The Agricultural Revolution: World History

We shall discover how, in under 15,000 years, people evolved from being hunters and gatherers to...

Please, Mr. Green! Will this be on the exam?

Yes, regarding the test: In schools, bars, hospitals, dorm rooms, and places of religion, the exam will determine whether you are an informed, involved, and productive member of the world. You will be put to the test while watching sports, on first dates, in job interviews, and while skimming through your Twitter account.

The test will assess your capacity for thinking beyond celebrity weddings, your susceptibility to being swayed by hollow political rhetoric, and your capacity for viewing your life and community in a wider context.

Your entire life will be put to the test, and it will be made up of the millions of choices that, when added together, give your life its unique character. Additionally, everything will be on it. I'm aware, right? So, be mindful.

Humans evolved from hunters and gatherers to the inventors of the aeroplane, the Internet, and the $99 double cheeseburger in just fifteen thousand years.

It's a remarkable journey, one that I shall now represent by starting my own. Switch to camera two. Hello, camera two. My name is John Green. Start with that double cheeseburger, please.

Food photography, oh my! Therefore, this piping-hot piece of steak has 490 calories.

To get this cheeseburger, you have to grow some wheat, process it until it's whiter than Queen Elizabeth the First, milk some cows, and make cheese from their milk. You also have to feed, raise, and kill cows, grind their meat, freeze it, and ship it to its destination. Not to mention the cultivation and pickling of cucumbers, the ripening and sugaring of tomatoes, the grinding of mustard seeds, etc. How on earth did we ever come to live in a world where such a thing can even be constructed, in the lovely name of everything holy?

And HOW is it possible that those 490 calories may be provided to me for a sum of money that, if I were to earn the minimum wage in the United States, I could make in 11 minutes? The most crucial question is: Should living in this peculiar world of relative abundance make me happy or nervous? Because many of these events aren't documented in writing, we won't be able to answer that issue solely by looking at history. But we CAN explore far into the past since that archaeology and paleobiology exist. Visit the Thought Bubble now. Therefore, humans were foragers and hunters fifteen thousand years ago.

Gathering fruits, nuts, wild grains, and grasses were all part of foraging; hunting allowed for a more protein-rich diet, provided you could find an animal to kill that had flesh on it. Fishing, incidentally, was by far the best hunting activity in the prehistoric world, which is one of the reasons that when looking at the history of human habitation of the planet, we preferred to run for the shore and then stay there. There was a lot of marine life, and it was also doubtful that it would devour you.

Although we have a tendency to believe that foragers' lives were unpleasant, brutal, and brief, fossil evidence reveals that they actually had a relatively nice life because their bones and teeth were in better shape than agriculturalists'. anthropologists who have researched the last foraging populations have observed that they actually work far less than the rest of us do and instead spend more time creating art, listening to music, and telling stories. Additionally, according to the anthropology classic NISA, they also have a lot more time for skoodilypooping. What?

I refer to it as skoodilypooping. No need for an apology from me. It's important to note that the cultivation of crops appears to have developed independently over the course of millennia in several regions, from Africa to China to the Americas, using local plants like yams in West Africa, maize in Mexico, and potatoes in the Andes. People started switching from foraging to agriculture all throughout the planet.

And since so many towns separately made this decision, it must have been a wise one, right? even though it meant less skoodilypooping and music. Gratitude to Thought Bubble.

All right, let's examine the benefits and drawbacks of agriculture in order to respond to that issue.

Controllable food supply is an advantage. Even if there may be floods or droughts, if you are cultivating crops and developing them to be more resilient, your chances of not going hungry are higher.

Disadvantage: You must drastically alter the planet's ecosystem in order to continue feeding people as the population rises. Advantage: Producing an excess of food, especially if you grow grain, makes cities conceivable and also allows for the specialization of labour.

For example, in the pre-agricultural era, EVERYONE'S job was foraging, and it took around 1,000 calories of labour to produce 1,000 calories of food. It was also impractical to establish big population centers.

However, if there is a surplus, agriculture can help others who are not directly involved in food production. Like, for instance, craftsmen who can dedicate their life to creating better farming equipment, which in turn makes it simpler to produce more food more effectively and eventually enables a corporation to earn money on this $99 double cheeseburger.

which, by the way, is excellent. Actually, it's awful. And it's freezing. And now I regret eating it.

Can we just compare what was promised to what was actually given to me, you know?

Yes, please do. This is not that, yes.

Some people contend that big, intricate agricultural systems that eventually support cities and low-cost meat sandwiches are not always good for the world or even its human occupants. However, given that I am communicating with you in a series of ones and zeros, that is a somewhat difficult argument to make.

ADVANTAGE: Agriculture is a practice that can be carried out anywhere in the world, albeit in certain circumstances it necessitates substantial environmental modification, such as irrigation, controlled flooding, terracing, and the like.

DISADVANTAGE: Farming is challenging. In fact, it is so difficult that one is tempted to take credit for it. the kind of non-ideal social order that usually seems to be connected with agricultural societies is one where you hold power over other individuals and then have them till the land on your behalf.

Therefore, why did agriculture arise? Oh, I forgot to include herders. Hey, herdsmen! getting the short end of the stick constantly.

Herding is a really good and intriguing substitute for agriculture and foraging. Then you take your domesticated animals with you when you travel. Herding has several benefits, which are clear. You get to start out as a cowboy. Additionally, animals supply milk and meat, but they also aid in the construction of shelter since they can produce leather and wool. The drawback is that you must frequently relocate because your herd requires constant care.

Building towns is difficult on fresh grass, unless you're the Mongols. In addition, generalizations will frequently be followed with "unless you are the Mongols" during the course of the next forty weeks. In any case, the fact that there aren't many animals that are suitable for domestication is one of the main reasons herding has only been popular in a few regions of the world.

A few examples of animals that have something in common include sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, camels, donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, and yaks. The Americas are not their native habitat. The llama is the only native American herding mammal that is even remotely useful. Not that Lama; two l's instead. That llama, indeed. The majority of animals simply aren't domesticable.

In the same way as hippos are enormous and thus produce a lot of meat, they also enjoy eating people. Zebras may be a handful. Grizzlies have unbreakable wild hearts. Elephants are fantastic, but their breeding cycles are just too long. which brings to mind! The Open Letter should now be sent.

Elegant. Let's see what the Secret Compartment has in store for me today, though, first. Oh! Another double cheeseburger is available. I appreciate it, Secret Compartment. I don't thank you for this, just kidding.

A letter addressed to elephants. Hello, elephants You are so adorable, wise, and amazing. Why do you have to have a 22-month pregnancy? That's crazy! You then have just one child. By this point, you might have conquered us if you were more like cows.

You probably didn't realize that, but being beneficial to people is the biggest evolutionary benefit. Like this graph shows the population of cows, while this one shows the population of elephants. Elephants, you could have formed covert elephant societies and plotted against humans if you had simply interjected yourself into human society the way cows did! Once you had conquered us, you could have created an incredible elephant world complete with elephant cars and elephant aircraft!

The potential was so huge! But no way! You can only have one child after 22 months of pregnancy. It really annoys me!

Best regards, Green, John. Yes, but let's get back to the agricultural revolution and its causes. Since there are no written documents, historians cannot be certain. But they enjoy speculating.

Perhaps the need for agriculture was driven by population pressure, despite the fact that it required more effort, or by abundance, which gave humans time to experiment with domestication, or because planting was first performed as a fertility ritual, as some historians have suggested.

A wild and unusually fine kind of native plant might catch the notice of some wise old barbarian, according to Charles Darwin, who shared this belief with most scientists of the 19th century. Off-topic, but you'll notice in the upcoming weeks that "savage" is often defined as "not me."

The best theory would be that there wasn't actually an agricultural revolution at all, but rather that farming developed as a result of humans' need to eat more food through evolution. Just as early hunters and gatherers were aware that seeds can sprout when planted. Additionally, you want to do more of something you discover that produces food. except that it's this food. You then want to do less of it. I feel like spitting it out. eww. That's much better, I see.

Therefore, early farmers would seek out the most easily grown varieties of wheat, plant them, and experiment with them—not because they were seeking to usher in an agricultural revolution, but rather because they thought that more food would be fantastic.

all the way to the horizon. Many historians also contend that if it weren't for agriculture, there would be none of the negative aspects of sophisticated civilizations like patriarchy, inequality, war, and, sadly, starvation.

Additionally, agriculture has suffered greatly in terms of the environment. Without it, mankind would never have made such significant environmental changes as dam construction, forest clearing, and more recently, oil drilling for fertilizer-grade oil.

Numerous people independently choose to pursue agriculture, but does this mean it was the best decision? Maybe, maybe not, but we can't go back and change our minds about that decision. And for that reason, among others, I believe that studying history is crucial.

History serves as a reminder that revolutions are more processes than they are occurrences, and that people have been making decisions that have permanently affected the world we live in for tens of thousands of years. The same way that we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions today that history will look back on as revolutions.

Our globe, which will accompany us on our trip to the Indus River Valley the following week, is incredibly delicate, much like the genuine one. We're taking a trip to the valley of the Indus River. Then I'll see you.

You can make a guess as to the phrase of the week in the comments. Future words of the week suggestions are welcome as well. And if you have any questions concerning , feel free to post them in the comments section and one of our team of semi-pro quasi-historians will try to respond. and remember to be awesome, as they say in my hometown.