Human migration, hunter-gatherers to agriculture, & 8 different Indian policies over 500 years

American Minute ^ | August 29, 2019 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

The Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, written by Jared Diamond (1997), documented that throughout human history, hunter-gathers were always subdued by people groups who had transitioned to agriculture.

The first plants to be cultivated were:

wheat, barley, rye, oats, lentils, peas, chickpeas, beans, almonds, and olives.

Flax was cultivated as a source for linseed oil and fiber for clothes, ropes, rugs, bedding, curtains, and sails.

Agricultural domestication of plants led to the domestication of animals, such as: donkey, horse, camel, pig, chicken, cattle and oxen.

Harvests led to storage techniques, methods of transporting, record-keeping, irrigation, and the smelting of metals for tools.

Record-keeping developed into writing, which allowed for knowledge and ideas to pass to subsequent generations, creating the cumulative effect of advancing civilization.

Reeds and clay were used for building materials.

Excess crops led to trading and the exchange of goods and ideas.

Land used for farming gradually left the soil depleted of nutrients, so more land would be cleared.

As deforestation and soil depletion took its toll, it led agriculturally-based civilizations to look for more land, and thus become expansionist , with exception of the Nile river valley where annual flooding replenished the soil.

Expansion of agriculturally developed civilizations crowded out less advanced hunter-gathers, and led to conflict, wars, and military conquests.

Displaced peoples migrated further away.

Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, documented that the phenomenon of agricultural cultures displacing hunter-gatherer cultures occurred worldwide.

[Perseverando]

Time for another great American history lesson from American Minute.

[SES1066]

The Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, written by Jared Diamond (1997), documented that throughout human history, hunter-gathers were always subdued by people groups who had transitioned to agriculture.

ALWAYS??? Really?

Explain please how the steppe barbarians menaced and destroyed ever so many agricultural societies for multiple millennia up to when the titular guns & gunpowder became readily available. Horse mounted, bow & lance wielding nomads were a plague on agricultural societies from the Scythians to the Huns to the Mongols to the Tartars before guns stopped them. Yes the civilized did EVENTUALLY win but that has only been since the 1500s!