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The technical advances of the last 150 years have brought about a new possibility of general well-being such as has never existed before since there first were men on the earth. Primitive man suffered from the cold in winter and the heat in summer. He lived in terror of wild beasts. In good times he obtained just enough food to keep him in health. In bad times he died of hunger. There were terrific visitations of plague and pestilence in which whole tribes were wiped out. It was a furtive, painful, and precarious existence, owing, at that time, not to the folly and wickedness of man but to natural facts with which he could not yet cope. Gradually his intelligence transformed the scene.

Focuses on a remote Indian tribe along the upper Purus River in Peru's tropical forest. Role of the Sharanahua women in provoking the males to kill game in the forest; Description of the hunt; Household tasks of women and daughters; Return of the men from the special hunt; Details of the festival.

Discusses how societies that focus on hunting and gathering have never made the leap into the struggle for power and prestige. Consideration of how Americans strive to climb the social pyramid; Role of status seeking practices among the American Indians who formerly inhabited the Pacific Northwest; Reference to potlatch, a practice in which an Indian chief would give away or destroy more wealth than that of his rivals; How potlatch is described in the book 'Patterns of Culture' by Ruth Benedict; Indications about competitive feasting practices in Melanesia and New Guinea.

The article reports that the archeologists from the University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University have excavated obsidian tools to prove that the seminomadic fishermen and hunter-gatherers who flourished in Peloponnesian Greece were the first men to make successful sea voyages. It offers information on how to determine the age of obsidian artifacts. The findings of the group who studied the obsidian are presented.