someone already reccomended diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. It is a fantastic starting point. Sforza and Jean Auel (beleiv eit or not) are also major idealists in how I've put my theories together.

Your cheese ideas are intruiging. Farming probably led to the domestication of animals, which in turn, would have led to a new round of foodstuffs. it may be what made people move towards a purely meat-producing "farming", rather than a mixed mode, which most early farms were.