Abstract
The metabolism of human society is dynamic; it has undergone major changes during the course of human history, and it is currently in a transition process. Since the time of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, the amount of materials extracted and used by humans and the associated impact on the environment have grown by several orders of magnitude, and the quality and quantity of the related sustainability problems have changed. This chapter recalls major stages in human history through the lens of the societal use of materials and energy. It introduces the notion of sociometabolic regimes and explores the characteristics of resource use in hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies and industrial societies. It discusses the emergence of these metabolic regimes, their variability and their environmental and sustainability problems.
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