03 Handout

• Hunting and Gathering Society

  During the Paleolithic Period, people were nomads living in small societies of 20-30 members, depending primarily on wild food for subsistence through hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering
• Hunting and Gathering Society


  • Kin groups are nuclear and extended families
  • Economic institutions are not very complex
  • Combination of simple technology and nomadic way of life makes it impossible to accumulate many possessions
  • Work divided between men and women, men hunting and women gathering
• Political institutions


  Very rudimentary, no specialized political roles or authority, individuals restricted by social control like blood revenge, group pressure, ostracism, and fear of supernatural
• Socialization


  Largely informal process stressing independence, supplemented by formal initiation rites
• Animism


  Belief that spirits inhabit everything in the natural world
• Horticultural Society


  Use hoes and simple tools to raise crops, establish permanent settlements, division of labour between men and women with men taking the lead
• Pastoral Society


  Raise and herd domesticated animals as main food source and means of transport, often somewhat nomadic to find grazing land
• Horticultural and Pastoral Societies


  • Produce food surpluses allowing larger populations and trade
  • Greater inequality in gender and wealth compared to hunting/gathering
  • More conflict over land, animals, and resources
• Agricultural Society


  Developed 5,000 years ago with invention of plow, wheel, written language, and calendar, leading to large populations, extensive trade, and greater inequality
• Agricultural Society


  • Gender inequality more pronounced due to physical labour and need for large families
  • Conflict between rich landowners and peasants, as well as external conflict for trade and wealth
• Industrial Society


  Emerged in 1700s with development of machines and factories, replacing agriculture as primary mode of production
• Industrial Society


  • Technological advances improved health and life spans, greater individualism and political freedom, lower economic and gender inequality
  • Rise of large cities with concentrated poverty and urban violence
• Post-Industrial Society


  Information technology and service jobs replace machines and manufacturing as economic basis, requiring higher education
• Post-Industrial Society


  • Shift from cities to homes as new communications technology allows remote work
  • Potential to aggravate disparities between "haves" and "have-nots" as those without college education struggle to find employment
• Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft societies

  Gemeinschaft are village-based with life-long relationships based on kinship, Gesellschaft are modernized with short-term self-interested relationships
• Culture can be defined as the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.