Chapter 7 Making a Living

Key Terms

Subsistence strategiesThe ways in which societies transform the material resources of the environment into food, clothing, and shelter.

Population density Number of people inhabiting a given area of land.

  Foraging

The food-getting strategy of hunting and gathering societies.

 SedentarySettled, living in one place.

IndustrializationThe process of the mechanization of production.

Rain forestTropical woodland characterized by high rainfall and a dense canopy of broad-leaved evergreen trees.

  Pastoralism

A food-getting strategy that depends on the care of domesticated herds.

Horticulture (extensive cultivation) Production of plants using a simple, nonmechanized technology; fields are not used continuously.

  Agriculture

A form of food production in which fields are in permanent cultivation using plows, animals, and techniques of soil and water control.

Productivity Yield per person per unit of land.

  Efficiency

Yield per person per hour of labor invested.

Transhumance A pastoralist pattern in which herd animals are moved to different areas throughout the year as pasture be-comes available.

  Nomadism

The mobility of human groups in pursuit of food.

PatrilineageA lineage formed by descent in the male line.

Swidden (slash and burn) A form of cultivation in which a field is cleared by felling the trees and burning the brush.

Peasants Food-producing populations that are incorporated politically, economically, and culturally into nation-states.

BureaucracyCultivation oriented primarily toward the market.