Early Societies, The Hunter-Gathers

According to sociologists, early societies were often defined by how they procured their food. And while it is believed that the first human societies relied on simple scavenging, by the time they could fashion weapons and tools they began to hunt. Most anthropologists believe that the first hunter- gatherers appeared around 1.8 million years ago.

But even then, most of their food was obtained by gathering. After all, hunting was extremely dangerous and hunting injuries and deaths were not at all uncommon. According to most experts, the early hunter-gatherers procured about 80 percent of their food from gathering.

What did they eat? Foods like eggs, nuts, fruit and even seafood were quite common. And when it came to hunting, most early hunter-gatherers searched for animals that had been killed by other predators before they sharpened their spears. They certainly could have used an 0844 number to order a takeaway.

In time, however, hunters would develop more effective ways of dispatching their prey. For starters, they discovered that they had greater success when they focused on hunting smaller animals rather than huge beasts. As you might expect, it was far less dangerous and the game was more plentiful.

Thousands of years later, the next generation of hunter-gatherers would invent fishing nets and hooks, which get them unlimited access to fresh fish. It was at about this time that agriculture began to replace gathering as a more consistent method of obtaining fresh fruits and vegetables.