- In anthropological literature, hunters-gatherers are classified in several ways. Very broadly speaking the hunter-gatherers can be categorized into two by taking time line as criteria: (1) Pleistocene communities and (2) contemporary communities.
- Hunters and gatherers can be classified into simple and complex. Many hunter and gatherers’ social organization was simple comprising small mobile local groups without much differentiation among their people. Such hunter-gatherers are called simple communities as in the case of Australian aborigines, the Kung Bushman (South Africa) the Chenchu, the Birhors etc. However, some communities like the Indians of Northwest coast of North America and many prehistoric peoples comprised large semi-sedentary settlements with chiefs, commoners and slaves with basic foraging patterns of concentration and dispersion, summer camps, dependence on wild food etc. Such societies are called complex hunter-gatherer communities.
- Further the hunter-gatherers can be divided into immediate return and delayed return societies. Both of these societies are organized as band societies. However, in the immediate-return societies, food consumption is almost immediate soon after its procurement. In the delayed-return societies, food and other resources are stored over longer periods.
- Hunter-gatherers can be divided into broad-based foragers and specialized foragers. The former extract a variety of seasonally and spatially available resources. The latter concentrate more on a few specialized resources.
- Another classification is based on historical contacts and development. Some hunter-gatherers maintained the tradition of ancient hunting gathering people (what Sahlins calls hunters in a world of hunters). Examples are the Australian Pintupi, Warlpiri, North American Eskimo, Shoshone and Cree, the south American Yamana and the African Ju/hoansi (or the Bushmen) Another category comprises hunter-gatherers people who lived in contact with non-hunting societies. For example, the Pygmies of central Africa were in patronclient relation with the settled villages. The Nayakas(in Karnataka) and the Birhors (in Bihar) lived in economic symbiosis with the Hindu villages providing magico -religious services and traded forest produce. Another category is a number of hunting people who could not succeed as agriculturists and consequently reverted or readapted or devolved to hunting mode of subsistence. The classical examples are the Siriono of South America and the Veddas of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
The above indicates that though there are some common features, there are also special features which are determined by environmental conditions, societal factors, demographic factors, food abundance which necessitates sedentary life-styles, formal leadership, technological advancement for intensified production etc.