What came first

[SMARTY]

This may have been done before but here goes anyway. I've been doing the survival thing for a few years now and it ocurred to me that the reason I find it relatively easy is because I am comfortable living in the field with little or no comforts. I put that down to the time spent in the army living for fairly long periods of time in different environmental regions with limited resources etc.

Any way it got me thinking, do bushcrafters make the best survivors OR are survivors the better bushcraft practitioners. Was a cave man survivilng or applying his form of bushcraft to make the best of his situation with the technology available at that time.

People with no bushcraft or survival training come through bad situations in a fairly good state and on the flipside there are cases of survival experts and bushcraft practitioners not fairing too well in similar circumstances.

No one in their right mind would deliberately put themselves in a survival situation, unless there is a safety system in place. But lots of folks go into the great outdoors to practice bushcraft.

Personally I think that bushcraft techniques led to survival skills that then led to bushcraft practice that then led to survival knowledge that led to bushcraft tools that then led to survival tools. As the bushcraft thing develops a survival application seems to fall out of it. As an old skill is re-discovered that skill is then adapted to apply to a survivall situation.

I will be very interested to hear your views on this.

 

[Shewie]

IMHO I don't think there's much to separate survival and bushcraft, it's been said before that the skill sets overlap but the tags are just different. To me bushcraft is about enjoying the time spent outdoors whereas survival technically means keeping youself alive and getting rescued.
Bushcrafters and survivalists both get up to basically the same thing when playing in the woods, some just make it more comfortable

To answer your question though, which came first ? To me, I'd say early man learnt skills to survive and exist which they then developed through evolution. I suppose man stopped having to "survive" when farming was introduced, civilisation was born and people stopped killing each other and gradually the survival skills were forgotten. Is bushcraft just a label for playing in the woods and living like a caveman, but with modern toys and enough luxuries to make it enjoyable ?

I think they're much the same but just different labels

 

[monkey boy]

hi smarty, iv also asked myself the same thing, but this is what iv come up with.
bushcraft and survival is pretty much the same thing, first you would learn survival skills to help you survive a situation, then once you have your survival needs, you can start turning to bushcraft for many of other needs,

you have survival skills, but once you start learning bushcrafts you become the survival skills, meaning that you no longer think that you are in a survival situation because what ever happens you will be ok
.
to be able to walk into the wilderness with nothing, and when someone visits u later, there you have made tools, shelter, fire, you have a stock of food, you have made funitur, you have balnkets, codage and even entertainment. thats no longer a survival situation, thats home.

thats just my view on it
monkey boy

 

[okar]

To me survival skills is the ability to survive in the wild, while bushcraft is the ability to live inte the wild. There is a differance between surviving and living.
I think survival skills (the skills needed to survive) came first and then evolved into what we now call buschcraft (the ability to "live of the land").

 

[HillBill]

One enables you to get back to civilisation

One enables you to get away from civilisation.

The difference is in the person.

Originally though there would not have been a distinction. Only the way of life and the aquisition of knowledge and abilities gained through trial and error

Personally, i think they had it easy 5000 years ago. The land was much more productive than now. Not spoiled. Wild food would have been everywhere.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

I pretty much agree with all the above.

to simplify it further:

Survival is uncomfortable, Bushcraft is Comfortable

 

[stijnb]

IMHO I don't think there's much to separate survival and bushcraft, it's been said before that the skill sets overlap but the tags are just different. To me bushcraft is about enjoying the time spent outdoors whereas survival technically means keeping youself alive and getting rescued.
Bushcrafters and survivalists both get up to basically the same thing when playing in the woods, some just make it more comfortable

To answer your question though, which came first ? To me, I'd say early man learnt skills to survive and exist which they then developed through evolution. I suppose man stopped having to "survive" when farming was introduced, civilisation was born and people stopped killing each other and gradually the survival skills were forgotten. Is bushcraft just a label for playing in the woods and living like a caveman, but with modern toys and enough luxuries to make it enjoyable ?

I think they're much the same but just different labels

i agree with you exept for the stopped killing each other part , the most advanced technology today is used just for killing people

 

[durulz]

I've never really liked the term 'survivalist' - it always smacks of extreme right-wing 'militia' types to me. 'Bushcrafter' is OK - but I don't really think of myself as a bushcrafter either. I always think of myself as a 'camper', to be honest. And 'wild camper' at that. But I'm happy to use 'bushcrafter' because it sounds rather coy and cuddly and people can get their heads round it.
But could my bushcraft skills help me in a survival situation? Yes and no. I reckon I could keep warm and dry alright. But locating water and food would cause me problems and be my downfall. Human beings are wonderful creatures, though - and it's surprising what people can find in themselves when the need arises.
Personally, I don't practice bushcraft to help when it all goes wrong. I live in the south east, of Great Britain - a pretty densely populated part of the world. Yes, in theory, I could be a dodgy situation - but I'm not going to waste time preparing for every eventuality life could offer. And if I need those skills for an 'End of World' type scenario...well, I wouldn't want to survive such a situation anyway.
No, I don't do bushcraft to help me survive. I do it to help me escape.

 

[John Fenna]

In the bad old days I did what was called Survival Training - to the point where I have a certificate saying I am a Survival Instructor - these days I do what is called Bushcraft.
The funny thing is my skills base has not changed much!
I will say that, as a bushcrafter now, the comfort level of my trips has increased and I tend to wear less cammo kit - oh and I carve a lot more spoons!
As to which came first....primitive man used whatever skills he had, with a smaller technologies base to draw on, and learned as he developped.
He survived and crafted a life out of the bush - so I guess the skils were all part of life then and not packaged as Survival or Bushcraft.
Some folk still use traditional skils in their day to day life (Amazonian Indians, Aboriginies in Oz etc) while those who live in a modern Western technology based society would profit from having taken a good survival course if they are thinking of visitting these areas.
Survival/Bushcraft - it is all one to me, just with different emphasis, different aims ( getting back to civilisation /getting away from civilisation) and even RM:notworthy used to use the terms almost interchangably.
Primitive man would not ave survived without a good ability and knowledge of bushcraft.