Important Terms 5 Flashcards
Subsistence system
The set of practises used by members of a society to acquire food
Carrying capacity
The number of calories that can be extracted from a particular unit of land to support a human population
Modes of subsistence
General types of foods systems
- foraging
- pastoralism
- horticulture
- agriculture
- industrialism
Foraging
Also known as hunting and gathering, describes societies that rely primarily on wild plant and animal food resources
Pastoralism
A subsistence system in which people raised herds of domestic livestock
Horticulture
The small scale cultivation of crops intended for subsistence
Agriculture
The subsistence system used in the US that involves the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technology that allowed for intensive use of the land
Broad-spectrum diet
A diet based on a wide range of resources
Historical ecology
When anthropologist study The ways in which cultures have co-evolved with their environment
Built environment
The fact that there is no way to separate the natural world from the human influenced world
Horticulturalists
People whose garden supply the majority of their food
Staple crops
Foods that form the backbone of the subsistence system
Mono-cropping
The reliance on a single plant species
World system
How we get things from all around the world
ex: at the grocery store, there are apples from Chile, coffee from Guatemala, beans from India
