The Mystery of the First Farmers

Humans have been around for a long time and our physiology and dietary needs are pretty much the same now as they were 100,000 years ago. Humans had long been intimately aware of the environment. We knew where the animals and plants we needed for life grew and when and how to harvest them.

The oldest remains of anatomically modern human beings are carbon dated to 160,000 years in the past.[i] The skeletons of two adults and a child were discovered in the Afar Region of Ethiopia in 2003. There were people like us living in Ethiopia nearly 200,000 years ago. Farming only began 8,000 to 11,000 years ago.

Nobody grew crops for 152,000 Years?

My point here is this, being so close to nature, man understood what plants made the best food and that their seeds, nuts and fruits could be carried as a source of food. In his travels from place to place man had to have seen that seeds and fruit that fell to the earth caused more plants to grow.

A combination of several factors seem to have joined forces to make agriculture and the domestication of animals attractive and even necessary to hunter-gatherers in Europe, Asia and North America.

Only when they had to?

The centuries after the last great Ice Age were gave humans more comfortable living conditions and this led to having more babies. More food nearby meant that the people had less need to wander and could take care of more children.

Some researchers think that climate conditions and the availability of food didn’t allow them the time to learn. Dr. Jared Diamond, in his book “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, makes the case that most hunter-gatherer groups only took up agriculture out of necessity due to pressure from increasing population.[ii]

Their increasing population created a need for more food and closer interaction between the various family and clan groups forced the development of more complex social structures.

[i] 160,000-year-old fossilized skulls uncovered in Ethiopia are oldest anatomically modern humans
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/06/11_idaltu.shtml

[ii] "The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race"
http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

A Turning Point

The improved climate of post glacial Europe and Asia allowed the people to stay in one place longer and their populations grew. Sedentary villages grew up in fertile areas and tribal social structures got replaced by clan and village government.

As the population grew new social and economic structures were needed. Trade and economics began to be important about this time as well. By 3,000 BC copper, furs and honey were being carried along trade networks spread over large areas of Europe and Asia.

The frozen mummy of one of these early traders was discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991. He carried a copper axe and other trade materials and according to National Geographic, represents one of the oldest unsolved murders on record.[i]

Others kept to more mobile hunting and gathering lifestyles but traded with the villages for the pottery, crafts and later on, metal goods made there. The languages and social structures that began in these early farming communities are evident in the world of today.

Whether or not they took up farming through need or desire, the development of agriculture created the social and economic framework that our modern society is built upon. Government, religion and economics all have their roots in the institutions founded in those Stone Age farming communities

[i] National Geographic News: Was Ancient Alpine "Iceman" Killed in Battle?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1030_031030_icemandeath.html