# Was the Agricultural Revolution a mistake? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740 "2021-11-21T22:54:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/162 "2022-01-26T06:32:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What it didn’t do, though, was happen _suddenly_ . Sudden is a relative term, and this is Deep Time we’re speaking of. Humans hunted and gathered for 2.5 million years. Then in a fraction of a precent of that time they adopted agriculture in multiple places all over the world and populations ballooned massively while entire ecosystems disappeared. That’s pretty darn sudden. Of course humans were destroying ecosystems for thousands of years before that too, but nowhere near the post agricultural scale. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/163 "2022-01-26T07:09:34Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Sudden is a relative term Not _10,000_ years relative, when it comes to human beings. This is _not_ Deep Time. That’s a terrible misuse of the concept. Deep Time is the timescale of _geological_ events, _not_ social changes. > [@Babale](#): > > Humans hunted and gathered for 2.5 million years. What do you mean by “humans”? _Homo sapiens_ had only done it for 300 000 years. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/164 "2022-01-26T13:41:54Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not _10,000_ years relative, when it comes to human beings. > > This is _not_ Deep Time. That’s a terrible misuse of the concept. Deep Time is the timescale of _geological_ events, _not_ social changes. We’re talking about human evolution. Humans were doing their thing for an extremely long period of time. Then they relatively quickly switched to farming and eventually industrializing. The whole of human history (as opposed to prehistory) is a tiny moment in comparison to the eons of human prehistory. If you want to quibble over whether that’s a “revolution” or not, that’s a semantic distinction I don’t find interesting whatsoever, and I’ll leave you to it. > [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Humans hunted and gathered for 2.5 million years. > > What do you mean by “humans”? _Homo sapiens_ had only done it for 300 000 years. > [@Babale](#): > > but it’s the blink of an eye compared to the 2.5 million years our **genus** had been hunting and gathering for. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/165 "2022-01-26T13:54:36Z")
I hadn’t noticed you said genus. I think the history of the species is more relevant. We don’t even know of any other members of the genus spoke. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/166 "2022-01-26T13:58:58Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > We don’t even know of any other members of the genus spoke. I don’t think this is true; several other species of the genus Homo are known. Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis are probably the best known among them. Homo sapiens is the only extant species in the genus, but measured against the overall duration of human history, Neanderthals are relatively recent, and coexisted with Homo sapiens for hundreds of thousands of years. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/167 "2022-01-26T14:07:08Z")
Do we know if homo erectus or homo neanderthal spoke? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/168 "2022-01-26T14:08:25Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I hadn’t noticed you said genus. I think the history of the species is more relevant. We don’t even know of any other members of the genus spoke. We know that other species of the Homo genus had fire, clothing, and even simple structures. They’ve also ended up on islands that they’d have been hard pressed to get to without some type of boats. I don’t think we should underestimate our closest relatives. But even if we do, 10,000 years is a tiny, tiny fraction of 300,000. It still means that for the vast majority of our species’ history we were purely hunter-gatherers, until quite suddenly and at multiple locations across the globe we made the switch. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/169 "2022-01-26T14:10:13Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > We’re talking about human evolution. No, we’re not. We’re talking about human _behaviour_. Evolution is not a big factor in this “Revolution”. > [@Babale](#): > > Humans were doing their thing for an extremely long period of time. Then they relatively quickly switched to farming and eventually industrializing. No, they took their own sweet time about it, and the process _still_ isn’t complete. > [@Babale](#): > > The whole of human history (as opposed to prehistory) is a tiny moment in comparison to the eons of human prehistory. _Everything_ we’re talking about here is prehistoric. So the length of history is irrelevant. > [@Babale](#): > > If you want to quibble over whether that’s a “revolution” or not, that’s a semantic distinction I don’t find interesting whatsoever, and I’ll leave you to it. _You’re_ the one who started quibbling, since I didn’t address my post to you in the first place. > [@Babale](#): > > but it’s the blink of an eye compared to the 2.5 million years our **genus** had been hunting and gathering for. Missed that, but why would you emphasize that particular division? We’re talking about _human_ _behaviour_ here, and to me, that means at least anatomically modern humans should be the object of consideration, if not behaviourally modern. The _only_ reason to pick that division is to play semantic games with the meaning of “human”, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/170 "2022-01-26T14:12:21Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > But even if we do, 10,000 years is a tiny, tiny fraction of 300,000. You and I have very different ideas of what constitutes a “tiny, tiny fraction”. For me, it would need to be considerably \< 1% to warrant that kind of diminutive. 3.3% isn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/171 "2022-01-26T14:12:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, they took their own sweet time about it, and the process _still_ isn’t complete. Again, I’m not interested in this kind of semantic quibbling. Humans didn’t take their sweet time about it when you compare the time it took to their total evolutionary history; they sprinted straight from agriculture to landing on the moon in the comparative blink of an eye. But yes, 10,000 years is a long time for an individual. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/172 "2022-01-26T14:20:07Z")
Here’s the point. Humans 300,000 years ago (and probably long before that) were fully cognitively capable of doing anything we are able to do. You said it yourself: > [@MrDibble](#): > > No, we’re not. We’re talking about human _behaviour_ . Evolution is not a big factor in this “Revolution”. If evolution isn’t a big factor in humans adopting agriculture - which I agree with - then it’s not like 10,000 years ago some mutant baby was born with the Green Thumb gene. Humans were fully capable of settling down and farming 300,000 years ago, and probably much earlier. But for 97% of our species’ history, and even longer if you include other species in the genus Homo who were probably capable of doing exactly the same thing, they DIDN’T. Until all of a sudden, at a whole bunch of different places across the globe, from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley to China to Mexico, they DID. All within a couple thousand years of each other. And a couple thousand years later, we were landing on the moon. That’s a very interesting change in behavior. Why did that happen? What conditions caused people in Mexico and people in China and people in Iraq, all of whom had ancestors who did nothing of the sort for 290,000 years, to suddenly adopt these behaviors so close to each other (yes, even as other groups in nearby areas did not adopt those behaviors and even as descendants of some agricultural societies switched back to hunting and gathering and back again)? That’s a fascinating question whether or not you want to call it a revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/173 "2022-01-26T14:28:23Z")
There is a debate on this, see [here](https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2521815/component/file_2538918/content) and [here](http://www.lllf.uam.es/~clase/acceso_local/LgCapabili.pdf) for two contributions and overviews, but many researchers appear to say yes. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/174 "2022-01-26T14:36:11Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Until all of a sudden, at a whole bunch of different places across the globe, from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley to China to Mexico, they DID. [A recent documentary presents a theory on this. Seems sketchy, though.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternals_(film)) ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/175 "2022-01-26T14:41:18Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Until all of a sudden, at a whole bunch of different places across the globe, from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley to China to Mexico, they DID. > > [A recent documentary presents a theory on this. Seems sketchy, though](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternals_(film)) “Climate Change” seems like a more likely hypothesis than “Ancient Aliens”, but you never know… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/176 "2022-01-26T14:46:16Z")
Thanks, interesting stuff ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/177 "2022-01-26T15:12:45Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Humans were fully capable of settling down and farming 300,000 years ago, and probably much earlier. Were they? The [gradualist model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity#Alternative_models) hypothesizes that there was a steady change (mostly improvement, sometimes backwards) in human technology and social behaviour all during that time. That we were not _static_ for 290 000 years. And that we were only behaviourally modern in the last 80-100 thousand. It may well be that there was a threshold of modernity that had to happen, but even so, it wasn’t revolutionary. > [@Babale](#): > > Until all of a sudden, at a whole bunch of different places across the globe, from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley to China to Mexico, they DID. All within a couple thousand years of each other. Cherrypicking - what about NE America, or West Africa? Thousands _more_ years later . And there were, of course, the other outliers in both settlement and agricultural practices already covered in this thread. > [@Babale](#): > > That’s a very interesting change in behavior. I agree they’re _individually_ interesting. But you’re linking things happening on opposite sides of the globe [and _thousands_ of years apart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilov_center#Purugganan_and_Fuller_2009_scheme) as though they were a unified phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/178 "2022-01-26T15:29:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Until all of a sudden, at a whole bunch of different places across the globe, from Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley to China to Mexico, they DID. All within a couple thousand years of each other. > > Cherrypicking - what about NE America, or West Africa? Thousands _more_ years later . And there were, of course, the other outliers in both settlement and agricultural practices already covered in this thread. Unless you are under the impression that the people of NE America or West Africa were biologically less predisposed to agriculture, ISTM that their delayed adoption of agriculture is simply a matter of local conditions being less conducive to such societies. > [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > That’s a very interesting change in behavior. > > I agree they’re _individually_ interesting. But you’re linking things happening on opposite sides of the globe [and _thousands_ of years apart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilov_center#Purugganan_and_Fuller_2009_scheme) as though they were a unified phenomenon. Yes, thousands of years apart, on the timescale of hundreds of thousands to millions of year. That’s practically simultaneous. And the fact that it occurred in many different places independently is precisely what is so fascinating about it. > [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Humans were fully capable of settling down and farming 300,000 years ago, and probably much earlier. > > Were they? > The [gradualist model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity#Alternative_models) hypothesizes that there was a steady change (mostly improvement, sometimes backwards) in human technology and social behaviour all during that time. That we were not _static_ for 290 000 years. And that we were only behaviourally modern in the last 80-100 thousand. It may well be that there was a threshold of modernity that had to happen, but even so, it wasn’t revolutionary. I agree that these societies weren’t static; I read through your link and didn’t see anything that disagrees with what I’ve been saying. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/179 "2022-01-26T15:39:48Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > ISTM that their delayed adoption of agriculture is simply a matter of local conditions being less conducive to such societies. How so? They’re as conducive to agriculture and settlement as anywhere else you care to name. What is this global phenomenon that leaps oceans and latitudes but misses out some suitable areas entirely? > [@Babale](#): > > Yes, thousands of years apart, on the timescale of hundreds of thousands to millions of year. That’s practically simultaneous. No, it’s not. It’s _hundreds_ of human generations. That’s not simultaneous at all. > [@Babale](#): > > And the fact that it occurred in many different places independently is precisely what is so fascinating about it. Only if you presuppose there’s something linking them to be fascinated about. > [@Babale](#): > > I agree that these societies weren’t static; You seem to think they just sat around for 290 millennia and then _boom_ agriculture and settlement. Rather than slowly developing the toolsets and mindsets required over all that time. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/180 "2022-01-26T15:55:32Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I _would_ argue there wasn’t one if people spent _10 000_ years going back and forth between using steam engines and spinning jennies and mechanized factory production, and not. We don’t know yet, do we? It’s only been a few hundred years. What’s going to happen in the rest of 10,000 years is uncertain. – but I don’t think that affects the question of whether it’s reasonable to call it a “revolution”. Revolutions, in general, don’t always take long-term hold. > [@Babale](#): > > Sudden is a relative term, and this is Deep Time we’re speaking of. Humans hunted and gathered for 2.5 million years. Then in a fraction of a precent of that time they adopted agriculture in multiple places all over the world and populations ballooned massively while entire ecosystems disappeared. That’s pretty darn sudden. Yup. And, in the time of the human species – it’s only been a moment. 10,000 years out of even 300,000 is roughly 3%. A moment that’s had huge effects; but there’s a great tendency to assume that The Way We’re Living Now will continue indefinitely, and any changes will be in the same direction as the most recent changes have been. I very much doubt that the first is possible, and I suspect future changes will be in directions that most aren’t expecting. > [@Babale](#): > > Why did that happen? What conditions caused people in Mexico and people in China and people in Iraq, all of whom had ancestors who did nothing of the sort for 290,000 years, to suddenly adopt these behaviors so close to each other (yes, even as other groups in nearby areas did not adopt those behaviors and even as descendants of some agricultural societies switched back to hunting and gathering and back again)? > > That’s a fascinating question whether or not you want to call it a revolution. Yes, indeed. _Something_ changed. I don’t know whether we’ll ever figure out what. Either that, or there was communication over distance to a significantly greater degree than we now understand to have been possible. But even then – if nobody had such an idea for 290,000 years, why did someone come up with it then? if multiple people had had such ideas over 290,000 years, why did it suddenly catch on? 10,000 years is AIUI the wrong timespan for it to have been the dogs. I’d be tempted to put it to human attention being freed up, by the partnership with dogs, from the need to continually be on the alert for predators; but I think that’s back to more like 30,000 years now. However, if the partnership with dogs changed us: if it wasn’t only the wolves that turned into dogs, but also that the humans turned into a less obviously different species – that might have taken longer. Maybe it was the dogs, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740/181 "2022-01-26T16:21:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, it’s not. It’s _hundreds_ of human generations. That’s not simultaneous at all. Of course it is. 500 or so human generations is practically simultaneous is when the scale we are talking about is at a MINIMUM 15,000 and potentially 100,000 human generations. Converting units from years to generations doesn’t change the equation at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-agricultural-revolution-a-mistake/954740.md?page=10)