The Hadza have been around for thousands of years, and they have not transformed from the original group. There are about 1000 Hadza left. Close to 300 to 400 Hadza live as a hunting and gathering group just as their ancestors have for tens of thousands of years. They are the last hunting and gathering group in Africa. The Hadza are not closely related to any particular group of people.

They have been associated with a branch of the Khoisan people because their language consists clicks. They are actually much closer related to the Pygmies. The Hadza language is independent and unrelated to any language in the world.Due to their lifestyle, the Hadza must move around a lot. They need to find a new herd of animals to hunt as well as find a place that hasn’t had its berries and fruits picked over.

They typically don’t grow food, and therefore need to keep on the move to provide for the tribe. Many Anthropologists are interested in the Hadza because they believe that they are what they call a “living fossil. ” They don’t think that the Hadza have changed much since there ancestors 10,000 years ago. About two million years ago, 99% of the time everyone lived as hunters-gatherers.Once animals were domesticated and agriculture was figured out, people were able to stay in a fixed location instead of moving around all of the time. This flooded the hunting and gathering group out and the numbers started to dwindle.

Soon villages were formed, then cities, and then nations. Although with the adoption of agriculture, it introduced disease epidemics, social status, and world wars. Today only a few primarily hunter-gatherer groups remain across the world.

It seems as though they have had it right all along. The Hadza don’t engage in warfare, there aren’t enough people in the tribe to spread an infectious disease.There is evidence that when another tribes’ crops failed, they came to live with the Hadza because their source of food was so continual. There is no set schedule for the Hadza. People come and go as they please.

People sleep whenever they want, typically they’ll stay up late into the night and lounge around in the heat of the day. The best hunt times are at dawn and dusk. When the men aren’t hunting or collecting honey, they’ll hang around the camp doing certain chores that need to be completed. Such as they’ll straighten arrow shafts, whittle bows, or make bowstrings.The women collect plastic and glass beads and make colorful necklaces out of them. If a man receives a necklace from a woman, it usually means that she has taken a liking to him.

When the men bring home a kill, almost nothing is left except the bones when the Hadza finish eating it. The meat is thrown on the fire and once it’s done cooking, anyone can grab it. Marrow is sucked out of the bones, grease is used on the skin as a form of moisturizer, and even the head of the animal can be cooked and eaten. Everything from the animal’s eyeballs to its brains are used as a food source.

After a big meal such as a baboon, the men sit around a fire and smoke and tell stories. The women at a different campfire may sing songs or listen in on the stories being told by the men. The Hadza’s future may be at risk after so many years of living in peace. The Tanzanian government is future-oriented and embarrassed at the thought of wild men and women running through the bush of their nation. Many people think the Hadza are an annoyance and shouldn’t be living the way they are. The government wants to put the Hadza in schools and teach them the ways of the modern world.The idea is that they will eventually become progressive members of society with proper jobs. Many of the younger children don’t want to waste their time sitting in a classroom.

They believe that they are missing out on essential time to be learning how to hunt and gather food. If they left their tribe to go to school, they wouldn’t be accepted back into it if they wanted to come back. Also, they’ll most likely have a hard time making it in the modernized world.

Why not stick with what you know while it lasts? No matter what the Hadza do or don’t do, they are running out of time and space.The world population is getting bigger by the year, and the inhabitants are starting to enclose on areas of the planet that wouldn’t have been used before. After two million years of a hunter-gatherer way of life, it might be coming to an end soon. The Hadza will most likely become accustomed to the new ways of the world, and not live quite like they do now.

The world’s population is the biggest problem in the world today. It is the biggest problem because it makes every other problem worse and harder to solve. The world will pass the seven billion mark sometime between 2011 and 2015.There are 200,000 more people alive today than yesterday, and tomorrow there will be at least another 200,000 more.

The theory of demographic transition held that after the standard of living and life expectancy increase, family sizes and birth rates decline. However, as new data has become available, it has been observed that after a certain level of development the fertility increases again. Another version of demographic transition is proposed by anthropologist Virginia Abernethy in her book Population Politics, where she claims that “the demographic transition occurs primarily in nations where women enjoy a special status. One of the biggest dilemmas with overpopulation is the Earth’s carrying capacity.

Estimates fall anywhere between one and 100 billion with the most average estimates falling between four and 16 billion people. Steve Jones, head of the Biology department at University College London says, “Humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom, and we have agriculture to thank for that. Without farming, the world population would probably have reached half a million by now. In 2006, World Wide Fund for Nature stated that “in order for all humans to live with the current consumption patterns of Europeans, we would be spending three times more than what the planet can renew. ” Resources are another big concern for the ever-growing world population. Humanity as a whole was using, by 2006, 40 percent more than what Earth can regenerate. David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University, has stated that, “With the imbalance growing between population numbers and vital life sustaining resources, humans must actively conserve cropland, freshwater, energy, and biological resources.

There is a need to develop renewable energy resources. Humans everywhere must understand that rapid population growth damages the Earth’s resources and diminishes human well-being. ” As the global population continues to grow people will place greater and greater demands on the resources of our planet, including mineral and energy resources, open space, water, plant and animal resources.

In Africa, if the trends of soil degradation and population growth continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025.The Hadza are running out of resources and time. What they know now may not be here in five, maybe ten years.

Competition for food, land, water and wildlife is going to affect the Hadza like never before. Possibly the most primitive people on Earth, they are probably going to be the first ones to feel the effects of the world growing and expanding every day. It seems as though the outcome for the Hadza is inevitable, and at this point, irreversible.Bibliography Abernethy, Virginia D. Population Politics. New York City: Transaction, NY. Print Finkel, Michael.

“The Hadza. ” National Geographic Dec. 2009: 1-13. Print. Jones, Steve. University College London. 2007.

Web. “Live Planet Report. ” World Wide Fund for Nature (2006). Print. Pimentel, David.

Cornell University. 2009. Web.

Laura Beth Lancaster Professor Voguit February 25, 2010 GEO 201 A Human Geography – Seminar 1 The Hadzas’ Ticking Clock