Lazy hunting
(midwest.social)
Hofmaimaier
History MemesWe probably ate plants by foraging more than hunting before agriculture, right?
And way more abundant, because of that pesky energy conservation thing.
According to the Bible, we should be vegetarian. It says God made plants for us to eat and plants for animals to eat. It says nothing about eating the animals.
Genesis 1:29-31 NRSVUE [29] God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. [30] And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. [31] God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
This comment posted to be funny but is also accurate.
I mean, there's also Cain and Able a little further in, where god takes a huge dump on Cain for not being a pastoralist.
Obligatory shoutout for The Dawn of Everything, which explores the current findings regarding the "agricultural revolution", among other things of prehistoric civilizations. Fucking amazing book
Fun fact, agriculture was a far bigger pain in the ass. We didn't transition to settled agrarian society because it was pleasant
It was at first, we've made enough modifications to our plants that they're significantly easier to grow, produce more yield per harvest, etc etc.
When wheat found us, it decided to use us to become the most populous plant on earth, and so was very agreeable to work with. Until wheat, agriculture was a net energy loss.
IIRC the current theory is that it started gradually over millennia. At first it's just a way of having more of your favourite treats when you follow the herds back next year. Then, you start being kind of reliant on calories from your now non-shattering cereal crops. You can feed like ten people on enough hunting ground for one, after all. Finally, you become fully dependant on it. With little room for hunting your culture changes to center around agricultural activities, and a hierarchy grows up around you to send you to war and insist on ever higher taxes. Cue the historical record!
That also helps explain why it started when it did. There was arable land in the ice age, but the climate got a hard reset every 1500 years or so, which would disrupt any budding civilisation. At least in the northern hemisphere.
We did it so we could make beer!
Are you telling me something from a Philomena Cunk sketch wasn't entirely accurate?!
Hard to believe I know
I will write to the BBC about this!!!
We did it because we figured out dropping seeds near rivers and deltas worked consistently well for some reason.
Which meant far less nomadic gathering, and thus stationary civilization could brew. We're so good at it now, that many people don't like leaving their house.
Yes and we were hunting our megafauna to extinction. You need the carrot and the stick. Agriculture wasn't just a nice tool we disovered we could utilize, it was increasingly becoming something we needed as large game became more scarce. People don't adopt a new system of production that radically changes their social formations unless their current one is failing. There is a good reason settled agriculture took so long to take hold even after we figure out planting.
Huh, I've never heard that explanation before.
I don't know, though, you can eat smaller animals just about as well. And it happened on multiple continents and in multiple biomes, and at various times over the Holocene. (The Middle East was early, west Africa IIRC was pretty late but still did it independently, and North America was interrupted mid way though by the arrival of maize)
People don’t adopt a new system of production that radically changes their social formations unless their current one is failing.
Yes, it would make no sense in a generation, or even a few without help. Ignoring the animals and wild plants around them to try and make grass grow faster would sound absolutely mad to whatever cave person.
Agriculture actually lowered the standard of living and nutrition.
BUT it fed more people per area.
So agricultural communities could support more fighting men to drive away nomadic ones and expand.
It wasn't a peaceful transition.
And the pastoralists were there too. For whatever reason they seem OP in historical wars (the Mongols but also Cumans, Huns, Turks, PIEs and so on). But, they still decline.
But it was much more predictable and the main reason we are the architects of our own eco system. Which seems like it might become our undoing.
We didn’t transition to settled agrarian society because it was pleasant
More pleasant than starvation.
Yeah. Although the fossil record is full of evidence agrarianism actually increased malnutrition since we were relying on a very undiversified diet based mainly on a grain, as opposed to a more varied diet based on gathering and hunting.
Yep. Evidence of malnutrition increases in early agricultural societies, while signs of intermittent starvation decrease.
No perfect solutions...
Hmm. At what point does famine start to show up again?
At the degree of hunter-gatherers? It doesn't. Even the level of food insecurity suffered by subsistence farmers - which is high - doesn't compare to the level of food insecurity suffered by hunter-gatherers.
You might starve to death in a particularly bad year (though that's also less likely), but you're unlikely to experience constant fluctuations of periods of hunger and plenty. Most years, you'll be eating enough calories to sustain all your bodies functions at a basic level, even if nutrients may not be as plentiful as you need.
