HORTICULTURAL

SOCIETIES
 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES

 A horticultural society is a social system based on

horticulture, a mode of production in which digging stick
are used to cultivate small gardens.
 Came into existence about 4000BC today in sub-Saharan
Africa.
 Examples for horticultural societies:
1. Gururumba Tribe in New Guinea
2. Maasai people of Kenya
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
Gururumba Tribe in New Guinea
Maasai people of Kenya
 Horticulture is the domestication of plants
 Domestication is the “taming” of plants
and animals in order to control their
availability for human use.
Example of Domesticating Animals
 Horticulture has dramatically effected the amount of land
used. Instead of travelling over massive amounts of land
searching for whatever food grows in that region, people
are able have concentrated areas of desirable plant. This
allows for the farmers to be in control of the
produce/plants. As an end result enough food is able to
be produced to support a greater number of people on a
much smaller area of land.
 SIZE OF SOCIETY DEPENDS
ON LAND AVAILABLE FOR
FARMING
  THE USE OF A LARGE AREA
OF LAND FOR FARMING AS
Extensive FARMERS MOVE TO NEW
Horticulture PLOTS ONCE OLD ONES
HAVE BE EXHAUSTED
 Extensive Horticulture

 Known as the “slash-burn” style

 Common in forest regions
 Consists of cutting down a portion of land with hand tools then
burning the logs and under bush
 The benefits are that the newly plants crops will have the
nutrients from the ashes
 Once the land is depleted of nutrients the farmers will move to a
new plot and repeat the same process. This process requires so
much land that the farmers have to keep creating new plots.
  USE OF TECHNOLOGIES, LIKE
INtensive IRRAGATION AND
Horticulture FERTILIZERS, TO ALLOW
FARMERS TO CONCENTRATE
FARMING A SMALLER AREA.
 INtensive Horticulture

 Useless land because it uses more technologies that

allow the farmers to have more concentrated areas.
 Early on these technologies included; irrigation,
fertilizers, and simple ploughs
 This allowed for the same plots to be reused each year
Example of
INtensive
Horticulture
 HORTICULTURAlists are better settled
than pastoralist

 Unlike the pastoralists, horticulturalists, are relatively

better settled. They develop settlements that have
larger populations and migrate in search of better
conditions.
 Relatively More Complex
Division Of Labor

 This society assures better food supply of

surplus. Existence of surplus leads to
specialization of roles. Advanced horticultural
societies sometimes consisting of as many 5000
people support specialists producing and
trading with a variety of products.
 Emergence Of Political

 The surplus production allows some wealthy

individual to become more powerful than
others. This leads to the emergence of
political institution in the form of
chieftainships. Warfare is more common.
Horticultural societies are also the first know
societies to support the institution of slavery.
 Creation of relatively elaborate
cultural artifacts

 These people live in comparatively permanent

settlements, they can create more elaborate
cultural artifacts. For example
houses,thrones,or large stone sculptures
 Some Rare Practices

 Horticulture societies have some rare practices

such as cannibalism, headhunting and human
sacrifice. Cannibalism is eating enemies skin as
an act of ritual revenge. Headhunting is taken
as evidence of courage and skill of warrior.
Human sacrifice coincides with a change in the
nature of religious beliefs.