Final answer:
In gathering-hunting societies, infanticide was sometimes practiced as a subsistence strategy to balance the population with the available environmental resources and ensure group survival.
Step-by-step explanation:
Hunting and gathering societies, also known as gathering-hunting societies, at times resorted to infanticide as a means of ensuring the survival of the group. Scarcity of resources or environmental challenges could compel a group to make this grave decision, usually to balance the population with the available resources, thereby maintaining the group's overall sustainability. This practice was particularly noted in cases where the birth rate outpaced the resources available to the group or in situations where the environment could not sustain a larger population.
Infanticide was one of several subsistence strategies that sought to mitigate the resource limitations of the gathering-hunting lifestyle. In such societies, the primary means of subsistence came through the gathering of fruits, nuts, and other wild produce, as well as hunting game and fishing. These groups also exhibited a division of labor based on gender, though not rigidly exclusive, with men typically doing the hunting and women gathering, as well as a significant degree of egalitarianism within their social structures.