Survival as a Hunter Gatherer

[rik_uk3]

If you (the fairly experienced at foraging and trapping etc.) were to go on a long hike for, lets say, a few months and hiked across the more remote locations of Britain, would you be able to survive on merely hunting and foraging for food? Would there be enough to survive happily while getting enough healthy food and energy to continue with your hike?

No is the simple answer, not in the UK, as others have said, we are a small country and the climate won't help, there is just not enough year round wild food to give you a staple diet. I know one forum member here tried a three month UK stint, living off the land during the summer months, but still had to dig up farmers crops to keep himself going.

 

[pothunter]

There is a transition period whilst doing anything like this and ideally during that period you would have a supply of basic dietary requirements for possibly up to a week using less and less of these as you adapt to the environment you are living in. The coastal location has to be a favorite even considering pollution I like tidal marshes for there diversity of habitat and the range of wildlife they support all year round, mostly edible.

I did a similar thing only for a week on the Solway in February 07 and eat well the only thing I didn't manage to harvest was fish (because I'm a really bad fisherman), couple of nice mallard though. Also saw roe deer, geese, hares, skwerls and rabbits cant count sheep.

Pothunter

 

[firecrest]

In Archaeology we are told that the nutritional equivalent of one red deer is 31,360 limpets or 156,800 cockles. I suppose that explains the huge shell middens of the past
I think they ate shellfish like we eat peanuts, crisps and popcorn

The shoreline may provide good food (don't forget the seaweeds and tidal estuary plants too) but unless you are hunting birds and fish too, I agree, it's lean eating.

I tripped across this link, interesting reading
www.archaeologyonline.org/Documents/FoodDrink.pdf

cheers,
Toddy

Id like to know how the work these sums out because it sounds awfully well....wrong that 157000 limpets make up one red deer.
*goes to google*....

 

[firecrest]

Ok various google souces put cockles at about 79 calories per 100g and red deer, depending on the cut between 100 and 200 calories, so we'll say 150 calories per 100g.
and the deer weigh between 100 to 350 kg. so I guess we times a thousand

150 x 1000 = 150,000 calories for a small red deer.
150 x 3500 = 525,000 calories for a large red deer

A guide to butchering deer on the internet says a deer can lose as much as 50% of its live weight when butchered because half of it is the skeleton and innards. We aught to assume neolithic man ate the marrow and some of the innards. lets say 75% of the weight of the deer is calorific.

75% of 150000 is 112,500 calories for a small deer.

Hmm....Im not able to find the weight of cockles or limpets, google hath failed me! But what you said will be about correct if one cockle contains about 1 to 2 calories, I think.

I do apologise, I just like being a stickler for facts and figures.

 

[sam_acw]

I remember that on Ray Mears' Wild Food the shells that were found from Mesolithic middens tended to be very small, smaller than you would gather nowadays. Maybe this affects the number?

 

[hammock monkey]

as has been said, full on living from the land would be pretty tough without loads of prep etc, but I'd go out for a day, then 2, then 4 etc and see how you get on?

I'd want a couple of different nets for rabbit, birds and fish (i havent done this myself but its what I would expect to work best) vitamins, mobile phone and credit card!

It'd make for an interesting diary...or blog or whatever nowadays

 

[firecrest]

if youre prepared to eat earthworms,snails and other creepy crawlies you might be able to sustain yourself better.
Hmm....maybe Ill try this one day. Im poor enough to warrant a "holiday" that doesnt require expensive dining bills

 

[ilan]

Think this would be very difficult if not impossible , without some form of fixed base and some basic abilities to store or preserve foods The landscape is to degraded / changed from the naturel . however it would be easier if you could take advantage of the modern wastefull society we now live in

 

[andyn]

In Archaeology we are told that the nutritional equivalent of one red deer is 31,360 limpets or 156,800 cockles. I suppose that explains the huge shell middens of the past
I think they ate shellfish like we eat peanuts, crisps and popcorn

The shoreline may provide good food (don't forget the seaweeds and tidal estuary plants too) but unless you are hunting birds and fish too, I agree, it's lean eating.

I tripped across this link, interesting reading
www.archaeologyonline.org/Documents/FoodDrink.pdf

cheers,
Toddy

The thought of chewing through 31,360 limpets just isn't as appealing as a venison steak!

 

[Toddy]

No arguement there
But that said, limpets & cockles just need gathering, old folks and children can do it easily, they are available when other sources of protein aren't so easily come by.
Mix in razors, mussels, oysters and it's a tremendous food resource to a people living on islands with coastlines like ours.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[sam_acw]

Another factor, because they don't hide much or run very fast they are surely pretty energy efficient to harvest. Indeed, it is more like harvest than hunt.

 

[robwolf]

there arnt many insects about in winter but there are a few plants, daisy is one ,but you could sneek up on roosting birds at night as they are reluctant to fly in the dark

 

[Tong]

im heading off soon for a few months, i will be following coastline as one of my stables will be fish the other will be bannock bread
i am taking dried fruit, veg and jerky but im only planning on using these items if i cant get any fish or find any wild veg.

 

[spamel]

As much as I love the series of books by Jean M Auel, I can't help but think that the lone person hunting and gathering is a flawed concept. The whole point in hunter gatherers is that a number of people pool their resources to enable all to eat a balanced diet of meat, veg and fruit. I think it would be extremely difficult to live by ones own efforts, and incredibly demanding as it would be a full time job without any breaks.

 

[firecrest]

I enjoyed the first book, but after that ayla kept inventing everything and I hated her.

 

[spamel]

I enjoyed the first book, but after that ayla kept inventing everything and I hated her.

Yeah, I'm waiting on the sixth and final book when she invents the internal combustion engine and then single handedly solves the CO2 issue and resolves the problem of melting polar ice caps, and also makes the perfect contraption for making sauces without them burning in the pan!

 

[Mendip Man]

In essence you would be on an Atkins diet! Carbs are a problem, so you would be spending a lot of your time looking for, preparing and cooking roots from lesser celendine, silverweed, burdock, pignut and typha. Snails, worms, beetles and grubs (even snake if you can find them) would all be fair game too. Factor in your hunted/trapped game and you'll have relatively little time left for hiking!

 

[Roibeard]

hunter gathering only works in areas of plenty and the UK doesn't fill the criteria anymore (without breaking laws anyway) as you would be continuously stopping to refeed for a day or so both to feed for that day and if possible keep enough for tomorrow. survival wise you would eat little and often so catch it or pick it and eat it.In theory in would be possible but you would have to be proficient at hunting everything from birds to rats. I suppose if you went totally native then the average cow is at least an easy kill. in native cultures the women with an english survival instructor and tv crew in tow will go off digging roots and foraging berries while the men run off and fail to kill anything big enough to share. when they do its a treat otherwise its burdock nettle and snail stew for dinner again.

its possible to 'farm' an area if you stay long enough with eel traps, rabbit snares, deer snares/traps, squirrel poles and bird lines/traps but all take time to set up and often produce nothing. for a true forage then you would be living off plants with insects for protein as in a realistic survival situation. the seashore does produce the easiest feeding enviroment though once you've mastered it. most of the longer survival courses used to dump you on the coast as they knew you would be a bit more cheerfull knowing you could catch something.

I Think this is most likely how hunter gatherers survived in his part of the world. Fish trapping with basket traps along with shellfish gatherering really would be so more reliable then hunting big game for getting animal protein. Storage for winter months would also be a problem.

North West Europe has such a mild climate relative little migration is necessary.
I am sure it was and still is just about possible to subsist by moving through the countryside unplanned, hunting and gathering along the way but it isn't the most efficient strategy.
It would be pretty hard for anyone to sustain for it for a whole lifetime.
I remember from archaeology lectures in colloege hearing that the food procurement campsites of Mesolithic hunter gatherers where only about 2-3 hours walk away from main settlement sites. They lived as close as possible.
I doubt they took massive hikes across the land when it was unnecessary and same applies today.

 

[sam_acw]

As much as I love the series of books by Jean M Auel, I can't help but think that the lone person hunting and gathering is a flawed concept. The whole point in hunter gatherers is that a number of people pool their resources to enable all to eat a balanced diet of meat, veg and fruit. I think it would be extremely difficult to live by ones own efforts, and incredibly demanding as it would be a full time job without any breaks.

I love those books too, I do think doing it alone would be almost impossible but the food gathering strategies shown by the bigger groups of people seem more logical. Remember they are set in the era of big animals and herds, the later mesolithic being more like today in terms of the variety of animals - i.e. no mammoth herds

 

[NatG]

hypothetically it's possible

you would not be able to do it on your own or without a hell of a lot of planning and resources- i think probbably about ten people would be able to survive as a group on the coast if they had knowledge of plants animals and trapping/hunting/identification etc.

but i think most of it is luck too, you just have to be in the right place at the right time for thee resources to be available which would be very hard to do without the thousands of generations of previous local knowledge being passed ont o you, you'd have to do it the hard way.


on the other hand, and on a slightly rosier note, you could always give it a go safe in the knowledge that in Brtiain you are probbably never more than a couple of days hike for habitation