Posted on 04/06/2019 11:55:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The reason that humans shifted away from hunting and gathering, and to agriculture -- a much more labor-intensive process -- has always been a riddle. It is only more confusing because the shift happened independently in about a dozen areas across the globe... One theory posits that in times of plenty there may have been more time to start dabbling in the domestication of plants like squash and sunflowers, the latter of which were domesticated by the native peoples of Tennessee around 4,500 years ago. The other theory argues that domestication may have happened out of need to supplement diets when times were not as good. As the human population grew, perhaps resources shifted due to reasons such as over-exploitation of resources or a changing climate...
Weitzel tested both hypotheses. He did this by analyzing animal bones from the last 13,000 years and taken from a half-dozen archeological sites in northern Alabama and the Tennessee River valley, where human settlements and their detritus give clues about how they lived, including what they ate.He coupled the findings with pollen data taken from sediment cores collected from lakes and wetlands, cores that serve as a record about the types of plants present at different points in time.The findings are ... mixed.
Weitzel found pollen from oak and hickory, leading to the conclusion that forests composed of those species began to dominate the region as the climate warmed, but also led to decreasing water levels in lakes and wetlands. Along with the decreasing lakes, the bone records showed a shift from diets rich in water fowl and large fishes to subsistence on smaller shellfish.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Beer!
CC
The hunter-gatherer meme is pure humanism garbage.
It’s funny. All those who claim to be so environmentally conscious manifest their lack of experience of ever having to only consume what they have had to labor to grow or raise, but instead rely on other sources to remain alive.
Why did we start farming?
Try the Genesis account.
(Gen 3:17) And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
(Gen 3:18) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
(Gen 3:19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Gen. 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Still another theory is that the farms were in the lowlands near the oceans and were covered by glacial melt, then revived later on lands of higher elevation which is what we find today. Not a mystery.
some plants yield 1000 grains to 1. Not only a powerful incentive to grow(profit) but also a mystical process of growth that was recognized and incorporated into their religions. Grain was ‘the mystery of life’.
“Beer”
It may be that simple. That and war. Farming feeds more, supporting larger armies, and providing more time to make better weapons. Larger armies and better weapons win wars.
“It is only more confusing because the shift happened independently in about a dozen areas across the globe”
It’s very multiculti to say this, but farming began in the Levant at least 6000 years before anywhere else. It one thing to assert that there were different centers of origin for various domestic crops. It’s quite another to assert that the idea of farming hadn’t already spread to these centers before the farming started.
Farming originally started out as a purely religious ritual.
Only later did it develop into the large-scale cultivation of "cash crops."
Regards,
Agriculture allowed supporting more people per square mile of territory. A more numerous tribe of farmers or herders can displace a less numerous tribe of hunter gatherers.
“leading to the conclusion that forests composed of those species began to dominate the region as the climate warmed,“
SUVs and cow farts most likely.
L
“Farming leads to beer and wine.”
Mead predates beer by a couple of thousand years. Mead could be made by hunter gatherer societies while beer and wine required excess grains and grapes. Those can only exist with organized agriculture.
L
Genesis 3:17 “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.”
I have to wonder just how well we really understood things back then. The implication that hunting a mastodon or a even deer was easy back then was easy given that they basically had to get close enough to them to reach by throwing stones. Or that farming was very work-intensive - maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the first crops actually did grow like weeds and all it took was planting the seeds in some treeless area and then coming back in 6 months. Things were a lot different then...what the grew, and what the enemies of those crops were.
I marvel at so many ancient discoveries, non-obvious questions asked, and experiments.
Yeast and fermentation. Alcohol production.
Hulling wheat and grinding the kernel to make flour.
How heat transforms foods.
“Can I plant these seeds myself and harvest the crops?”
The growth of metallurgy to make crude but more effective farm implements (spin off from weapons)
“I wonder what this tastes like?” and the ensuing knowledge including “Nope. Don’t want to die”, it’s storage and handing down to subsequent generations. How many died as a result of “I wonder if I can eat this”experiments.
Large migrations of people to completely unknown far away places that were not hospitable to their seeds.
The explosion of discoverers taking seeds and plants with them on their voyages and bringing new discoveries home.
Because they liked fresh vegetables. NO mystery there.
There must have been an ancient and relatively high civilization during the last Ice Age that was catastrophically destroyed. That civilization developed farming, bread making, domesticated livestock, dogs, and cheetahs. That civilization is now covered by 300 to 400 feet of ocean.
I’m going with the “obvious” hypothesis ... people have always been lazy
Gathering plants means walking big distances, which uses a lot of time & energy, yet with no guarantee of finding anything; with agriculture, people knew what they had, had it close-by, and could use that freed-up walking time for other things
Plus, there’s also dangers from wild animals involved in plant searches, which agriculture helped reduce
Why? Because some caveman leftist thought that food grew free on trees.
Our ancestors had 200cc more brain volume ten thousand years ago on average vs today.
The brain and body thrive on meat and fat. Whomever thought it would be better to scratch dirt for ten hours a day in repetitive and laborsome movements rather than running and strategizing and stalking and making tools on the fly must have been the AOC of the paleo world.
"Napping flint takes too much skill, I'm going to poke the ground with a stick."
I saw one show the other day that suggested that farming was terrible but people stuck with it because they couldn't carry their couch easily from place to place.
Truth is that you work just as hard at H&G as you do at farming and the results are less sure.
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