Human activities which generate income are known as economic activities. Economic activities are broadly grouped into primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary activities.
Primary activities are directly dependent on environment as these refer to utilisation of earth’s resources such as land, water, vegetation, building materials and minerals. It, thus includes, hunting and gathering, pastoral activities, fishing, forestry, agriculture, and mining and quarrying.
Hunting and Gathering: The earliest human beings depended on their immediate environment for their sustenance. They subsisted on: (a) animals which they hunted; and (b) the edible plants which they gathered from forests in the vicinity.
Primitive societies depended on wild animals. People located in very cold and extremely hot climates survived on hunting. The people in the coastal areas still catch fish though fishing has experienced modernisation due to technological progress. Many species, now have become extinct or endangered due to illegal hunting (poaching). The early hunters used primitive tools made of stones, twigs or arrows so the number of animals killed was limited. Why has hunting been banned in India?
Gathering and hunting are the oldest economic activity known. These are carried out at different levels with different orientations.