section_path: Types/Pre-industrial/Hunting and gathering
section_name: Hunting and gathering
paragraph_text: Hunting and gathering
  
  The main form of food production in hunter-gatherer societies is the daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food. As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts. The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies, and they usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes, usually with fewer than 50 people per community. Bands and tribes are relatively egalitarian, and decisions are reached through consensus. There are no formal political offices containing real power in band societies, rather a chief is merely a person of influence, and leadership is based on personal qualities. The family forms the main social unit, with most members being related by birth or marriage.
  
  The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the " original affluent society " due to their extended leisure time: Sahlins estimated that adults in hunter gatherer societies work three to five hours per day. This perspective has been challenged by other researchers, who have pointed out high mortality rates and perennial warfare in hunter-gatherer societies. Proponents of Sahlins' view argue that the general well-being of humans in hunter gatherer societies challenges the purported relationship between technological advancement and human progress.