sophiaserpentia | the domestication of the primate

Why did farming spread at all? The answer might seem to be obvious -- for example, that farming makes life easier or happier, or that it provides a genetic advantage to the people who practice it.

In fact, it seems that farming did not make life easier, nor did it improve nutrition, or reduce disease. The British science writer Colin Tudge (1995) describes farming as 'the end of Eden'. Rather than being easier, the life of early farmers was utter misery. Early Egyptian skeletons tell a story of a terrible life. Their toes and backs are deformed by the way people had to grind corn to make bread; they show signs of rickets and of terrible abscesses in their jaws. Probably few lived beyond the age of thirty. Stories in the Old Testament describe the arduous work of farmers and, after all, Adam was thrown out of Eden and told, 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.' By contrast modern hunter-gatherers have been estimated to spend only about fifteen hours a week hunting and have plenty of time for leisure. This is despite the fact that they have been pushed into marginal environments far poorer than those in which our ancient ancestors probably lived. Why would people the world over have given up an easier life in favor of a life of toil and drudgery?

Tudge assumes 'that agriculture arose because it was favored by natural selection' (1995, p. 274) and therefore looks for a genetic advantage. He suggests that because farming produces more food from a given area of land, farmers will produce more children who will encroach on neighboring hunter-gatherer's lands and so destroy their way of life. For this reason, once farming arrives no one has the luxury of saying 'I want to keep the old way of life.' However, we know from the skeletons of early farmers that they were malnourished and sickly. So was there really a genetic advantage?

(Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine p. 26-27)

This is a mystery to which there is no widely-accepted answer. It seems to me though that there must have been both opportunity and necessity.

Some theorists suggest that atmospheric CO2 levels shifted in a way that opened a window of opportunity for agriculture to develop. I haven't investigated this enough to form an opinion about its likelihood. But something special happened that led to the simultaneous development of agriculture in nine different places about 10,000 years ago.

I'm leaning towards a combination of population/resource pressure and climactic favorability, as the likely cause. Housing and clothing played a role, too; people in cultures with permanent housing and adequate clothing require 40% less food.

A couple of pages with notes about the origin of agriculture:

http://www.indyrad.iupui.edu/public/ebraunst/Agriculture.htm
http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/agorigin.htm

I recall being taught in sociology and anthropology class that the current theory about the origins of government, social stratification, and the division of labor is traceable to the development of irrigation systems. See for example this link. This thought might be worth exploring and examining further.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

in a bad year hunting/gathering, you can lose up to half your clan to starvation. you can't effectively store food if you are constantly romaing. agriculturalists have that benefit.

my theory (personally) is that farming did not start for foodstuffs. also, many of the places where farming is thought to have originated did not have huge seasonal patterns - they enjoy very long growing seasons.

farming, in my opinion, probably started with medicines and luxury goods. herbailsts who would know that certain types of roots and leaves had certain properties would have carried them as they moved about, since you never know when the next time you will come across a similar plant would be. at some point, someone must have realized that seeds and shoots can create new plants, and that got passed along with the rest of the herbalist lore.

at some point, that same click would have been made for hallucanogens, grapes, and, ultimately, grains suitable for making beer. these things were all found in the wild, but a reason to cultivate an unattended, fixed patch of them would be so that you could always have then available for celebration or sacred festivals etc. once that mental/societal leap was made, the next step of performign similar feats with foodstuffs would not have been a long one to make.

These are excellent points. Do you have any resources to recommend?

Just yesterday I was musing about the role cheese may have played in ranching, at least in those parts of the world where it is consumed. Cheese is possibly the most addictive substance known to humankind. It is a good source of nutrition, too. I wonder how much of an incentive was provided by cheese.

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.

Carbohydrates are also highly addictive. Bread and beer. Since I find cheese to be utterly revolting, I can't compare cheese and carbs for addictiveness with any degree of fairness.

Back when sugar was a very rare commodity, there was a case of an English diplomat who betrayed his country so he could remain in Egypt where he was awarded access to sugar as payment. Had he not betrayed England he would have gone back to England and be cut off from his sugar supply when diplomatic relationships were cut-off. He chose sugar over patriotism.

Excesssugar in kids can lead to alcoholism, while recovering alcoholics often binge heavily on carbs.

the domestication of the primate

the food storage is the comparison

Re: the food storage is the comparison

cheese

Re: the food storage is the comparison