From Hunter-Gatherers to Agricultural Communities

Although population density is a major factor in the economic transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, a "prime mover" may have initiated increases in population that favored agriculture. Theoretical models that subscribe to the prime mover theory postulate the existence of some major change within or outside a cultural system that brings about a transition to a new state of being. In terms of population density, environmental changes may have been a contributing stress factor. Environmental deterioration, e.g., the contraction of vegetation zones may have led to food shortages and the concentration of the population in certain areas.

Distinctions must be made in terminology when referring to domestication, agriculture, and sedentary communities. According to Wenke domestication is measured in terms of the change in physical characteristics of plant and animal species as a result o

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odern Africa hunting and gathering populations have been able to maintain distinct identities among sedentary communities, although this is most common in areas where the environment is less desirable for agriculture. The hunting and gathering populations serve an important function to the farming communities, supplying them with a market for the sale of surplus production and a temporary labor pool during critical harvesting periods. Thus in prehistoric Africa the effective process of transition from one economy to the other generally covered several millennia. From about five thousand BC and onward, hunting and gathering persisted in Africa alongside agricultural communities, creating several different economic levels. Much of the agricultural activity began in the northern part of the continent. Its spread was directed south of the Sahara and onward to the west African forests. One of the factors in the transition to agricultural economies is that in most environments in Africa, the people were able to produce much greater amounts of food through this method than by hunting and gathering. Thus the transition to from hunting and gathering had more to do with economic necessity than from agriculture being seen as a pre
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Some common words found in the essay are:
According Wenke, Game Reserve, , San Africa, Stone Age', hunting gathering, Hunters Farmers, agricultural communities, California Press, food production, population density, population densities, hunters gatherers, sedentary communities, division labor, gendered division, gendered division labor, York Praeger, Left Books, University Press, hunting gathering populations, thousand bc, hunting gathering societies, five thousand bc, plant animal species,
Approximate Word count = 1634
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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