ANTH222 Lecture 1: ANTH 222 - Technic, Louis Mumford
25 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
I. Technic: Louis Mumford
a. Organization of technology
i. E.g. Bureaucracy
b. There are 2 big things people have invented that make people the most technic:
i. The home base:
1. Centered on the hearth, which is kept by women; people will return
to the same place
a. E.g. a camp, used for storage, cooking
2. From the home base, women will go out and find things every day
in the immediate area. Women forage as a group, not individually.
3. Will return home before dark with their infants to cook.
4. Men will go farther out to hunt, but not every day as its dangerous
and arduous.
5. Women = carbohydrate sources; men = protein sources
6. Women produced 80% of the diet.
7. Gorp = carbohydrate source, sugars
a. Fire gelatinizes carbohydrates so that its better digestible.
8. Glop = protein, meat, fat
a. Fire denaturizes the proteins.
9. Gelatinization and denaturization =
10. In traditional cultures, if people don’t eat protein, the women don’t
get their periods and can’t reproduce = Amenorrhea
11. Well-fed women = well-breastfed babies because breastfeeding is
high in protein and antibodies.
a. And good hunters = well-fed women
ii. Sexual division of labor:
1. Based on the home base itself
2. Refers to the actual activities – male activities are different from
female activities – different technologies
a. Those 2 technologies are used to complement each other.
i. Men will hunt, women will cook, etc.
3. Men and women are locked together in “the iron embrace”
a. Men start, women finish
4. Sex-specialists – unlike any other life form.
a. We are doubly effective than any other life form, because
each sex becomes a task specialist (which always beats
generalists).
5. Women were the most valuable resource because she gives birth.
Men are essentially replaceable. So they’re not going to be
warriors because her life is more valuable. It is also important that
she’s fed well, so her husband must be a good hunter.
a. So men advertise how many animals they’ve killed.
6. Bulk of the diet is supplied by women.
7. Men’s technology is going to be upper body
a. Knives, clubs, etc.
