What are the pros and cons of hunters and gatherers vs. farmers?

You can get professional research paper writing help from this site: http://www.customwritingservice.com/main.html

Pro: 1. Food is often fresher since they wouldn't tend to have a large harvest. 2. They didn't have to worry about all the problems with growing crops like weather, floods or pests that would destroy the crops. They wouldn't lose all their crop from a flood for example. 3. They wouldn't have to store food. 4. It would be more consistently available at all times of the year. Cons: 1. They can't generally gather as much food as farmers can grow. 2. Populations are smaller so they can't protect themselves against farmers or their societies. 3. They don't have time off where certain individuals can specialize so technology doesn't progress as rapidly. That is particularly bad when you fall behind in military technology. 4. You need to protect a much greater amount of territory.

Pros and Cons are the wrong things to look for in this situation. What makes a group Farmers or HGs depends entirely upon several factors: The rise of social complexity Resource management Environment To elaborate, typical HG bands are not socially complex, they often do have complex oral traditions but they have little to no concepts of property, territory, government, etc... these kinds of things need to evolve in order for the group to stop moving and begin to settle down and farm. High mobility patterns of HGs lends itself to a low amount of time to develop these kinds of things, almost creating a chicken and egg argument. Farmer/agrarian societies have social complexity, they have property, territory, government, systems of economic exchange, etc... Environment, Farming societies cannot develop in some areas, deserts or mountainous terrain or if your above the 180 day frost line you cannot farm effectively, so in these areas you will only see HGs. and if there are resources there need to be enough to support a larger population and they need to be managed well. HG bands are often no more than 15 people, but you could support up to 100 or more depending on resource availability and management. Hope this helps

well lets see pros for hunter gatherers first: they survive off of what the land has to offer, have good knowlege of all of the plants and animals that help for medecine, food and since they probably live where they are provided with all they need they really don't have to worry about not having what they need because they can probably make tools to do what they can't. now farmers: they also know what they need and that is to grow what they eat and kill what they raise. they keep what they need for future crops and also have things such as cotton for clothes and corn for food. as long as they plan carefully they will be set for what they need to survive. now the cons, hunter gatherers: if they don't kill they might not eat,shortage in what they hunt to eat or drought can be fatal because they count on this for survival, sometimes they need to migrate after their prey so they can't really settle down somewhere, everything has got to be mobil to move with the food. because of this their is more problems with harsh weather because since the things have to be mobil they are pretty much light to move, and as for the farmers. they have to work hard to bring up crops. if rain is not good they might not get a crop at all, if grains are stored and it rotts because of rain they may not have any for planting, no knowlege of what can be used for medicine from what is around them. parasites can kill crops, they only have a certain time in which they can plant. and they have to compete against other animals for their food. ( rats, crows, etc.) there is a few pros and cons hope it helps.

The pros and cons of a hunter: You might get killed by one of the ferocious and meaty animals that you hunt. You get food in the end of all that heard work you call hunting. Being a hunter, sometimes, means that you can gain some respect because you provide the food for your fellow villagers. The pros and cons of being a gatherer: The pros of being a gatherer is that you can gather healthy, fruity and yummy fruits from the adventurous forest. The cons of being a gatherer is that you might pick poisonous fruits or vegetables, that might endanger your fellow villagers. The pros and cons of being a farmer: Sometimes, lions and other fierce and hungry animals attack your livestock. So you have to go to through the trouble of killing them with the thrill and possibility of getting attacked. The pros of being a farmer is that you get to provide the food for your fellow villagers. You get to see the sunrise during the morning! And you get to milk the cows! You get to be close to animals and if you are an animal lover, this is the best shot for you. Well veterinarians, too. And sometimes you can also see crop circles. Whoa.

hunters and gatherers rely more on seasonal foods where as farmers can grow different crops at different times. so in a sense that is beneficial to the farmer. diet wise the hunters and gatherers were probably nutritionally healthier. i did this paper years ago and i can't exactly remember.