Discuss pre-historic migration of pre-capitalist society?

INTRODUCTION

The story of human migration began when the first humans picked up bundles, weapons, and children, and moved toward a different location. They moved because they had to whether their reasons were decreasing access to food and shelter, population pressure, or environmental degradation. They moved, in other words, when the risks of staying in place exceeded the perceived dangers of venturing to a new area. In doing so, they hoped to better their chances of surviving, thriving, and reproducing. 

Eventually, humans moved across nearly all of the earth's landscapes, including rainforests, deserts, tundra, ice, oceans, and mountains. Scholars speculate that their upright stance and large brains assisted humans in developing the means and the strategies to move over long distances. These same features enabled humans to overcome environmental and physical barriers in a variety of landscapes, and to adapt successfully to the social, political, and ecological realities of their new homes. The result has been the expansion of the species from a mere ten thousand to twenty thousand individuals at the beginnings of human migrations to more than six billion individuals today (Grolier I, 1997).

DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

Human migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intention of settling in the new location. The movement is typically over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is also possible. Migration may be individuals, family units or in large groups (Gordon, B.C, 2000).

Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy (oxford dictionaries 2013).

Pre capitalist societies are the societies that exist before development of capitalism in 15 century in the world history (Encyclopedia, 1990).

Society refer to the collection of individuals united by certain relations or mode of behavior which mark them off from others who do not enter into these relations or who differ from them in behavior (Shankarrao, C.N 2006). 

THE PRE-HISTORIC MIGRATION OF PRE-CAPITALIST SOCIETY

Pre-historical migration of human populations began with the movement of Homo erectus out of Africa across Eurasia about a million years ago. Homo sapiens appears to have colonized all of Africa about 150 millennia ago, moved out of Africa some 80 millennia ago, and spread across Eurasia and to Australia before 40 millennia ago. 

Migration to the Americas took place about 20 to 15 millennia ago, and by 1 millennium ago, all the Pacific Islands were colonized. Later population movements notably include the Neolithic revolution and Indo-European expansion, part of which emerges in the earliest historic records. They were depending on nature of environment on their movements from one area to another thus why they took long time to move from one area to another, they used animal and fruits as their main food (Grolier I, 1997).

Another pre historic migration in pre capitalist society was Hunter-gatherers migration, these societies were nomads, moving from place to place and their Movement often was limited. They were organized into small groups of people called bands, bands migrated when food (plants or animals) became scarce in one location and the groups returned to the same places with the changes of seasons. At certain times of the year, these early bands joined together, forming larger communities. 

There was probably time for storytelling, meeting friends, and finding marriage partners. Early humans also moved to new and distant lands and sometimes this movements was associated with other factors such as  Couldn’t find enough food, Growing number of bands, Changing climate (desertification) and follow animals on the move (hunting). The act of moving from one place to settle in another is called irrational migration. Migrations may have been the result of people’s following animals to hunt. By around 15,000 B.C, hunter-gatherers had migrated throughout much of the world. 

They even traveled across a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska. In this way, they entered the Americas. The arrival of a migrating group in the territory of another people could lead to both good and bad outcomes. Everyone benefited when knowledge and tools were shared. However, people sometimes turned violent when they felt threatened by newcomers. They feared that the newcomers might try to take their territory. Sometimes they may have feared them just because they were different (Gordon, B.C, 2000).

In Africa the migration of pre-capitalist society was associated with the expansion of the Bantu. By about 1000 AD, Bantu migration had reached modern day Zimbabwe and South Africa. The Banu Hilal and Banu Ma'qil were a collection of Arab Bedouin tribes from the Arabian Peninsula who migrated westwards via Egypt between the 11th and 13th centuries. Their migration strongly contributed to the Arabization and Islamization of the western Maghreb, which was until then dominated by Berber tribes.

Between the 11th and 18th centuries, there were numerous migrations in Asia. The Vatsayan Priests from the eastern Himalaya hills migrated to Kashmir during the Shan invasion in 1203C. They settled in the lower Shivalik hills in 1206C to sanctify the manifest goddess. In the Ming occupation, the Vietnamese expanded southward in a process known as nam tiến (southward expansion).Manchuria was separated from China proper by the Inner Willow Palisade, which restricted the movement of the Han Chinese into Manchuria during the early Qing Dynasty, as the area was off-limits to the Han until the Qing started colonizing the area with them later on in the dynasty's rule. The Age of Exploration and European colonialism led to an accelerated pace of migration since Early Modern times. In the 16th century, perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered American ports

Conclusion

General early human migrations in the pre-capitalist society resulted from the pressure on demographic increases on limited food resources, disease, drought, famine, war, and natural disaster figure among the most important causes of early human migrations. Approximately 100,000 years ago, the first migrations of Homo sapiens out of their African homeland likely coincided with the ability to use spoken language and to control fire. Over the next 87,000 years humans migrated to every continent, encompassing a wide variety of natural environments. The Americas were the last continents to be reached by Homo sapiens, about 13,000 years ago. This habit has been inherited over several generations where many societies live in nomadic life.

REFERENCE

Alexander .B, (1996). The Vanishing Arctic. London, Bland fords Press.

Grolier I (1997) American Academic Encyclopedia, New York, printing press.

Gordon, B.C, (2000) World Rangifer Communal Hunting.” Hunters of the Recent Past,

            One World Archaeology, London

Howell, F.C. (2003). "Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia

In gold, Tim. Hunters, Pastoralists and Ranchers. Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Norton C (1999) Collier’s Encyclopedia. Collier’s, New York,

 Oxford Dictionaries. “Retrieved  April 2014.

Shankarrao, C.N (2006), Principle of sociology with an Introduction to Social Thoughts. Six                     Edition Published by S. chand and company Ltd.

World Book Encyclopedia, 1990

Written By AUSI CHIWAMBO (2014)-Teofilo Kisanji University