A key element of the answer to Yali's question which
dominates the book is the fact that hunter-gatherers are necessarily limited societies.
The way that their lack of farming and agriculture necessitates the involvement of all
of its peoples in hunting and gathering has the following impacts on societies, as
demonstrated by the Chatham Islands as explained in Chapter Two of this great
non-fiction work:
1) Population density is
low
2) There are no developed
economies
3) There are no expert
craftsmen
4) There is no big system of
leadership.
The difference between hunter-gatherer
societies and societies that relied on agriculture to supply its needs are very notable,
as the dispersed bands of hunter-gatherers were never able to settle in one location and
thus this impacted population size. The number of people that can be supported by such a
style of life compared to the number of people that can be supported by an
agriculturally based society is much smaller.
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