At the degree of hunter-gatherers? It doesn’t. Even the level of food insecurity suffered by subsistence farmers - which is high - doesn’t compare to the level of food insecurity suffered by hunter-gatherers.
You might starve to death in a particularly bad year (though that’s also less likely), but you’re unlikely to experience constant fluctuations of periods of hunger and plenty. Most years, you’ll be eating enough calories to sustain all your bodies functions at a basic level, even if nutrients may not be as plentiful as you need.
Ah, so by “intermittent” you only mean a lean week or month. A bad harvest that knocks down the population across a region of Europe wouldn’t be included.
Is there a particular source your drawing from here? A detailed review on nutrition patterns and risks across different modes of ancient food production would definitely be worth a read. I’m surprised to hear the big famines were also more frequent for hunter-gatherers, considering they have so many more options at their disposal.
More that hunter-gatherers have fewer options for food storage and preservation, and that subsistence farmers, in lean times, still can utilize hunter-gatherer techniques, while the reverse is not as applicable.
No one particular source, but growth-arrest lines/Harris lines are often referred to in discussions of pre-modern diet and nutrition. I have a specific book on paleoethnobotany on my to-read list that I might be able to refer to if I ever get around to reading it, but I have a… long to-read list, and this year is shaping up to be not a great one for my reading habits. XD
You do see emergency foraging up to modern day, that’s true, although there’s a less land to do it on, and a lot more ways it has to be split.
Mixed agriculture was designed to be more resistant to catastrophe, and was still common in living memory here, but that may well have been particular to the abundance of land in the freshly “freed up” Great Plains. Obviously, if you’re getting Kwashiorkor you don’t have a coop full of chickens and a pen of cows next to your garden and fields.
I have a specific book on paleoethnobotany on my to-read list that I might be able to refer to if I ever get around to reading it, but I have a… long to-read list, and this year is shaping up to be not a great one for my reading habits. XD
Ah yes. It’s not as bad as my project list, but my reading list is also too long.
At the degree of hunter-gatherers? It doesn’t. Even the level of food insecurity suffered by subsistence farmers - which is high - doesn’t compare to the level of food insecurity suffered by hunter-gatherers.
You might starve to death in a particularly bad year (though that’s also less likely), but you’re unlikely to experience constant fluctuations of periods of hunger and plenty. Most years, you’ll be eating enough calories to sustain all your bodies functions at a basic level, even if nutrients may not be as plentiful as you need.
Ah, so by “intermittent” you only mean a lean week or month. A bad harvest that knocks down the population across a region of Europe wouldn’t be included.
Is there a particular source your drawing from here? A detailed review on nutrition patterns and risks across different modes of ancient food production would definitely be worth a read. I’m surprised to hear the big famines were also more frequent for hunter-gatherers, considering they have so many more options at their disposal.
More that hunter-gatherers have fewer options for food storage and preservation, and that subsistence farmers, in lean times, still can utilize hunter-gatherer techniques, while the reverse is not as applicable.
No one particular source, but growth-arrest lines/Harris lines are often referred to in discussions of pre-modern diet and nutrition. I have a specific book on paleoethnobotany on my to-read list that I might be able to refer to if I ever get around to reading it, but I have a… long to-read list, and this year is shaping up to be not a great one for my reading habits. XD
You do see emergency foraging up to modern day, that’s true, although there’s a less land to do it on, and a lot more ways it has to be split.
Mixed agriculture was designed to be more resistant to catastrophe, and was still common in living memory here, but that may well have been particular to the abundance of land in the freshly “freed up” Great Plains. Obviously, if you’re getting Kwashiorkor you don’t have a coop full of chickens and a pen of cows next to your garden and fields.
Ah yes. It’s not as bad as my project list, but my reading list is also too long.