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The global geography of human subsistence

How humans obtain food has dramatically reshaped ecosystems and altered both the trajectory of human history and the characteristics of human societies. Our species' subsistence varies widely, from predominantly foraging strategies, to plant-based agriculture and animal husbandry. The extent to...

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Autores principales: Gavin, Michael C., Kavanagh, Patrick H., Haynie, Hannah J., Bowern, Claire, Ember, Carol R., Gray, Russell D., Jordan, Fiona M., Kirby, Kathryn R., Kushnick, Geoff, Low, Bobbi S., Vilela, Bruno, Botero, Carlos A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170550/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30839689
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171897
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author Gavin, Michael C.
Kavanagh, Patrick H.
Haynie, Hannah J.
Bowern, Claire
Ember, Carol R.
Gray, Russell D.
Jordan, Fiona M.
Kirby, Kathryn R.
Kushnick, Geoff
Low, Bobbi S.
Vilela, Bruno
Botero, Carlos A.
author_facet Gavin, Michael C.
Kavanagh, Patrick H.
Haynie, Hannah J.
Bowern, Claire
Ember, Carol R.
Gray, Russell D.
Jordan, Fiona M.
Kirby, Kathryn R.
Kushnick, Geoff
Low, Bobbi S.
Vilela, Bruno
Botero, Carlos A.
author_sort Gavin, Michael C.
collection PubMed
description How humans obtain food has dramatically reshaped ecosystems and altered both the trajectory of human history and the characteristics of human societies. Our species' subsistence varies widely, from predominantly foraging strategies, to plant-based agriculture and animal husbandry. The extent to which environmental, social and historical factors have driven such variation is currently unclear. Prior attempts to resolve long-standing debates on this topic have been hampered by an over-reliance on narrative arguments, small and geographically narrow samples, and by contradictory findings. Here we overcome these methodological limitations by applying multi-model inference tools developed in biogeography to a global dataset (818 societies). Although some have argued that unique conditions and events determine each society's particular subsistence strategy, we find strong support for a general global pattern in which a limited set of environmental, social and historical factors predicts an essential characteristic of all human groups: how we obtain our food.
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spelling pubmed-61705502018-10-18 The global geography of human subsistence Gavin, Michael C. Kavanagh, Patrick H. Haynie, Hannah J. Bowern, Claire Ember, Carol R. Gray, Russell D. Jordan, Fiona M. Kirby, Kathryn R. Kushnick, Geoff Low, Bobbi S. Vilela, Bruno Botero, Carlos A. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) How humans obtain food has dramatically reshaped ecosystems and altered both the trajectory of human history and the characteristics of human societies. Our species' subsistence varies widely, from predominantly foraging strategies, to plant-based agriculture and animal husbandry. The extent to which environmental, social and historical factors have driven such variation is currently unclear. Prior attempts to resolve long-standing debates on this topic have been hampered by an over-reliance on narrative arguments, small and geographically narrow samples, and by contradictory findings. Here we overcome these methodological limitations by applying multi-model inference tools developed in biogeography to a global dataset (818 societies). Although some have argued that unique conditions and events determine each society's particular subsistence strategy, we find strong support for a general global pattern in which a limited set of environmental, social and historical factors predicts an essential characteristic of all human groups: how we obtain our food. The Royal Society 2018-09-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6170550/ /pubmed/30839689 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171897 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Gavin, Michael C.
Kavanagh, Patrick H.
Haynie, Hannah J.
Bowern, Claire
Ember, Carol R.
Gray, Russell D.
Jordan, Fiona M.
Kirby, Kathryn R.
Kushnick, Geoff
Low, Bobbi S.
Vilela, Bruno
Botero, Carlos A.
The global geography of human subsistence
title The global geography of human subsistence
title_full The global geography of human subsistence
title_fullStr The global geography of human subsistence
title_full_unstemmed The global geography of human subsistence
title_short The global geography of human subsistence
title_sort global geography of human subsistence
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170550/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30839689
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171897
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