Much of what we know about the hunting-gathering societies comes from archeological findings and the study of remnant cultures in Australia, South America and Africa. From such studies, we find that people of these hunting-gathering societies lived in a world closely linked to the environment. They knew a great deal about their surroundings. This profound ecological knowledge is evident today in the existing hunting-gathering societies. Hunter-gatherers were nomads, wanderers who foraged for plants and captured a variety of animals using only primitive weapons. Because their skills did not give them a great advantage over other species, their populations never grow very large. Hunting-gathering societies can be considered environmentally benign; they exploited the environment only to meet their need. What damage they created from tramping or cutting vegetation and the wastes they left behind could easily be repaired by the environmental regeneration.