Some anthropologists study

Another term for a forager is a gatherer. In ancient times, before humans practiced agriculture, they got their food by two means--by hunting and by gathering (which can be called foraging), and so are often referred to as hunter-gatherers. The term gather is much more commonly used by anthropologists and ethnologists than forage, but they essentially mean the same thing in this context.

There are small groups of people in the world today who still rely upon hunting and gathering, or foraging if you prefer, to feed themselves. The paragraph is saying that modern anthropologists study such groups to learn how ancient hunter-gatherers may have lived. It also says that this won't work, because modern hunter-gatherers have been exposed to post-technological people. I find that a doubtful proposition, if the hunter-gatherers still rely exclusively upon their environment for their food.

The verb tense used in "has had" is the past perfect. I suggest that you should search online for verb tenses (if you do not ordinarily search in the English language, convert to English before you search), or at least search for "past perfect."

Foraging for wild plants and hunting wild animals is the most ancient of human subsistence patterns. Prior to 10,000 years ago, all people lived in this way.

Nowadays there are only a few surviving foraging societies of people. North American Eskimos, Australian Aborigines, and the Pigmy and San peoples of Africa are among them. These are the "modern-day" foraging societies.

"Has had" is the present perfect simple tense. This is formed by combining have/has with the main verb's past participle form: I have arrived, you have seen, it has had.

see these two lines below..

they say ,

societies are extremely varied ...whats that ? varied in which sense ? economically ? or what sense ?

considerable contact with modern, non-forager societies

non-forager societies ? that means our societies ...right ?

they said contact ...ummmm....thinking ...whats that ...what kind of contact Eskimos has had with us ?


contrex,
>Foraging for wild plants ...did you meant gather here too




poeple dont gather wild plants ..not sure if u meant something else

Forager societies are extremely varied--and the implied meaning is that such societies differ greatly from one place to another, and that the differences (the variations) arise from the plant sources upon which they forage. Either this is to be understood from context you have not provided us, or the text assumes a certain sophistication in the readers understanding of "forager" societies. (Once again, the common term is hunter-gatherer societies, and, once again, forager and gatherer are interchangeable terms in this context.)

Yes, non-forager societies refers to "our" societies. It is a rather imprecise term, and very likely refers to industrial societies, although it could as easily refer to agricultural societies which are nevertheless pre-industrial. As is so often the case in such texts, the author assumes a certain sophistication of understanding on the part of the reader.

I objected earlier to the contention that contact with industrial societies would have any significant impact on a hunter-gatherer society in terms of its usefulness in a study of the habits and behavior patterns to a hunter-gatherer, or a "forager" society. My objection arises from an assumption on my part that an anthropologist who is sufficiently intelligent to make a useful effort in such a study would be sufficiently intelligent not to study a hunter-gatherer society which receives food from an industrial society source, or whose environment has been irrevocably altered by industrial society. The tribal people of the Kalahari Desert would be an example of a tribal society which has had contact with industrial society, but which remains wholely dependent upon the resources of an environment which has not been altered by industrial society. There are certain tribes in Papua-New Guinea which would also meet such a criterion.

People do gather wild plants. Why do you say that?

Yes they do--that is what foraging means, in this context.

They had contact when members of our society arrived in their lands.

Eskimos (or, rather, Inuit, as they refer to themselves--Eskimo is derived from an insulting term applied to them by Amerindians) would not be a good source for such a study. They have been trading with the Hudson's Bay Company literally for centuries, their environment has been irrevocably changed by the effects of industrialization, they receive both monetary and in-kind welfare payments from the Canadian or American governments, and they use the products of industrial society to hunt (steel hooks and spear points, rifles, outboard motors, etc.). Eskimos of the Thule culture also don't apply because they hunt, but they don't gather, they don't forage--they did not use vegetable or fruit sources of nutrition until they began getting hand-outs from industrial societies. The Dorset culture Eskimos did do some limited foraging, but they disappeared centuries ago.

The arrival of people from industrial societies will not axiomatically alter the life style of hunter-gatherers, although hunter-gatherers are usually displaced and marginalized as industrial societies take over their land, so it is almost always true. The people of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, and the people in the remote valleys of Papua-New Guinea have remained largely untouched in their cultures by contact with industrial societies--although i suspect that that will not last for very long.

you told



i guess here , gathering means ...gathering foods ..may be fruits from trees or some how ..by some other means they gather and keep in the repository.

but gathering wild plants what purpose ?, i may misunderstood here .

can you please tell me examples of such wild plants which POSSIBLY they could gather ?? that could ease the whole thing

First, treat the words gather and forage as interchangeable--they mean the same thing in this context.

Wild plants that people gather include fruits and berries, tubers and other root plants (carrots and potatoes are, respectively, a root plant and a tuber which have been domesticated, and which were once wild plants gathered by primitive societies). Wild grasses are also gathered or foraged both for the seed grains and for using the stalks in weaving. Nuts from trees are another example of an extremely important plant food source which primitive societies gather. Nuts in particular because they provide important nutrients (notably potassium), and they provide fat, crucial in temperate and sub-arctic regions, and will keep for long periods of time without spoiling.

I suggest that you do a search for "emmer," "einkorn" and "spelt," all of which are (or once were) wild grasses which primitive people gathered for the grain they produce. Emmer was especially important in the middle east, and Israeli anthropologists have found emmer in midden heaps (basically, a midden is a community trash pile) which they have dated to nearly 20,000 years ago. People used grass grains such as emmer or spelt literally thousands of years before they became agricultural and began to plant grain plants such as wheat. I used to think that wheat was derived from emmer, but i don't recall the source for that, and am uncertain if i were correct about that.

OK, here we have a basic problem of comprehension and definition. If you gather fruit or nuts from trees, and no one planted the trees, you are gathering from wild plants. A tree which occurs naturally (and at one time, all trees occurred naturally) is a wild plant. It doesn't become a domesticated plant until it is planted by someone.

Are you talking about human or animal foragers?

Animals forage for food by leaving the nest, gathering the food, and return to the nest with food for the young. These are the collectors/foragers.

Today, human foragers are small bands of people who move from one area to another, seek jobs or free commodities, and then move on. In the USA, we MAY call them "gypsies.' They often scam the elderly with offers of low-cost work, such as roofing or driveway sealcoating services, which turn out to be bogus.

There are also bands of people who are constantly traveling around the country. They use free humanitarian services in larger cities that offer the homeless free meals and overnight stays, and them move on. They used to be called "hobos."

How's the weather out there in left field, Sully?

Just offering up some "urban forager" stories, while tintin studies for the GMAT - (that question is one on the test)