Evidence that human societies built on agricultural subsistence have been inherently ecologically unsustainable highlights the value in exploring whether any pre-agricultural subsistence approaches were ecologically sustainable or nearly so. The land management practices of some hunter-gatherer societies have been portrayed as sustainable, even beneficial. Research suggests such practices may fruitfully inform contemporary land management. As a human subsistence foundation, however, they may not have been ecologically sustainable. Figuring centrally in the late Pleistocene shift from immediate-return to delayed-return hunting and gathering, they enabled population growth, helped make possible the development of agriculture, and appear to have caused early environmental degradation. Consistent with this argument is research locating the origins of the Anthropocene near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, as societies were taking greater control of food production. It appears then that immediate-return hunting and gathering, which involved little or no land management, was the human lifeway most closely approaching ecological sustainability. Wider recognition of this idea would assist in understanding and addressing today’s ecological challenges.

中文翻译：

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人类的狩猎者-采集者土地管理摆脱了生态可持续性

建立在农业生存基础上的人类社会本质上在生态上是不可持续的，这凸显了探索任何农业前生存方法在生态上是否可持续的价值。一些猎人-采集者社会的土地管理实践被描述为可持续的，甚至有益的。研究表明，这种做法可以有效地指导当代土地管理。但是，作为人类生存的基础，它们在生态上可能不是可持续的。它们在更新世晚期从立即返回到延迟返回的狩猎和采集过程中占据中心位置，从而促进了人口增长，帮助实现了农业发展，并似乎导致了早期的环境恶化。与这种观点一致的是，随着社会对粮食生产的控制越来越严格，研究将人类世的起源定位在更新世-全新世边界附近。当时看来，几乎不涉及土地管理或不涉及土地管理的即时返回狩猎和采集是人类最接近生态可持续性的生命。对这一想法的更广泛认识将有助于理解和应对当今的生态挑战。