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Comment by tinco | Hacker News Reader

> What resources does a highly migratory hunter-gatherer band actually have to take?

Food.

> how exactly would one band of hunter gatherers continually oppress another band of hunter gatherers over a period of time?

They wouldn't, they'd just kill them before the need arises. But if they really wanted to, out of greed or laziness, they'd do what humans have done for thousands of years. Establish a hierarchy based on power and violence, and extort taxes.

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You need surplus to establish a hierarchy. A migratory hunter-gatherer band has no surplus - people collect enough food to feed themselves, their children, and perhaps some older people, and that's it.

Once there is a hierarchy with taxes and such you no longer have a migratory hunter-gatherer band. So you're talking about what happened during the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago. I am talking about what happened before that.

You don't need a surplus to establish a hierarchy, you need a deficit. Deficit creates the need for structuring. If you're in a band and you can't get enough food to survive, there's going to be some tough decisions to be made. Who gets a cut and who doesn't is decided by those in power.

Besides that, I don't think it's absolutely necessary for a hunter gatherer band to be migrationary, that's only when a tribe becomes too big and exploits its territory faster than the territory can recover.

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