With that said, in this article I think you're glancing over some pretty major ideas. Perhaps you're aware of them and left them out for space's sake, or maybe you just hadn't come across them yet. I'll leave it to one topic given that this is a comment section and not my own personal blog 😉

While in a Utopian situation hunter/gatherers would come up Milhouse in a natural disaster, it's not the case in what we've found in the archaeological record. Natural disasters are just as devastating to hunter-gatherers as they are to agrarian societies. While they don't generally park down in one spot they do have what could be called a "home range". The size of this range depends on the resources at hand (i.e. a group in a resource rich area won't move nearly as far as those in a resource poor area), but if that range is destroyed in a natural disaster they're just as screwed as a group that plants crops. Just as an example of how small these ranges can be; in the Mississippi Valley Woodland Cultures moved as little as 2 miles during their seasonal migration. Anyways, a h/g group could move to another range, but all of the palaeo-economic and archaeobotanical/archaeozoological findings have shown that the population density problem we have now existed with hunter/gatherers as well; at least in the areas of the Americas, Europe, and Near East that I've done reasearch in. In fact that's one of the theories on why we became agrarian. Too many people, not enough wild resources, someone figures out how to plant crops, temporary win. Moving on, while no one had fences up most of the land (again in the areas where I've worked) was some group's territory. So if a group's range is flooded for instance, and the plants are destroyed, and the wild life shifts to another area, you have to move to survive. And chances are you're moving into another group's range. If archaeological findings are any indication that doesn't turn out well for the new comers.

Anyways, with that being said I really enjoy your writing and theories. Keep them coming!

a tough decision cause we have to leave a property, house, greenhouse that supports us and a dear friend who will stay on the property – but our hunter-gatherer selves seem to be ready for the game –

what's security anyway but a great big fat illusory lie?

I wasn't saying it was.

I was thinking of cowboy lifestyle as a precursor to modern paleo lifestyle. Not that it was exactly, I was just imagining correlations that may or may not be correct. I have to admit I don't know much about cowboys that I didn't learn from the movies. But I imagine there was a great deal of traveling and not much thought for private property.

Animal husbandry/pastorialism definitely isn't a "precursor" to hunter-gatherers in any of its iterations.

If I remember correctly (from The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia?), pastoral cultures suffer from many of the same property (land and slaves) problems as agrarian cultures. I think the argument goes something along the lines of higher levels of sedentism than H-Gs, despite the apparent portability. Cattle are almost synonymous with fences. Further, early goat husbandry also seems to have been supported by similar pens as we'd see today. Pastorial lifestyles get tangled in my head easily because feeding herds so often goes hand-in-hand with agriculture.

That said, I can also think of at least one contemporary Siberian culture that remains rather mobile (though their name escapes me). But… the more I think about it, they may use reindeer more as pack animals in service of hunting seals which would blur the line even further. It's definitely blurry to begin with, because they also transport and sell seal meat for cash. So… maybe nevermind that digression. 🙂

Maybe I should head to NZ. It's unbelievable how much sh*t I get over here for choosing to live on a bicycle with no permanent address…

I've come to expect that the US will see much more serious financial woes sometime in the next few years. Should that come to pass while I'm still over here, hopefully that nomad adaptability will work in my favor!

Obviously a pastoral lifestyle doesn't jive with the current the US culture, but I think bears considering when you want to talk mobility and efficiency. You may not outrun a tsunami with a herd of cattle (though you'd probably be better off on a horse than on foot!), but you'd have food to keep your family and yourself going if you did!

Agreed, "mobile" is a little bit too sloppy because of the implication of constant motion. I'm referring more to the ability to move easily and opportunistically versus agrarian entrenchment. Business location can definitely be tricky. Since market economies are an outgrowth of the agricultural revolution, it makes sense that some vestiges will persist despite attempts to re-engineer the principles with H-G insights.

I totally spaced-out on "hunger-gatherers". Paging Dr. Freud! Thanks for pointing that out.

I'm not sure that I mean mobility in the sense you use it, but let's assume I do. One of the dilemmas in your example of backpacking is the fact that most of the land you traverse is owned, legally restricted, or otherwise controlled. As such, you're forced to pass through at a pace that wouldn't have been necessary in H-G bands.

I noticed a distinct difference in my own psychology when traveling through Central America versus the U.S. Basically, the lack of regulation on beaches and other open spaces allowed my mind to feel a different sort of freedom than the "No Camping, No Breathing, No Sideways Glances" signs that dominate private and government spaces in the states. In other words, imposed (de facto imposition in this case) mobility is very different from voluntary or opportunistic mobility.