ests, grasslands, and river valleys. Th e tribes of the American
Northwest, for example, found abundant resources in the
region’s forests and along the coastlines. Salmon satisfi ed a
large percentage of people’s nutritional needs. In the grass-
lands of the North American Plains and the savannas of South
America, large game animals, including prominently the bi-
son in North America, provided not only meat but also hides
for clothing, blankets, and shelters, as well as bones, hooves,
and other remains that could be put to use. In regions where
vegetation was sparser, evidence suggests that early hunter-
gatherers burned grasslands and woodlands. Th is practice
encouraged the growth of new, tender vegetation, which at-
tracted game animals that could be hunted.
Hunting and gathering were done almost exclusively on
foot. Muscle power was the only form of power available. Th e
horse was not used for hunting in North and South America
until much later. Th e primary exception was among people
who lived in aquatic environments along coastlines through-
out the Americas and eventually on the islands of Central
America. Th ese people relied more heavily on boats, raft s,
and canoes to fi sh and hunt such animals as seals and whales
in the far north.
Th ese two subsistence patterns had relative advantages
and disadvantages. Aquatic foragers were able to secure
larger amounts of food with relatively little physical eff ort,
so their communities became much denser with people. Th e
disadvantage was that they tended to be dependent on a lim-
ited range of foods. A sudden change in weather patterns or a
disease that wiped out an important food species could leave
them vulnerable to starvation. In contrast, pedestrian forag-
ers, because they moved about within a wide geographical
region, relied on a much wider range of foods, making them
less susceptible to climatic changes, changes in rainfall, and
similar catastrophic events. However, they had to exert much
more physical eff ort than did aquatic foragers, sometimes
burning more calories in the quest for food than they were
able to acquire. Put simply, aquatic foragers had more than
pedestrian foragers had, but the food supply of pedestrian
foragers tended to be more secure and reliable.See also agriculture; art; ceramics and pottery; cli-
mate and geography; crafts; death and burial prac-
tices; food and diet; gender structures and roles;
health and disease; literature; migration and popu-
lation movements; natural disasters; religion and
cosmology; settlement patterns; social organization;
sports and recreation; trade and exchange; weapon-
ry and armor.FURTHER READING
Jeannine Auboyer, Daily Life in Ancient India, from 200 b.c. to
700 a.d., trans. Simon Watson Taylor (New York: Macmillan,
1965).
Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, ed., Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in
the Black Sea Region, vol. 2 (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Univer-
sity Press, 2005).
Robert Bettinger, Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolution-
ary Th eory (New York: Plenum Press, 1991).
David L. Bomgardner, Th e Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (Lon-
don and New York: Routledge, 2000).
Douglas J. Brewer and Renée F. Friedman, Fish and Fishing in An-
cient Egypt (Warminster, U.K.: Aris and Phillips, 1989).
Peter Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman
World: Responses to Risk and Crisis (Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988).
Patrick Houlihan, Th e Animal World of the Pharaohs (London:
Th ames and Hudson, 1996).
Richard Lee, Th e !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging
Society (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Lisbeth Pedersen, Anders Fischer, and Bent Aaby, eds., Th e Danish
Storebælt since the Ice Age: Man, Sea, and Forest (Copenhagen,
Denmark: A/S Storebælt Fixed Link, 1997).
Marek Zvelebil, Hunters in Transition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
University Press, 1986).Stone weight carved in the form of the head of an aquatic bird and thought to have been used in fi shing, from Orange County, Florida, dating to
the Middle Woodland Period (about 400 b.c.e. to 1 c.e.) (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)
582 hunting, fishing, and gathering: further reading