According to Durkheim, then, in traditional societies with mechanical solidarity, interpersonal interaction and community life at the micro level were the most important aspects of social life. Meso- and macro-level societies developed as a result of changes toward more organic solidarity. As societies become more complex, meso- and macro-level institutions evolve and become more important, and have increasingly profound impacts on the lives of individuals.
Hunter-Gatherer Societies.
In the Kalahari Desert of southwestern Africa live hunter-gatherers known as the !Kung. (The ! is pronounced with a click of the tongue.) The !Kung live a nomadic life, moving from one place to another as food supplies become available or are used up. As a result, they carry few personal possessions and live in temporary huts, settling around water holes for a few months at a time. Settlements are small, rarely more than 20 to 50 people, for food supplies are not plentiful enough to support large, permanent populations (Lee 1984). !Kung women gather edible plants and nuts, while !Kung men hunt. Beyond division of labor by gender and age, however, there are few differences in roles or status.
In hunter-gatherer societies, people rely on the vegetation and animals occurring naturally in their habitat to sustain life. Generally, life is organized around kinship ties and reciprocity—that is, mutual assistance—for the well-being of the whole community. When a large animal is killed, people gather from a wide area to share in the bounty, and great care is taken to ensure that the meat is distributed fairly. Resources are shared among the people, but sharing is regulated by a complex system of mutual obligations. A visitor who eats food at another’s hearth is expected to repay that hospitality in the future.
The !Kung are a typical hunter-gatherer society. People make their clothing, shelter, and tools from available materials or obtain goods through trade with other nearby groups. People migrate seasonally to new food sources. Population size remains small because the number of births and deaths in the society are balanced.
▲ Hunting and gathering societies, like these Botswana Bushmen, do still exist, but they are increasingly affected by modern societies and technologies. These hunters make notes of their most recent excursion on a GPS app on their smartphone.
© Getty/Eric VANDEVILLE/Contributor
From the beginning of human experience until recently, hunting and gathering (or foraging) were the sole means of sustaining life. These early humans developed cultures and skills necessary for survival. Although few hunting and gathering societies exist in today’s crowded and modernizing world, we can learn some interesting aspects about the relationship between culture and human skills from those that do exist. For example, studies of the hunting-gathering group the Semaq Beri of the Malay Peninsula indicate that they have developed superior smell and recognition of scents, in part because identifying odors is key to their culture and survival (Klein 2018).
Other types of societies emerged only recently. Today, only a handful of societies still rely on hunting and gathering (Nolan and Lenski 2014). The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is becoming extinct largely because no society is isolated in today’s world.
Herding and Horticultural Societies.
A seminomadic herding society, the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania move camp to find grazing land for their animals and set up semipermanent shelters for the few months they will remain in one area. Settlements consist of huts constructed in a circle with a perimeter fence surrounding the compound. At the more permanent settlements, the Masai grow short-term crops to supplement their diet.
Herding societies have food-producing strategies based on domestication of animals whose care is the central focus of their activities. Domesticating animals has replaced hunting them. In addition to providing food and other products, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and camels represent forms of wealth that result in more social prestige for members of the group with large herds.
Horticultural societies are those in which the food-producing strategy is based on domestication of plants, using digging sticks and wooden hoes to cultivate small gardens. They may also keep domesticated animals, but they focus on simple agriculture or gardening. They cultivate tree crops, such as date palms or bananas, and plant garden plots, such as yams, beans, taro, squash, or corn. This is more efficient than gathering wild vegetables and fruits. Both herding and horticultural societies differ from hunter-gatherer societies in that they settle in one place, occasionally moving to another when water becomes scarce or land is depleted; make their living by cultivating food; and have some control over their food production (Ward and Edelstein 2014).
The ability to control food sources was a major turning point in human history. Societies became more settled and stored surpluses of food, which led to increases in population size. A community could contain as many as 3,000 individuals. More people, surplus food, and greater accumulation of possessions encouraged the development of private property and created new status differences between individuals and families. Forms of social inequality started to become pronounced.
The technological breakthrough that moved many societies from the horticultural to the agricultural stage was the plow, introduced more than 6,000 years ago. It marked the beginning of the agricultural revolution in Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of the world, and it brought about massive changes in social structures in many societies. The end of the horticultural stage also saw advances in irrigation systems, the fertilization of land, crop rotation, more permanent settlements, land ownership, human modification of the natural environment, higher population density (cities), and power hierarchies.
Agricultural Societies.
Pedro and Lydia Ramirez, their four young children, and Lydia’s parents live as an extended family in a small farming village in Nicaragua. The family plows the land with the help of strong animals such as horses and oxen, uses fertilizers, and waters the garden when needed. The Ramirezes’ way of life is typical in an agricultural society. Agricultural societies rely primarily on raising crops for food but make use of technological advances such as the plow, irrigation, animals, and fertilization to continuously cultivate the same land. The continuous cultivation of the same land results in permanent settlements and greater food surpluses. Agricultural societies use energy more efficiently than foraging societies. For example, the plow circulates nutrients better than a digging stick, and when an animal pulls the plow, the farmer uses strength beyond that of a person. As increasingly sophisticated agricultural technology resulted in surplus food, the size of population centers increased to as much as a million or more.
As surpluses accumulated, land in some societies became concentrated in the hands of a few individuals. Wealthy landowners built armies and expanded their empires. During these periods, fighting for land took precedence over technological advances. War was prevalent, and societies were divided increasingly into rich and poor classes. Those who held the land and wealth could control the labor sources and acquire serfs or slaves. Thus, the feudal system was born. Serfs (the peasant class) were forced to work the land for their survival. Food surpluses also allowed some individuals to leave the land and to trade goods or services in exchange for food. For the first time, social inequality became extensive enough to divide society into social classes. At this point, religion, political power, a standing army, and other meso-level institutions and organizations came to be independent of the family. The meso level became well established.
As technology advanced, goods were manufactured in cities. Peasants moved from farming communities, where the land could not support the large population, to rapidly growing urban areas, where the demand for labor was great. It was not until the mid-1700s in England that the next major transformation