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Throughout human history, we have settled various landscapes such as desert landscapes, arctic landscapes, and temperate forest and grassland landscapes, during the Mesolithic however this was limited due to the process of migration and a distinct lack of agrarian settlements, Hunter-gatherers likely also shaped their environment but was probably mostly limited to locale areas or frequently visited locations. History has shown that Settled Humans have undoubtedly shaped the very landscapes that they have inhabited to optimize resource gathering. Agrarian civilization shaped landscapes the most drastically, for example, farmland would have to be built requiring irrigation and vegetation clearing; something that is especially prevalent in modern human civilization, this could show humans naturally geo-engineer landscapes likely suggesting hunter-gatherer civilizations also geo-engineer however likely in a limited fashion.
Archaeological evidence for Hunter-gatherers is rather limited in its scope, however, it is not lacking, settlements undoubtedly occurred, for example, Star Carr 1 a Mesolithic Hunter-gatherer village near Scarborough shows evidence for some of the oldest evidence of carpentry in Human civilizations. the cutting and clearing of woodland needed for the resources to build the village is a clear sign that hunter-gatherers directly affected the landscapes they inhabited. However this could be a natural effect of becoming a settled people, Flixton island 1 near the site at star Carr shows signs of human presence pre-dating the settled site at star Carr during the last ice age, this site shows evidence of Horse butchering, and flint tools, during a time of tundra in Britain it is very likely these earlier Hunter-gatherers were far more mobile, evidence for their impact on the environment is far more limited and they may have simply survived on the naturally occurring Animal migration tracks and wild fruits and berries with impact on the environment only occurring in the semi-settled Hunter-gatherers.
Hunter-Gatherer societies are likely far more complex than what was previously thought and so their impact on the landscapes is likely also underestimated and misunderstood, the site of Watson Bake 2 in Louisiana could be the oldest mound site in the entire USA and predates agriculture in the region, the site proves that large scale building previously believed to be exclusive to agrarian societies could also occur in Hunter-gatherer societies, Watson bakes likely operated as a large hub for the hunter-gatherers and acted as a place of consolidation of resources, the occupants likely had a complex society which while not agrarian likely had trade routes and possibly could have had all year occupation. The site of GÃbekli 3 Tepe in modern Turkey again shows evidence of major building construction occurring in a hunter-gatherer society 11,000 years ago, the site is also coincidentally the oldest known stone building constructed with human hands; this is clear evidence that humans would have exploited their environment thus changing it to acquire the resources needed to build such a large building.
Hunter-gatherer peoples are assumed to have used thousands of different types of plant species and, hundreds of different animal species. In many cases, the impact on the environment or natural systems was only slight or moderate, since population densities were low, and their use of the environment was dispersed. Populations were relatively small, and technology was Primitive, However, there was likely some minor domestication of local vegetation which could have led to a slight change in the environment such as domesticated plant life becoming more dominant due to the advantage of human dispersal. It is also likely that this minor domestication of local plants would have meant space would have to be cleared from the wilderness meaning that the landscape would likely have been impacted in some form or another.
Hunting pressure also could have led to significant environmental impacts. It is hypothesized that hunting by groups in North America contributed to the extinction of approximately two-thirds of large mammal species at the end of the Ice Age around 10,000-12,000 years ago 1. this extinction episode, referred to as the Pleistocene Overkill Hypothesis can be combined with the effects of other changes. Climate and vegetation changes also impacted the populations of these large mammals and made them more vulnerable to hunting pressure. This hunting overkill likely affected the environment through the decrease in large mammal herbivores, animals such as elephants are key to the landscape of the African savannah by creating routes that other animals would use through the bush creating high-traffic paths that could be utilized by hunters and predators, the decline of large mammals in North America at the end of the last ice age likely impacted the north American landscape in a drastic way and likely affected the entire ecology of North America. This theory suggests that hunter-gatherers had a huge impact on the landscapes they inhabited compared to the traditionally held belief that hunter-gatherers only minimally impacted their landscapes and environments.
Hunter-gatherers are believed to have often utilized fire to clear vegetation, we know that humans were able to utilize fire at least 50,000 years ago as hand axes found in France show signs of being struck by pyrite to create sparks, it was almost undoubtedly used to cook food which releases more nutrients for humans but it could also have been used to clear large sections of woodland to create space from the growing of food. The utilization of fire 2 may be a sign that a society is transitioning from hunter-gatherer traditions to agrarian traditions as clearing land is much more useful if you utilize all the space created from the burnings. However, fire may have also reinforced hunter-gatherer lifestyles, for example in north America, prairie land was repeatedly burnt on an annual basis to keep it as prairie land as this attracted bison to them which they would then hunt, not only does this impact the physical landscape but also the ecological landscape suggesting that fire was a key tool to Hunter-gatherers and key to them transforming the environment.
Hunter-gatherers may have had a limited impact on the environment and landscape due to respect for nature and religious beliefs and traditions. Appropriate use of natural resources was maintained through the moral and belief systems of forager societies, which included a strong respect for nature. Some hunter-gatherer groups had taboo systems where certain animals, plants, or insects were off-limits to members of those groups. At the same time, denying territories and the control of access to those areas by other people through permission-seeking requirements to enter also had an impact on levels of resource exploitation. Through religious beliefs and social conventions, people exerted some control over their natural resources. These beliefs, however, did not necessarily prevent hunter-gatherers from overusing their resource base for short-term benefit.
It is usually understood that hunter-gatherers had limited impacts on the landscape and lived in a balanced system, however, recent studies suggest that overuse or abuse of the environment could have been far more common than previously believed. Studies have suggested that humans are more preoccupied with short-term gain 1 and are more likely to overuse resources or cultivate them in a manner that is inefficient and maximized for the short term. The belief that Hunter-gatherers were highly conservative has likely been created due to hunter-gatherers often living in smaller communities meaning their impact on the environment was likely more limited than that of bigger communities. Small, Nomadic groups may use resources in a sustainable manner, for example, by maintaining small groups and ranging over a large territory, but this does not necessarily imply that they are consciously conserving resources However. Evidence suggests that some resources may be used intensively or even depleted in local areas while other resources are used. Piro hunters of Peru depleted the large primates in the area around their village but have not yet done so to peccaries. Another reason for resource depletion is a lack of concern for very abundant resources. Low levels of scarcity add value to a resource relative to when resources are quite abundant. Resource users are motivated to conserve only when there are no benefits to the non-use of resources. Thus, it is only when long-term benefits outweigh the short-term benefits that conservation is expected.
Hunter-gatherers almost definitely influenced their landscapes, however, what isn’t understood is the range of this influence, were landscapes changed locally or on a grand scale? Hunter-gatherer tribes undoubtedly affected the local landscape by burning forest land and overhunting, however, can this translate to larger geographical lines? Seed preference likely had a large impact, human-planted seeds would likely get spread easier through the process of deliberate planting and indeliberate spreading of seeds through animals and waste and could possibly spread far away from their initial planting 2. Overhunting likely impacted the landscape in a negative way and likely affected the natural ecological processes such as large mammal tracks being created through the forest.
The landscapes could have been influenced by the limited introduction of pastoralism by the hunter-gatherers which would have required fire burnings of forests to clear the space also, Animals may have also enriched or deprived the land they lived on which could affect what was grown there, however evidence for the emergence of pastoralism in hunter-gatherer societies is often rare and hard to come by as it comes in the form of fences and traps 2 which often doesn’t preserve that well, especially when dating back thousands of years. However, bone hauls may suggest limited pastoralism, especially when viewing domesticated animals. Marine harvesting of food may also have had an impact on the landscape by overfishing or non-conservative behavior, however, this is likely to be more limited due to the abundance of resources available in the ocean, this could also possibly imply that hunter-gatherer tribes who utilized the resources of the sea had a more limited impact on their environment than land-based tribes would have had.
It is likely that not all hunter-gatherers had such a large impact on the environment and it is likely down to a few factors that determine their impact on the landscapes, for example, if a tribe has agricultural traditions they are more likely to influence their landscape, if they have architectural traditions they are also likely to influence the environment by acquiring material, it’s likely that hunter-gatherer tribes also could shape the environment through high levels of hunting and impacting the ecology of a landscape. Settlement building was also a way that hunter-gatherers could shape their environments but in a far more scaled-down fashion. However not all hunter-gatherer tribes followed the same methods and traditions, and some tribes could be far more conservative than others, this likely came down to religious beliefs and resource scarcity. Religious beliefs would be extremely divergent between the tribes and one tribe’s main food source may not be another’s despite living in the same environment. On top of this, the location people acquired their resources could also decide the level of impact that hunter-gatherers had on their environment, tribes who got most of their resources from marine sources likely had a more limited impact on the environment due to the abundance of resources in the ocean.
- Prentiss A.M. (2014) Hunter-Gatherers, Archaeology of. In: Smith C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https:doi.org10.1007978-1-4419-0465-2_957
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