• Primitive nature of political system in hunting and gathering societies
• Animism


  Belief that spirits inhabit virtually everything in the world of nature
• Socialization of the young is largely an informal process that stresses independence in which children learn both through their play and through observing and imitating their elders
• About 10,000 BCE, two types of societies developed: horticultural and pastoral
• Characteristics of horticultural societies

  • Less nomadic
  • Able to keep growing crops in the same location for some time
  • Produce surplus food that allows trade
• Characteristics of pastoral societies

  • Somewhat nomadic to find better grazing land
  • Produce surplus food from animals that allows trade
• Accompanying the greater complexity and wealth of horticultural and pastoral societies is greater inequality in terms of gender and wealth than in former societies
• Societies were usually run by a Council of Elders composed of the heads of the villages' various families
• Early social class divisions developed in horticultural and pastoral societies as a result of some men gaining stature as great warriors
• Agricultural societies developed some 5,000 years ago in the Middle East through the invention of the plow
• Agricultural societies produce so much food that they often become quite large, with their numbers sometimes reaching into the millions
• Greater size and inequality in agricultural societies produce more internal and external conflict
• Gender inequality became very pronounced in agricultural societies
• Industrial society emerged in the 1700s as the development of machines and then factories replaced the plow and other agricultural equipment as the primary mode of production
• Positive impacts of industrial society

  • Improved people's health and expanded their life spans
  • Greater emphasis on individualism
  • Greater political freedom
  • Lower economic and gender inequality
• Negative impacts of industrial society

  • Rise and growth of large cities and concentrated poverty
  • Urbanization changed the character of social life
  • Riots and urban violence
  • Unprecedented resource consumption, pollution, and nuclear arsenals
• Gemeinschaft societies


  Consist primarily of villages in which everyone knows everyone else. Relationships are life-long and based on kinship.
• Gesellschaft societies


  Modernized. People have little in common with one another, and relationships are short term and based on self-interest with little concern for the well-being of others.
• Biological evolution


  Changes, modifications, and variations in the genetics and inherited traits of biological populations from one generation to another
• Natural selection


  The outcome of a process that affects the frequencies of traits in a particular environment. Traits that enhance survival and reproductive success increase in frequency over time.
• Principles of natural selection

  • Every species is made up of a variety of individuals wherein some are better adapted to their environment compared to others
  • Organisms produce progeny with different sets of traits that can be inherited
  • Organisms that have most suitable to their environment will survive and transfer these variations to their offspring in subsequent generations
• Cultural evolution or sociocultural evolution


  The changes or development in cultures from a simple form to a more complex form of human culture
• Sociocultural evolution


  Happens as a result of human adaptation to different factors like climatic changes and population increase
• Post-industrial society emerged with the information age, as wireless technology and service jobs replaced machines and manufacturing jobs as the primary dimension of the economy
• The advent of the information age transformed western societies in many unexpected ways, reducing the need for human labor and shifting the workplace from cities to homes
• Levels of development


  • Hunting and Gathering Societies
  • Horticultural and Pastoral Societies
  • Agricultural Societies
  • Industrial Societies
  • Post Industrial Societies
• Hunting and Gathering Societies

  • Produce simple forms of tools used to hunt for animals and gather plants and vegetation for food
  • Rely on nature for their food, frequently move and did not have permanent settlements
  • Family is the basic unit
  • Have a shaman or priest who acts as a leader
  • Believe that spirits live in the world
• Horticultural Societies


  • Semisedentary, subsist through small-scale farming, produce and use simple forms of hand tools to plant crops
• Pastoral Societies


  • Principal means of subsistence is animal domestication, classified as animal herders, subsist based on the resources provided by their animals, engaged in small-scale trading with other groups
• Agricultural Societies


  • Cultivate wheat, barley, peas, rice, and millet, domesticate animals, develop and improve farming technology, produce a surplus of food supply, use animal-powered wagons, use money as a form of exchange replacing the barter system
• Industrial Societies


  • New sources of energy were harnessed, advanced forms of technology were applied, types of machinery were invented, led to the industrialization of the transformation of agricultural society into production and manufacturing
• Post Industrial Societies


  • Development of information technology and computers, economic production focused on the use and application of new information technology rather than factories, production centers on computers and other electronic devices that create, process, and apply ideas and information
• Four Major Civilizations


  • The Sumerian civilization that developed along Tigris and Euphrates River in West Asia
  • Indus Valley civilization that started along the Indus River Valley in India
  • Shang civilization of China that developed near the Huang Hi/ Huang He River
  • Egyptian civilization that started along the Nile River