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Why did so many of the the Indian tribes of North America not get beyond the hunter-gatherer stage? My guess would be that they did not really need to because they could meet their needs quite well with their nomadic lifestyle. I have always thought that societies only went to sedentary farming and herding because of population pressure. It makes sense in the Fertile Crescent to settle because of the sparsity of arable land, but in a place like the Russian Steppe or North America a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle seems to make more sense. You could even say that from an ecological perspective nomadism is more sustainable than sedentary farming because constant movement reduces the risk of depleting the stock of game animals and seasonal plant food sources. Maybe that is the origin of the noble savage myth?
I'd be interested in hearing the answer as well. Nobody answered me the last time I asked this question. 🙁
Generally the invention (or discovery, depending on your POV) of agriculture is required for the transition to urban life but also must produce a surplus to get there. The idea that the geographic setting allowed H-G society to remain is pretty solid in most cases; one of my old history profs proposed that the California Indians didn't have strict rules (mostly) nor many hassles internally because the landscape was so forgiving (in most areas)… food falling out of the trees and clogging up the streams. The environment didn't require much and they lived down to the requirements.H-G appears to be a sustainable way to make a living but it is, in reality, more reactionary. Consider the plains Indians living off the buffalo; what do you do when your food source moves 50 miles down the road? Move or starve. Could be the source of the Noble-Savage myth though, who knows.I really don't want to sound like an environmental determinist but the idea that our setting will influence how we make our living in that area has been pretty well established. The wild-cards are technology level and group psychology. Big nod here to the geographic theme of human-environmental interaction.
Many Indian tribes in North America did farm prior to the arrival of the Europeans. In New York they hada mixed bag of tricks--farming, hunting, gathering all combined. In other parts corn was the main crop and in the southwest quite complex societies were built upon it along with rituals to placate the gods for rain and good crops.The Nobel Savage myth so beloved by French Philosophes, critics of their own culture, had origins among thevarious tribes of North America with which the French had come into contact. This was enhanced when CaptainCook's expedition brought back the astounding information of the apparently marvelous and innocentsocieties he found among the Polynesians in the Pacific. In both cases the Europeans saw, but did not understand. In New York State the Iroquois were among the most politically advanced native tribes on thecontinent and the most savage in combat. Torture of unimaginable intensity was regularly used as a testof manhood and if they were really upset with you they turned you over to the women! The Polynesians weresimilar. Behind the wonderful stage setting of wahines and dancing and feasting all without much work, lie a darker side which involved an almost RC level of ritual and included human sacrifice and a society based onrigid stratification. Read-- Brave New World by Huxley for a oblique take on the Nobel Savage myth--it willshock you.
Does population density play no role? I have heard some fairly low numbers for North American paopulation prior to colonization. I think the high end is around 10 million and the lowest number I have heard is around 3 million total for North America. I am talking more about the plains indians here. They hung on to Nomadism much longer than the tribes in the Northeast, even when they saw that the land could be much more productive when farmed. I almost get the impression they stayed nomadic after colonization out of spite.
Was it not the horse that altered the whole way of life for the plains Indians. Once they had it farming wasjust plain silly as they could chase catch and kill the millions of Bison roaming the plains. I read one time that it must have been a glorious time for them doing many things--warfare--hunting--counting coup and generalwhooping it up. Why be a farmer when such fun is available and the women do the scut work?
The buffalo cultures were that before the introduction of the horse… it just took them longer to catch up to the herds and they were less selective in their hunting pattern, running the whole herd over a cliff and taking what they wanted. The mobility issue is a key though, had they not had the horse when farming became a better option they'd likely have been more receptive.As Wily mentioned many tribe (NE for example) mixed Ag with H-G; this drives home the point about environment having a large play in all this. Up until the arrival of the Europeans vast reaches of the east were basically orchards... doesn't take much farming ability to cut down the trees you can't get anything good to eat from to let the others grow better. Corn is and beans are pretty easy to grow... witness the slash and burn Ag patterns that survive even today.No the thing that sells it for Ag is the ability to produce surplus food that can be stored... until the group has the technology and desire to do that they'll be H-G or practice transhumance.
Didn't they not have horses until the Spanish came?
NOPENative American horse died out--probably eaten
I don't know about that, willySee here for example.
I do not know (gnosis) either, but I was taught and I have read that we had a hand in the extinction.Horses (Equus)continued to evolve and develop for another six million years after Pliohippus and became very successful, spreading throughout North America. At some point some of them crossed into the Old World via the Arctic-Asia land bridge. Then, suddenly, no one is absolutely certain why, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, Equus disappeared from North and South America. Various theories have been advanced including destruction by drought, disease, or extinction as a result of hunting by growing human populations. At any rate, the horse was gone from the western hemiphere. The submergence of the Bering land bridge prevented any return migration from the Old World or Asia, and the horse was not seen again on its native continent until the Spanish explorers brought horses by ship in the sixteenth century.Hypotheses rule!
We are exploring hypotheses–usually a very productive way of pointing the way to truth–or–using horse sense if you will–whatever that ever meant?
As I understand it:1) Ski asked,"Didn't they not have horses?" They had no horses until the Spanish, see below.2) Your contention seems, to me at least, to be that horses were extinct by 10K and 8K ago until reintroducced by the Spanish. This is true based the paleontological evidence.3) The article Ski provided states:
from article:"...horses had become extinct, probably during the Paleo-Indian period around 10,000 years ago. Early horse species were decimated by climatic changes and vanished completely from North America....."Soon after they discovered America, the Spanish reintroduced horses to the continent. The Spanish horses were from the finest strains and were regarded as the foremost breed in Europe. They were prized by plains Indians. ...."
Let's review: horses totally cacked about 8000 BC, or so, in NAm; just after Columbus sailed the Ocean blue, Izzy and Ferdy's boys brought the horsey back to the New (to them, if not the horsey) World... much to the delight of the folks on the plains that were, by now pretty tired of legging it after the buffalo (Bison bison not Syncerus caffer, Bubalus bubalis, any other species of Bubalus, nor Bison bonasus). You're both saying the same thing. At least that's what I'm hearing. 8)
Thank Indigenous People for the Food We EatBy Alexis Baden-Mayer & Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association, November 26, 2009"75% OF THE WORLD'S FOODSeventy-five percent of the food of fiber we grow today was discovered and cultivated by the native farmers and hunter-gatherers of North, Central and South America. These indigenous varieties include corn, beans, peanuts, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, avocadoes, blueberries, cranberries, stawberries, squashes, black walnuts, pecans, chocolate, tobacco, rubber, sunflowers, and medicinal herbs and plants.The Milpa Agroecosystem and Its 20,000 Varieties of CornFew regions in the world have an organic farming system as sustainable and productive as the traditional milpa or "three sisters" organic corn fields of Mexico and Central America. In fact, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization describes it as "the most evolved farming system in the world." It creates relatively large yields of food crops without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers, and is self-sustaining."
