ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by discussing the ways in which hunter-gatherers find food: through hunting, gathering and fishing. It details the importance attached to different food stuffs, and highlights, in particular, the significance of meat. The chapter goes on to detail some of the key ways that anthropologists have characterized different hunting and gathering subsistence economies including the differences between ‘immediate return system’ and ‘delayed return system’ hunter-gatherers. It explores the meanings attached to different foods and practices, both ethnographically and in the past. The chapter argues that the economic and symbolic significance of meat, plants and fish are not diametrically opposed, but inextricably linked. Many hunter-gatherer groups eat smaller animals to supplement their diet, dependent on what is available locally, including beaver, rabbit, hare, monkey, squirrel and marmot. Gathering plant foods provides an essential and reliable source of calories for most hunter-gatherer groups, but in contrast to hunting, it is often not regarded as being a high status activity.
