<P> Nowadays, some scholars speak about the existence within cultural evolution of the so - called mixed - economies or dual economies which imply a combination of food procurement (gathering and hunting) and food production or when foragers have trade relations with farmers . </P> <P> In the early 1980s, a small but vocal segment of anthropologists and archaeologists attempted to demonstrate that contemporary groups usually identified as hunter - gatherers do not, in most cases, have a continuous history of hunting and gathering, and that in many cases their ancestors were agriculturalists or pastoralists who were pushed into marginal areas as a result of migrations, economic exploitation, or violent conflict (see, for example, the Kalahari Debate). The result of their effort has been the general acknowledgement that there has been complex interaction between hunter - gatherers and non-hunter - gatherers for millennia . </P> <P> Some of the theorists who advocate this "revisionist" critique imply that, because the "pure hunter - gatherer" disappeared not long after colonial (or even agricultural) contact began, nothing meaningful can be learned about prehistoric hunter - gatherers from studies of modern ones (Kelly, 24 - 29; see Wilmsen) </P> <P> Lee and Guenther have rejected most of the arguments put forward by Wilmsen . Doron Shultziner and others have argued that we can learn a lot about the life - styles of prehistoric hunter - gatherers from studies of contemporary hunter - gatherers--especially their impressive levels of egalitarianism . </P>

Societies whose means of subsistence are based on agricultural production