Final answer:
The correct statement describing hunting and gathering is that it was the primary subsistence strategy for humans before agriculture, involving nomadic lifestyle, small groups, and the use of local natural resources for food, which is still practiced today by some groups.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct statement that describes hunting and gathering is that it is a form of subsistence that includes hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, which was utilized by humans from Homo erectus until at least 10,000 years ago. Hunting and gathering is a type of nomadism and was the primary means by which all humans obtained their food before the invention of agriculture. This subsistence strategy is still practiced by some groups today, and typically, hunter-gatherers live in small, mobile groups or bands to effectively exploit available resources. Gathering, often conducted by both women and men, provides the majority of calories and thus holds significant importance in such societies.
Early human societies were shaped by the availability of local resources, which determined their diet, the size of their groups, and their movements. The gatherer-hunter lifestyle was predominant for about 95 percent of human evolutionary history. People lived as hunter-gatherers, roaming from place to place, relying on what they could catch or gather. This mode of life allowed humans to be highly adaptable to various ecosystems, but didn't support large, concentrated populations or the stockpiling of resources, thus making the development of cities impossible until the advent of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals.