Anthropology Research

1. Describe horticulture as a subsistence strategy, and contrast it with hunting-and-gathering.

Horticulture is a type of primitive agriculture that relies primarily on localized inputs: human labor, locally made tools, and sometimes animals for traction, plowing, pumping, and transport. Subsistence agriculture is generally aimed at household provisioning rather than investment, and it satisfies exclusively domestic needs. In contrast to foraging, horticulture involves domestication and management of edible species that are specially grown by humans for their subsistence. Horticulture is characteristic for the process of domestication that gives people the opportunity to procure themselves a continual increased supply of food and become virtually self-sufficient. Unlike hunters and gatherers, horticulturalists are sedentary and the population density is much higher. The social organization in a subsistence society is a lot more complex than among foragers, and is based most oft...