Foraging / surviving from the land

[rik_uk3]

This thread bought this song to mind for some reason

[video=youtube;nU615FaODCg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU615FaODCg[/video]

 

[General Strike]

without resorting to ; outside help ie. stealing farmed sheep, fishing with a net, calling it off when things get bad, taking advantage of the fact your the only one eating rabbit in all of scotland, not living like somesort of freaky hermit who does nothing else but search for and eat one sort of food (a change for most I understand) buying lots of equipment to aid you ie 1000 fish hooks and alot of line, thinking how long you have to keep it up for, I do not think foraging in the uk is achievable longterm.

My arguments the best, it wins and is the only one there is. So there !

I think this is a fair comment - particularly the freaky hermit bit! To go full retard on foraging would basically take up all of your time in food-related activity. If not hunting and gathering you will be preparing, curing and storing food. In the purest sense, I guess we would be talking about going back to a lifestyle like that of wild animals.

I wonder how much early people engaged in casual agriculture - like throwing the seeds from food away near camp, so that next year resources will be near at hand. I have heard of some nomadic people doing this sort of thing, and I can see how it would be useful. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this year's latrine ended up next year's fruit bush!

 

[Matt42]

Ive just done this at uni lol, they reckon however long ago that the Hunter gatherer had a far better life than a farmer would have. HG would spend three hours a day apparently (how they work that out i dont know but experts are meant to know what they are doing lol) leaving lots of time for other things, but they reckon climate change forced farming on people in europe etc, as HG became impossible. As the climate is still meant to be warming up, i would say if everything went back to a "wild" state, it would still be impossible, but with the introduction of different plants, removal of wolves etc from britain, and also the help of a gun and what not, it may be possible nowadays for a solo or small group, but nothing like the 20-30 people HG communities lived in. But knowledge would help a lot too. But there are HG peoples out there today, but they are few and far between, so i guess in the right places with the right sort of everything, it must be possible

 

[boatman]

We tend to put an idealistic gloss on the past. Thieving and Rieving was always a reality and part of the survival "game" I can recall learning this verse at school

"The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore deem’d it meeter To carry off the latter. We made an expedition; We met an host and quell’d it; We forced a strong position And kill’d the men who held it."

Great poem written in the 19th century by Thomas Love Peacock, unlike other Victorian romantics he seems to have got the essence of a tribal conflict reasonably correct. This is possibly because he was a great parodist, see his Nightmare Abbey.

 

[boatman]

When I was a Community technical adviser for Witshire County it was significant the level of disasters, inculding nuclear, that could be dealt with by the normal services with supplements from the army. The point is that a situation that cannot be handled by the above is probably unsustainable anyway. Nature by flooding or any other disaster or man-made problem such as a nuclear accident all render any fixed prepping precautions useless.

Financial melt-down can be dealt with on a national scale with unpleasant but ultimately bearable effects on the population.

 

[rik_uk3]

They make one or two that will run paraffin, one of the Exponentent range do but they light so easily from naptha that I personally don't see the point. If you want a solid paraffin stove go pick up a Primus 210 off ebay for less than £30.

 

[General Strike]

Ive just done this at uni lol, they reckon however long ago that the Hunter gatherer had a far better life than a farmer would have. HG would spend three hours a day apparently (how they work that out i dont know but experts are meant to know what they are doing lol) leaving lots of time for other things, but they reckon climate change forced farming on people in europe etc, as HG became impossible. As the climate is still meant to be warming up, i would say if everything went back to a "wild" state, it would still be impossible, but with the introduction of different plants, removal of wolves etc from britain, and also the help of a gun and what not, it may be possible nowadays for a solo or small group, but nothing like the 20-30 people HG communities lived in. But knowledge would help a lot too. But there are HG peoples out there today, but they are few and far between, so i guess in the right places with the right sort of everything, it must be possible

It's true, that there are hunter-gatherers knocking about still today that can demonstrate something akin to the lifestyle of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. In fact, they tend to be forced to less-suitable land by the more numerous agrarian communities, so it's likely that their lifestyles are uncharacteristically difficult in comparison to those of our forebears.

I'm not sure how climate change fits into the picture - I mean, it obviously impacts the practicality of living that way in Europe somehow, but I thought that ancient people had colonised Europe before or during the last ice age... or was that only neanderthals?

 

[rg598]

All of the generalizations that people assert when it comes to hunter gatherer communities are not worth the paper they are published on. The reality is that in some locations hunting and gathering was easy and you did see people with relatively easy lifestyles, while in other areas whole populations starved to death. Looking at the remains of a small coastal community and then making a conclusion about how hunter gatherer's lived, is a bit like looking at Beverly Hills and concluding that everyone around the world lives in huge houses and has at least two cars.

Realistically, some areas were very productive, and they had to be defended by the people occupying them. Other areas provided very little for survival. There were times in human history where the total population of humanity was reduced to several thousand people. More than once we were an endangered species. I think we tend to look at the past with rose colored glasses and we ignore all the suffering that those people went through.

 

[Matt42]

I'm not sure how climate change fits into the picture - I mean, it obviously impacts the practicality of living that way in Europe somehow, but I thought that ancient people had colonised Europe before or during the last ice age... or was that only neanderthals?

Well as far as i know, humans, and i mean us, were about either during or litterally just after the last ice age in euope as that is what people think caused the neanderthals to go exticnt, ie we out competed/interbred with them. but as with all science there is diffing opinions. but what is agreed is that from the last ice age to now, the last 10000 years or so, the earth has warmed up, else we would still be covered in ice, although sometimes we are . thus the plant life has changed accordingly. and its the plant life changing that reduced the large mammals worldwide and may have force farming on us. something else that ill throw into the pan is that wheat originated in and around isreal and turkey, so somehow that made its way to britain and other parts of the world in that time. and also something that is important is that modern grain is compeltely different to the orginal stuff that was grown, as it has come about not so much by selective breeding, but by simple random hybridisations and mutations, that allow it to be reaped and thrashed, and also makes the grain bigger. without these, farming was a lot harder, as grain had to be picked, parched and the grain would be smaller at the end of it than now anyway. so it really was despirate times that called for farming and likely was a combination of events that included a growing population.

 

[petrochemicals]

They make one or two that will run paraffin, one of the Exponentent range do but they light so easily from naptha that I personally don't see the point. If you want a solid paraffin stove go pick up a Primus 210 off ebay for less than £30.

yep, but gas is always your best bet especially propane and propane accessories !

Also I guess there is a difference General Strike between living/foraging and surviving. Ray Mears runs towards and Bear Grills Runs the other way. One wants to be there , the other doesn't.

 

[boatman]

What plant life changed to eliminate large mammals? The main feed crop for herbivores is grass which has evolved the cunning trick of growing from the base not the tip so grazing doesn't kill it. This means that wherever there were grasslands there were masses of animals feeding on them. The extinction of large mammals like the Giant Sloth in the Americas might have been because of human hunting.

 

[General Strike]

All of the generalizations that people assert when it comes to hunter gatherer communities are not worth the paper they are published on. The reality is that in some locations hunting and gathering was easy and you did see people with relatively easy lifestyles, while in other areas whole populations starved to death. Looking at the remains of a small coastal community and then making a conclusion about how hunter gatherer's lived, is a bit like looking at Beverly Hills and concluding that everyone around the world lives in huge houses and has at least two cars.

Realistically, some areas were very productive, and they had to be defended by the people occupying them. Other areas provided very little for survival. There were times in human history where the total population of humanity was reduced to several thousand people. More than once we were an endangered species. I think we tend to look at the past with rose colored glasses and we ignore all the suffering that those people went through.

You've said as much several times. I don't agree; discussing whether something is possible is not the same as deciding it would be easy or desirable. People have suffered under every form of social organisation, which is not to declare the search for better ways of living unmeritorious. Nowadays, we in the developed world export our suffering to the less fortunate.

There are many factors that speak against a hunter gatherer lifestyle - and not least of which being the spread of agricultural societies to encompass almost the entire globe, demonstrating that if the aim is the simple expansion of one's group's population, agriculture provides the best way to do so. Does that mean, then, that there is nothing worth learning from historical or current hunter-gatherer techniques? By no means - at the least, we learn about ourselves, we learn to make do and to improvise, we can develop a direct sense of our connection to nature, and we may learn to appreciate the ease of access to food that we currently enjoy. The circumstances which favour agriculture may not always be guaranteed, and some societies have moved between agricultural and hunter-gatherer modes as circumstances dictate. The latter alone justifies that we discuss these ideas and attempt to develop our knowledge and understanding of foods that can be gathered. Should we have to fall back on those methods alone, undoubtedly we will suffer; but some may survive.

 

[rg598]

You've said as much several times. I don't agree; discussing whether something is possible is not the same as deciding it would be easy or desirable. People have suffered under every form of social organisation, which is not to declare the search for better ways of living unmeritorious. Nowadays, we in the developed world export our suffering to the less fortunate.

There are many factors that speak against a hunter gatherer lifestyle - and not least of which being the spread of agricultural societies to encompass almost the entire globe, demonstrating that if the aim is the simple expansion of one's group's population, agriculture provides the best way to do so. Does that mean, then, that there is nothing worth learning from historical or current hunter-gatherer techniques? By no means - at the least, we learn about ourselves, we learn to make do and to improvise, we can develop a direct sense of our connection to nature, and we may learn to appreciate the ease of access to food that we currently enjoy. The circumstances which favour agriculture may not always be guaranteed, and some societies have moved between agricultural and hunter-gatherer modes as circumstances dictate. The latter alone justifies that we discuss these ideas and attempt to develop our knowledge and understanding of foods that can be gathered. Should we have to fall back on those methods alone, undoubtedly we will suffer; but some may survive.

Seems like you are attributing statements to me that I have not made. I don't believe I have at any point stated that we should not learn about our past or about techniques used by hunter/gatherer communities.

The OP was addressing the issue of whether a person can survive by foraging in the UK (or presumably Europe) these days. I believe numerous answers have been given explaining why it would be an impossible task, if for no other reason than legal limitations and lack of space.

The quote to which you were replaying above addressed a statement made by the post above mine discussing how there have been assertions that the life of hunter gatherers was easier than that of farmers allowing for much more leisure time. To that I respondent that making a generalization about the leisure time of hunter gatherer communities based on a study of a specific community is unfounded and does not accurately depict the hardships that other communities have endured.

Clearly it is possible for communities to survive as hunter gathers where space and resources are available, as well as knowledge not just of general bushcraft, but also of specific plant distribution and animal migration patterns, which constitute very specific local knowledge that hunter gatherer groups typically rely on.

Whether such a lifestyle was easy, hard, or whether it is possible to achieve today by a community or an individual has nothing to do about whether or not we should learn about those practices and skills. I don't believe I have ever stated otherwise.

 

[General Strike]

If so, I apologise; in the heat I'm a bit moody, and it did seem like you were generalising yourself when you stated 'All of the generalizations that people assert when it comes to hunter gatherer communities are not worth the paper they are published on.' Certainly the characterisation of HG life as 'Nasty, brutish and short' is as much founded upon cultural chauvinism as any Edenic vison of prehistoric humanity is wishful thinking. The statement you made regarding the variation in ease of hunter-gatherer lifestyles is an interesting one, in that it presumably follows from the fact that humans as animals have an ecological niche within which we perform best. This would seem intuitively the case based upon our observation of other species. That said, humanity actually spread across the globe, occupying most environments including extreme ones, before adopting agriculture; the contradiction between these two positions would be interesting to explore further but will require some research.

Recent archaeological finds in Turkey indicate that large-scale settlements actually pre-date agriculture, and the concentration of people led to over-exploitation of wild resources. In this case, agriculture would appear to be a response to overuse, in the same way that forestry emerged from the 16th century in Germany - having denuded the natural resource, the need to replace existing timber extraction with managed resources became obvious.

 

[franglais]

There are hunter gatherers around the world living off less fertile land than western Europe, they still find time to play games, sing and dance and tell stories.

 

[Matt42]

What plant life changed to eliminate large mammals? The main feed crop for herbivores is grass which has evolved the cunning trick of growing from the base not the tip so grazing doesn't kill it. This means that wherever there were grasslands there were masses of animals feeding on them. The extinction of large mammals like the Giant Sloth in the Americas might have been because of human hunting.

Now that i think about it, maybe plant life going extinct is the wrong words, but what i actually mean is succession, if that is the right word lol. look at the habitats from the north pole down, it goes from ice tundra, to pine forests to broad leaf forests to Mediterranean habitats to the deserts and jungles below. as the ice extends and reterets the latitudes (i think its that one) will change, as the ice advances, everything will move south, as it retreats habitats will move north. i am under the impression that it was this change in habitat, coupled with isolation from rising sea levels. http://bcs.whfreeman.com/thelifewire/content/chp55/55020.html If you watch the animation, this is sort of what i mean, large mammals, (at least in the north, i do not know about giant sloths and what not,) such as mammals and the big deer things, live off the small lichens and shrubs, and when the glaciers retreated, these gave way to pine forests (and eventually modern broad leaf ones in england at least), that they couldnt survive in. now i think ive strayed so far off the point i cant remember what i was trying to say in the first place so my appoliges for that lol. Im not saying it was just one factor that emlimanted large mammals, as with the dinosaurs it was likely a combination of things, and i definatly think that humans played a major role in the extinction of most animals in the last 20000 years or so sadly. I think nigel marvin did a show on this some time ago, it was a series and one focused on the last ice age, though i cant remember what it was called unfortuantly

 

[boatman]

Geoffrey Bibby's book Testimony of the Spade that gave a history of archaeology and of the world of prehistory makes the point that it would have been a challenge as vegetation changed with the ending of the extreme Ice Age. He makes the point that one may kill a red deer with a harpoon made from reindeer antler but if then a harpoon is made in the same way from the red deer antler it may well break, a new technigue must be developed. Of course in most cases the change would be so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. Some groups would change but others would follow the ice northwards and maybe even become early Scandinavian Strandlopers hunting marine mammmals.

 

[petrochemicals]

I think this deserves a bump.

re: living off wild parsnips,

If you require 5000 kcallories a day, and a kilo of parsnips contains 750 kcal, you need to eat over 6.5 kilogrammes (14lbs)of parsnips, how do you walk upright ?

I suppose you could get buy on 2500 callories a day if you where a little feeble girly, or if you had a car drive you everywhere and lived in a modern house with central heating fired from gas that you got from facking, and didn't have to dig your own latrine.

Edit. Now for some toilet humour

"dear, I've lost a stone"

"well darling open the window !"

 

[boatman]

Where do you get a need for 5,000 calories a day from? Nearer 2,500 is more likely. After all one may be doing outside work but it is not heavy labour.

 

[rik_uk3]

Where do you get a need for 5,000 calories a day from? Nearer 2,500 is more likely. After all one may be doing outside work but it is not heavy labour.

So only about 7lb of parsnips then, easy peasy lol