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Hunter-Gatherers
The earliest form of human society, in which people subsisted primarily by hunting, fishing, or foraging for edible plants and animals in the wild. Hunter-gatherer societies do not raise or herd animals or practice agriculture, though they have recently been argued to have been socially complex. A small number of such societies sill persist in remote areas of the world, on land generally not considered arable. Archeologists believe that humans subsisted exclusively by hunting and gathering until the end of the Mesolithic period, when agricultural practices are believed to have emerged.