Week 5 — Two Hundred to One: Reading the Subsistence Model

Assignment 5 of the term — read the model table of four ways of making a living, compare them without ranking them, and explain it to someone who has it wrong.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Ethnography Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together. It builds on Week 1's holism, the habit of seeing how the parts of a way of life fit together, and Week 2's warning against ethnocentrism.

The task

The illustrative subsistence comparison table (Dataset D) is a model built for this course, with engineered whole numbers, and it describes no real people. Its four illustrative communities are:

• foraging: 1 person per square kilometre, 60 settlement moves per decade, a typical local group of 30;
• pastoral: 4 people per square kilometre, 40 moves per decade, a group of 60;
• horticultural: 20 people per square kilometre, 2 moves per decade, a group of 150;
• intensive agricultural: 200 people per square kilometre, 0 moves per decade, a group of 3,000.

The running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market constructed for this course, not a real place. Its family-run stall sells from the family's own farm, with permanent fields, to buyers who mostly live by wages and buy their food; field-note entry 6, at 8:50 a.m., records three generations at work in the stall. A friend sees your notes and says, "Foragers are people who never figured out farming. They're living in the past, and one day they'll catch up." Your job is to answer the way an anthropologist would, starting from a few plain numbers in the model.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural community has 20 people per square kilometre and the intensive agricultural community has 200. How many times the horticultural density is the intensive agricultural density?
2. In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the foraging group makes 60 settlement moves per decade, and a decade is 10 years. How many times a year does the foraging group move?
3. In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural village's typical local group is 150 people and the intensive agricultural town's is 3,000. How many times the village's group is the town's group?
4. In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural village moves 2 times a decade, and a decade is 10 years. About how many years pass between the village's moves?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: explain, using permanent fields and surplus, why the intensive agricultural community can hold more people on each square kilometre, and add the honesty note that the table is a model with engineered numbers in which real foraging densities are often well under 1 person per square kilometre.
• Problem 2: define foraging in the course's words, and explain why a group that follows its food moves often, without describing foragers as always hungry, always idle, or earlier than anyone else.
• Problem 3: link the larger group to surplus and staying put, and compare the two communities side by side as a model, without calling either one more advanced, simpler, or an earlier stage.
• Problem 4: read the market's family-run stall in two columns, observed and possible interpretation, as intensive agriculture meeting buyers who live by wages, with people named only by role.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your friend thinks foragers are behind and will one day catch up. Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains why the five strategies are a model for comparing and not a ladder, that domestication began independently in several world regions, and that foragers are living people in the present with their own histories, and that names one limit, such as that the table's numbers are engineered or that the debate over foragers' working hours is still open. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a cousin who says that grandparents who kept a backyard vegetable garden were "old-fashioned" compared with people who buy everything at a store. Model answer: "A backyard garden tended with hand tools is one way of getting food, and buying food with a paycheck is another; many households do both at once. Anthropologists treat these as different strategies to compare, not as steps where one is newer and better. One fair caveat: a garden rarely feeds a whole household, so most gardeners still shop."

Use that pattern for your friend, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory cultural anthropology course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about how societies make a living: the five subsistence strategies as a model, density, settlement moves, group size, and surplus. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, an hours figure, a date, a study, a quotation, or a food or custom of any real people, never describe the Ju/'hoansi in the present tense, and never call any people or strategy "primitive", simpler, or earlier.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the illustrative subsistence comparison table, a model with engineered whole numbers that describes no real people. Foraging: 1 person per square kilometre, 60 settlement moves per decade, a typical local group of 30. Pastoral: 4, 40, and 60. Horticultural: 20, 2, and 150. Intensive agricultural: 200, 0, and 3,000. The running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market constructed for this course, not a real place; its family-run stall sells from the family's own farm, with permanent fields, to buyers who mostly live by wages and buy their food. Course terms: subsistence strategies are the ways a group gets its food, taught as a model of five strategies, and real communities mix strategies; foraging is getting food by hunting, gathering, and fishing, without domesticated plants or animals; intensive agriculture is farming with plows, irrigation, draft animals or machines, and permanent fields; a surplus is food produced beyond what the producers need right away; domestication began independently in several world regions after the end of the last ice age.
PROBLEM P1: In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural community has 20 people per square kilometre and the intensive agricultural community has 200. How many times the horticultural density is the intensive agricultural density?
PROBLEM P2: In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the foraging group makes 60 settlement moves per decade, and a decade is 10 years. How many times a year does the foraging group move?
PROBLEM P3: In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural village's typical local group is 150 people and the intensive agricultural town's is 3,000. How many times the village's group is the town's group?
PROBLEM P4: In the illustrative subsistence comparison table, the horticultural village moves 2 times a decade, and a decade is 10 years. About how many years pass between the village's moves?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, why permanent fields and surplus let the intensive agricultural community hold more people, plus the honesty note that the table is a model with engineered numbers; for P2, foraging defined in the course's words, plus why a group that follows its food moves often, with no hungry, idle, or earlier stereotype; for P3, the larger group linked to surplus and staying put, plus the two communities compared as a model without ranking; for P4, a two-column reading of the family-run stall as intensive agriculture meeting buyers who live by wages, with roles only. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend who thinks foragers are behind and will one day catch up, explaining that the five strategies are a model and not a ladder, that domestication began independently in several world regions, and that foragers are living people in the present, with one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (40 points), anthropological reasoning (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 computation points, 4 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the friend only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct density ratio, moves-per-year figure, group-size ratio, or years-between figure = 2; the right numbers and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing figure or the wrong numbers or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH a two-column reading of the family-run stall as intensive agriculture meeting buyers who live by wages AND a message to the friend that explains the model-not-ladder point, independent domestication in several regions, and foragers as living people, with a named limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and a strategy called "primitive", simpler, or earlier, a single birthplace for farming, or an invented custom or hours figure for a real people is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to anthropology, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the friend with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable numbers and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete number or step = 1; a bare final number or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled two-column sketch of the family-run stall with a short explanation; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 5 skills — computing and reading the model table's density, moves, and group-size figures, explaining how food links to settlement and surplus, reading the family-run stall as strategies meeting, and comparing ways of making a living without ranking them — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the model. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it call any people "primitive" or earlier, describe the Ju/'hoansi in the present tense, name a single birthplace for farming, or invent an hours figure for foragers. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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