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Top 10 Skills Our Ancestors Used For Survival

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Foraging can be really useful
Foraging can be really useful

Survival in the wild

History is an important aspect of our life as individuals or society. Knowing how your ancestors had been doing things might save your life at some point. Learning their essential primitive skills and techniques is a must if you want to survive. Have a quick look through a small guide on how mother nature can help you to stay safe and comfortable in the wild.

Fire

How to make a fire:

 

The fire is mankind’s greatest discovery followed closely by the invention of the wheel. It’s for sure the game changer in any survival scenario. Knowing how to make a fire can help you survive: helps you see in the dark, purifies water, keeps yourself warm, signals for help, cooks food, keeps wild animals away and a whole lot more. The most important things about fire you need to now are how to make a regular one and how to make one without smoke.

How to make a fire without smoke:

 

Food

Another important basic need for survival is food. You have to know how to cook, hunt, find and store food into the wild.

The most important skills for providing food in the wild are hunting, fishing and foraging.  Being a hunter doesn’t mean just killing and eating a wild animal. Real hunters are killing with mercy, dignity and respect for what food symbolizes. You can fish with a fish pole or you can try fish trapping or cast-net fishing. Speaking of foraging, the best advice would be not to eat a plant if you don’t recognize it.

 

Primitive Outdoor Cooking

Mastering the outdoor cooking:

 

If I’ve been talking about how to make a fire and how to find some food, the next logical step is to master the skills of outdoor cooking. If you want to really master this skill, you’ll definitely have to learn how to cook delicious meals along with wild herbs as condiments.

Knowing how to make different types of food might come in handy. Learn how to boil, make soups, bake or roast.

How To Grow Your Own Food

As you may think growing vegetables and grains helped our ancestors evolve. Mastering this skill can provide you with a self-sustained source of food plus a little extra if you want to domesticate animals. A livestock can provide you with many by-products and a healthy diet.

Processing And Storing Food

If you want to survive in the wild you have to plan ahead and be very disciplined. Putting a small fraction aside now can save your life in the future.

If you know how to dry vegetables or smoke meats you’ll always have a safe long lasting food supply. Though, the golden rule of storing food is that all have a limited shelf life. Keep in mind that even if the food is not spoiled, the nutrition values will be plummeting.

Here are some easy ways to store your food. You can try underground storage or root cellaring. Remember that in-ground and underground storage is a short-term food storage technique. Both methods are suited though for the cold winters.

Making a Shelter

Just like fire, having a shelter gives you protection and warmth. You have to carefully find a good spot to camp. The best campsites are in dry areas, away from loose rocks or damaged trees. Also, if you can find a spot somewhere high it will provide a great vantage point and protection.

After you pick the best spot for camping, you should learn how to build a large variety of shelters, such as tarp or log shelters. A really easy and cheap way to build a shelter would be a debris shelter .

Another set of skills that always comes in handy is knot-tying, knowing how to make a rope or how to strip branches.

Easiest way to make a shelter into the wild:

 

Hiking

Even if it looks really easy, hiking can be difficult. When you’re in the wild, hiking becomes harder and harder as night approaches… You have to decide where to camp, trek over difficult terrain, keep yourself on identity trails not to mention the physical activity itself.

Navigation

In order to be able to survive in the woods, you will need to know how to navigate and how to keep track of time. The first thing that crosses my mind, is the compass of course, because it’s really easy to use and is always accurate. Having some astronomy skills can be very useful too. If you want to be sure that you master survival, you should not forget to add a topographic map to your bug-out bag. You should also know how to recognize landmarks and knowing what time it is, without having a watch.

First-Aid Survival Kit

First of all, before going out into the wilderness, you should carefully check your survival plan. Everybody knows that mother nature is highly unpredictable, so brace yourselves. Always remember: Safety comes first! Find a free online first aid course and learn the basics.

In case anything bad happens, you should also know how to prevent infections, treat broken bones or suture wounds. The best way to always be prepared is to combine and mix new medicine with old remedies you can find in nature.

Know Your Water

You are more than 70% water. Finding and filtering water is one of the most important survival skills you have to learn. You can’t live without water far more than 3 days. So, knowing how to find it in the wild can save your life. When it comes to filtering, the easiest way is to always have with you a portable water filter. If you don’t, you can collect water from the trees and plants using a plastic bag. Rain and melted snow are also ready to drink.

Although it might be fun and provocative to live in the wild, you should always keep in mind that mother nature is not always nice and welcoming, so you have to prepare carefully in advance, in order to enjoy the beautiful aspects the wilderness can provide.

 

John Turner
John Turnerhttp://www.patriotdirect.org/
Dedicated to upgrowth, developement and prepared for the "worst" to come... Simple guy, simple skills, simple attitude. Just an ordinary guy who tries to survive!

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