Hunter-gatherer

Summary

A hunter-gatherer, or forager, is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local, naturally occurring sources or by hunting game. This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores, including most human societies, particularly before the rise of modern agricultural civilizations. Hunter-gatherer groups, usually a few dozen people, were and are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Hunter-gatherer societies are contrasted with more sedentary agricultural societies, which rely mainly on cultivating crops and raising domesticated animals for food production.