University of Wisconsin Madison Environmental Change and Human Activity Discussion

Answer the following question as if it was a miniature essay (at least 400 words). Cite your sources using Cole, lectures, and articles.

Begin with a strong thesis statement followed by relevant evidence from the readings and lectures.

Cite Cole as (Cole pg.#); cite the articles by the first significant two words in the title of the document for example (“Speciating Sea” 454 or “Egypt – Beginning” 557) ); and cite the presentations/lectures as Colling + lecture/slide #, e.g. (Colling 5/42).

I have attached one book that you will be using to cite your sources and also, four articles.

Question: Would you have rather been a hunter/gatherer or a citizen in a fully civilized urban society. Why?

You must respond to one other student’s posting. You can agree or disagree with the student, but you must provide evidence to support your argument.

Student’s Argument: In a fully civilized urban society I would rather be a hunter-gather over a citizen, a citizen doesn’t interest me to even learn about because they are just like stage characters in history books, when you learn about urban societies you learn about the wealthy, the rulers, and the hunter-gatherers, there’s not much information on citizens themselves showing me I would want to be apart of history and be a hunter-gatherer rather than a citizen.

Since I am a women, being a hunter-gatherer would be better for me because, women who were hunter-gatherers didn’t stay home and watch children they went out to hunt, leaving the male to take care of the child half of the time while the women was out hunting, making them equal to each other. “Women became increasingly sequestered from their male counterparts, who in turn gave up an equal role in child care”(Cole pg. 1168). Another reason I would rather be a hunter-gather is women who were in sedentary communities could bear more children than women in hunter-gatherer groups, (Cole pg. 1168), since so many women were at home having many children this caused an overpopulation and spread diseases throughout the society, I’d rather have 1 kid so I can take care of them and make sure they are far from diseases rather than having many kids who can contract the diseases easily from one another then killing me off from disease. Individuals also had differences in the amount of wealth individuals could stockpile for themselves, if I was a hunter-gatherer it didn’t matter if I was rich or poor I knew how to hunt so I wouldn’t need to dispute over agriculture. “Dependence on agriculture also made it more difficult for individuals to split from the community when disputes arose” (Cole pg. 1192). Agriculture also brought on new ways of living, most humans poorly adapted, as a hunter-gatherer I would adapt to the new agriculture and new diet systems because I would be responsible for gathering it. (“Agriculture Imposed” Article 3) In todays world I am the type of person to get up and get things for myself or, get involved with new ways of living (for example new diets, vegan, vegetarien), so back in urban societies I would be a hunter-gather because that is part of what they do, they get things themselves, go out hunting and follow any diets based on agriculture they can get.