# Why did humans start farming? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 29, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632 "2017-05-29T03:34:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/101 "2017-05-31T11:40:36Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > In other words, small scale non-mechanized farming is largely economically unviable, given any alternative. Um no that’s not other words for the same thing. One model prevailing over time over another ≠ unviability of the latter, given any alternative. Anyway since the discussion is now into cooperative group efforts vs more individualistic efforts - there is [some interesting work](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/603) on how the sort of farming needed for an area results in different levels of individualism vs cooperativism and other psychologic traits within its members as cultural norms. Wheat farming allows for more nuclear household smaller stake models while rice paddy farming has to be more of a group effort. > [@](#): > > Cross-cultural psychologists have mostly contrasted East Asia with the West. However, this study shows that there are major psychological differences within China. We propose that a history of farming rice makes cultures more interdependent, whereas farming wheat makes cultures more independent, and these agricultural legacies continue to affect people in the modern world. We tested 1162 Han Chinese participants in six sites and found that rice-growing southern China is more interdependent and holistic-thinking than the wheat-growing north. To control for confounds like climate, we tested people from neighboring counties along the rice-wheat border and found differences that were just as large. We also find that modernization and pathogen prevalence theories do not fit the data. Human culture evolves and adapts to new circumstances and to how it changes the circumstances (the latter a self-imposed red queen race). Better worse … “choice” … is not the issue … the construct that spreads the most tautologically is the one that is most fit; as another one becomes more fit for that niche, whatever its size, for whatever the reason, it will prevail. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/102 "2017-05-31T14:02:44Z")
Quoting myself for context: > [@LSLGuy](#): > > … > \*The \*defining characteristic of our species is social tool use. No other Earth species does tools, or social, anywhere near as well as we do. The synergistic effect of those two behaviors together is vastly more powerful than either one in isolation. It’s not X + Y. It’s more like X[sup]Y[/sup]. > … > [@John\_Mace](#): > > … > The only thing I’ll take exception to is your claim that the defining characteristic of our species is “social tool use”. I’m not a big fan of making claims about single, “defining characteristics”, but if there is one for us it would be the transmission of knowledge and information through the use of fully articulate language. Perhaps that is more or less what you meant by “social” tool use, but it wasn’t clear. Yup, you got it. I was a little too telegraphic there. I was trying to keep it short, sweet, and sorta poetic for the OP. Long version: By “social” what I really mean is cooperative. As you say, language is a key tool of humanity. IMO language exists in support of the urge to cooperate, to be a society, rather than a bunch of independent individuals leading a solitary existence except to occasionally mate, probably forcefully. When ancient Og figured out he could get tasty clams open more easily by whacking them with a rock, he was tool-using. Later he thought to whack \*this \*kind of rock on \*that \*kind of rock to make a sharp edge to pry clams open intact so he didn’t need to pick shell bits out of the tasty innards before eating. That’s tool-making. But if Og had no interest in sharing this info with anyone else, each human would have to discover this independently for themselves. Very few people would and human progress would be negligible over even geologic time. It’s the incentive to share information that drives the virtuous circle of learning which lets us “stand on the shoulders of giants” who came before. And which got us from pounding clams to the heights of today’s technical & social / political / economic arrangements. All of which are about cooperating because the total results are greater than the sum of the individual efforts. Whether that info-sharing is delivered via cave pictograms, grunts & gestures, flowery Victorian prose, or a silent YouTube how-to vid is immaterial. My argument to your point is that language as communicative facility came \*after \*the desire / drive to have communication. And so the social desire is the more fundamental feature of human nature. OTOH … Agree that there’s “language” as “communicative facility” and “language” as “method for modeling a representation of the world within the mind.” As to the latter definition I see a chicken and egg problem. Why did we have a drive to mentally model the world? How is it that we developed a tool to transfer these models between individuals which in turn molds how the individual mind constructs its models? A fascinating question I know diddly beans about. If you have anything on this, please share. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/103 "2017-05-31T14:52:15Z")
Chimps learn to use tools by watching their mothers, and it takes them years to master what could be taught to a human child in a a few weeks, at most, once the child is 3 or 4 years old and has a good command of language. The other thing that language allows us to do is to extend our “theory of mind” well beyond what a non-language capable species can do. “Theory of mind” is the ability to imagine what another being is thinking, or to know what knowledge another being has or doesn’t have. Chimps are pretty good at that, but nothing beats telling the other guy exactly what you’re thinking. It’s that ability to see inside another person’s mind that really allows us to cooperate in much more complex ways than other species. It also allows us to just get along better. As the observation goes… fill a cross-country flight with chimps and when it lands, there’s a good chance that only one chimp will still be alive. (That might not work as well for bonobos, but it’s still an interesting observation about the difference between common chimps and us.) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/104 "2017-05-31T15:27:06Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > OTOH … > Agree that there’s “language” as “communicative facility” and “language” as “method for modeling a representation of the world within the mind.” As to the latter definition I see a chicken and egg problem. Why did we have a drive to mentally model the world? How is it that we developed a tool to transfer these models between individuals which in turn molds how the individual mind constructs its models? A fascinating question I know diddly beans about. > > If you have anything on this, please share. First consider that most knowledge in such early times was transferred by watching and imitating. Thag picked up flint chipping by watching Og do it. There wasn’t anything complex enough that needed advanced language to describe. Language would have developed for other purposes. I don’t know what purposes, but I suppose anything from entertainment to resolving conflicts without combat. Earlier on language developed from the same rudimentary form we can see in other animals. Speculating now, I don’t think we needed a drive to mentally model the world, other animals have some sense of knowing their environment. As pre-humans became more complex socially and became tool makers and users that better brains evolved and more complex language naturally followed the larger world the mental map had to encompass. Interestingly it is the tool making and use that is what is distinct in humans, other animals cooperate and have complex social structures but didn’t increase their communication ability in the same way. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/105 "2017-05-31T15:59:44Z")
I’ll make the wild guess that language and conceptual thinking evolved together. This would be necessary in more complex hunts, where the cooperation of a group had to over-rule individual instincts to charge in and get the big one for yourself; or making nets for fishing, or building boats to go fishing, etc. It’s easy to watch Thag chip flint and copy. It’s harder to arrange - “you guys go around the back, upwind of the herd and make lots of noise and chase them. Ogg and I will hide behind these boulders where the canyon narrows and chuck spears at them as they rush by…” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/106 "2017-05-31T16:08:10Z")
There’s also the theory that language evolved as a form of grooming. For the more advanced (non-verbal) primates grooming is a form of social structure- the higher ups get their fleas picked by the socially lower down, establishing and acknowledging a form of hierarchy. The tribe size is limited by the number of higher-ups who can be “serviced” in a day - typically about 10 according to an article I read. However, with speech, one person can “service” multiple recipients at once, increasing the cooperative social group and increasing the nuances of the hierarchy. Plus, the major topic of gossip continues to be about interpersonal relationships, and particularly in a species where fertility and so paternity is hidden, the question “who’s boinking whom?” ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/107 "2017-05-31T16:30:17Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > In other words, small scale non-mechanized farming is largely economically unviable, given any alternative. Or “in the long run, unregulated capitalism fucks \*almost \*everybody” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/108 "2017-05-31T16:39:53Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Or “in the long run, unregulated capitalism fucks \*almost \*everybody” 😉 Eh. I’m pretty happy I don’t have to worry about my whole town starving because the rains failed. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/109 "2017-05-31T20:09:05Z")
I read the title as “Why did humans start farting?” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/110 "2017-05-31T20:31:27Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I read the title as “Why did humans start farting?” :smack: Because the started farming beans? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/111 "2017-05-31T23:53:20Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > First consider that most knowledge in such early times was transferred by watching and imitating. Thag picked up flint chipping by watching Og do it. There wasn’t anything complex enough that needed advanced language to describe. Language would have developed for other purposes. … [The data begs to differ.](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools) > [@](#): > > … The researchers recruited 184 students from the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, where some members of the team were based, and organized them into five groups. The first person in each group was taught by archaeologists how to make artifacts called Oldowan tools, which include fairly simple stone flakes that were manufactured by early humans beginning about 2.5 million years ago … The students in each of the five groups learned to produce Oldowan flakes in different ways. Subjects in the first group were presented with a core, hammer, and some examples of finished flakes and told to just get on with it by themselves. In the next group, a second student learned how to make the tools by simply watching the first subject and trying to duplicate what he or she did with no interaction at all between them; in the third group, subjects actively showed each other what they were doing but without gesturing; in the fourth group, gesturing and pointing were allowed but no talking; and in the fifth group, the “teacher” was permitted to talk to the “learner” and say whatever was necessary. > > In each group, the learner became the teacher in the next round. In this fashion, the research team created five different “chains of transmission” of Oldowan toolmakers, which produced a total of more than 6000 flakes. The results of the experiment, reported online today in Nature Communications, were striking. As might be expected, subjects sitting alone and attempting to “reverse engineer” Oldowan flakes simply by looking at cores, hammers, and examples of the flakes had only limited success. But performance improved very little among students who just watched others make the tools. **Only the groups in which gestural or verbal teaching was allowed performed significantly above the reverse engineering baseline on several indicators of toolmaking skill** , such as the total number of flakes produced that were long enough and sharp enough to be viable and the proportion of hits that resulted in a viable flake. For example, gestural teaching doubled and verbal teaching quadrupled the likelihood that a single strike would result in a viable flake, the team found. > > The researchers conclude that the successful spread of even the earliest known toolmaking technology, more than 2 million years ago, would have required the capacity for teaching, and probably also the beginnings of spoken language—what the researchers call protolanguage. (Many researchers think that gestural communication was the prelude to spoken language, which might explain its effectiveness in these experiments.) “The ability to rapidly share the skill to make Oldowan tools would have brought fitness benefits” to early humans … Bolding in original. > [@md2000](#): > > I’ll make the wild guess that language and conceptual thinking evolved together. … One form of complex conceptual thinking that is felt to have driven and allowed for language development is the creation of, in particular, [compound tools.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223784/) Short version is that Broca’s area is involved in both language and tool use and the cognitive complexities used to create compound tools, which are assemblages of parts, are the same cognitive processes needed for true language. The hypothesis is that spoken language was an exaptation of the cognitive processes used in tool-making, and in turn facilitated the transmission of those skills. > [@](#): > > … it is now clear that the so-called ‘language areas’ contribute to a wide array of non-linguistic behaviours [11], including tool use [12]. Indeed, one-to-one brain-behaviour mappings of complex functions like ‘language processing’ have largely been replaced by explanations of regional brain function in terms of more abstract computational properties [11] and context-specific interactions with anatomically distributed networks [13,14]. In this framework, it is expected that complex behaviours will map onto neural substrates in a flexible manner and that single regions will participate in multiple different functional networks [15,16]. From an evolutionary perspective, this presents an ideal context for the co-option of existing neural substrates to support new behavioural phenotypes (i.e. ‘exaptation’ [17]). The intersection of language and praxis networks in Broca’s area currently provides one of the best known examples of such complex functional overlap in human neocortex. … > > … The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) [29] proposes that this primitive action-matching system underwent successive evolutionary modifications to support imitation, pantomime, manual ‘protosign’ and ultimately vocal language, thus providing a neural underpinning for ‘gestural hypotheses’ [30] of language origins. … > > … The similarity of cognitive processes and cortical networks involved in speech and tool use suggests that these behaviours are best seen as special cases in the more general domain of complex, goal-oriented action. This is exactly what would be predicted by hypotheses that posit specific co-evolutionary relationships between language and tool use … > > … The archaeologically attested ability of Late Acheulean hominins to implement hierarchically complex, multi-stage action sequences during handaxe production thus provides evidence of cognitive control processes that are computationally and anatomically similar to some of those involved in modern human discourse-level language processing. This provides a second behaviourally and chronologically grounded functional/anatomical link between technological and linguistic capacities, further extending the plausible context for co-evolutionary interactions (e.g. behavioural, developmental and/or evolutionary co-option). … ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/112 "2017-06-01T00:10:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > [The data begs to differ.](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools)Bolding in original. First, using gesturing was successful, I was ruling out advanced language, not grunting and pointing. Second that study self selects for subjects whose expertise is in learning through the use of advanced language. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/113 "2017-06-01T00:14:36Z")
Tres cool. Thank you. The lego snap-together nature of language is akin to the lego snap-together nature of compound tools. And the same part of the brain does both. Which implies to this non-expert that the fundamental innovation was snap-togetherness. Which any CS major will quickly mention is closely related to abstraction and meta-levels. Our hardware support runs real deep for this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/114 "2017-06-01T01:36:15Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > First, using gesturing was successful, I was ruling out advanced language, not grunting and pointing. Second that study self selects for subjects whose expertise is in learning through the use of advanced language. Do you believe that the key aspect of language is the nature of the _vocalizations_? The premise is of course that proto-language was sign more than grunts with vocalizations exapting (or minimally co-evolving with) the fundamental cognitive capacity of making tools and of teaching with gestures, yes in shorthand as **LSLGuy** put it, “social tool use.” And if you think that gestures do not qualify as use of language then why do you care that the subjects were college students and therefore presumptively with expertise in learning through the use of advanced language? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/115 "2017-06-01T02:34:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Chimps learn to use tools by watching their mothers, and it takes them years to master what could be taught to a human child in a a few weeks, at most, once the child is 3 or 4 years old and has a good command of language. > > The other thing that language allows us to do is to extend our “theory of mind” well beyond what a non-language capable species can do. “Theory of mind” is the ability to imagine what another being is thinking, or to know what knowledge another being has or doesn’t have. Chimps are pretty good at that, but nothing beats telling the other guy exactly what you’re thinking. It’s that ability to see inside another person’s mind that really allows us to cooperate in much more complex ways than other species. > > It also allows us to just get along better. As the observation goes… fill a cross-country flight with chimps and when it lands, there’s a good chance that only one chimp will still be alive. (That might not work as well for bonobos, but it’s still an interesting observation about the difference between common chimps and us.) Good stuff here and in the subsequent posts by the others. Ref just this: “Chimps learn to use tools by watching their mothers, …” Implicitly in most folks’ posts upthread, “communication” means transmitting. People (or chimps) have a social goal to transmit their knowledge, whether of toolmaking techniques, or simply which way to the berry bush. Inherent in communication is also the desire to receive. The baby chimp (or human) somehow wants to observe Mom and somehow wants to store those observations. And store them not as a passive memory of Mom putting on an entertaining show, but as an active template for future self behavior abstracted to different, but somehow similar circumstances in somehow essential ways. Low social animals, e.g. cougars, are essentially indifferent to conspecifics unless they pose a competitive threat or a mating opportunity. Conversely, in high social animals like us, for some reason we (and chimps) are fascinated with other humans (chimps). That’s the deep driver. The rest is just details floating on the surface. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/116 "2017-06-01T02:59:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Do you believe that the key aspect of language is the nature of the _vocalizations_? The premise is of course that proto-language was sign more than grunts with vocalizations exapting (or minimally co-evolving with) the fundamental cognitive capacity of making tools and of teaching with gestures, yes in shorthand as **LSLGuy** put it, “social tool use.” As you yourself are saying vocalizations don’t make language. If communication in general is language than a lot of other animals are capable of it. A formal language, a high level language, abstract conceptual language, are not needed to make tools. > [@](#): > > And if you think that gestures do not qualify as use of language then why do you care that the subjects were college students and therefore presumptively with expertise in learning through the use of advanced language? It is your premise that gestures don’t qualify as language, not mine. I don’t believe early took makers needed to communicate instructions to pass on their skills. And either way, college students are nothing like early tool builders and are not the kind of subjects needed for this kind of experiment. I have experience making things by hand, I’ve worked in restaurant kitchens with people who didn’t speak English, and it was not at all difficult through demonstration, gestures, and non-formal language to exchange skills. The study itself finds similar results through the use of advanced language and gestures so clearly it shows advanced language is not necessary. What it doesn’t show is that the skills cannot be acquired through imitation. The study shows that advanced language was not needed to learn and teach how to make stone tools which is the point I was making. If I was not clear about that then it is my fault but you are drawing your own conclusions about the intent of my statement. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/117 "2017-06-01T04:24:44Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > … I don’t believe early took makers needed to communicate instructions to pass on their skills. And either way, college students are nothing like early tool builders … Hard of course to exactly place when proto-language began but “nothing like” is very clearly an overstatement. Most who I’ve read think that the _major_ changes from early proto-language to language were not in brain structure but in how that structure was used. Most think language developed in anatomically modern humans. In that sense college students are not so different than humans a hundred thousand or so years ago. And the point of the study was not “need to” but using gesture in even an ad hoc primitive proto-language fashion _does so much more efficiently_ than just watching and imitating. A group that could do that would be able to make tools better, more reliably, and more of them, than one that relied on imitating alone. The behavior would be thus strongly selected for. “Advanced language” did not emerge fully formed. The hypothesis suggests that cognitive skills and manual skills needed to execute the “lego snap-together nature of compound tools” were applied as tool to more effectively and efficiently teach the skills to others, and that application to cultural transmission, communication, and teaching each other was also then more broadly applied to communicating about concepts other than tool making and provided the cognitive substrate for more advanced language to develop. Clearly it is not the only hypothesis out there but it is true that current anatomically modern humans transmit tool making knowledge much more effectively using even just ad hoc gestures than by imitation alone and that the brain areas involved in language have great overlaps with those involved in tool use, and that mirror neurons are involved in both. Those facts seem to me to provide solid support for the hypothesis. Wasn’t this a farming thread? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/118 "2017-06-01T12:43:14Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Hard of course to exactly place when proto-language began but “nothing like” is very clearly an overstatement. Most who I’ve read think that the _major_ changes from early proto-language to language were not in brain structure but in how that structure was used. Most think language developed in anatomically modern humans. In that sense college students are not so different than humans a hundred thousand or so years ago. > > And the point of the study was not “need to” but using gesture in even an ad hoc primitive proto-language fashion _does so much more efficiently_ than just watching and imitating. A group that could do that would be able to make tools better, more reliably, and more of them, than one that relied on imitating alone. The behavior would be thus strongly selected for. “Advanced language” did not emerge fully formed. The hypothesis suggests that cognitive skills and manual skills needed to execute the “lego snap-together nature of compound tools” were applied as tool to more effectively and efficiently teach the skills to others, and that application to cultural transmission, communication, and teaching each other was also then more broadly applied to communicating about concepts other than tool making and provided the cognitive substrate for more advanced language to develop. > > Clearly it is not the only hypothesis out there but it is true that current anatomically modern humans transmit tool making knowledge much more effectively using even just ad hoc gestures than by imitation alone and that the brain areas involved in language have great overlaps with those involved in tool use, and that mirror neurons are involved in both. Those facts seem to me to provide solid support for the hypothesis. > > Wasn’t this a farming thread? But farming starts with tools… and passing on wisdom. Another point is - that the tool-making human had to recognize the other wanted to see what they were doing, and needed to understand that they needed to show what the steps were, and needed to conceptual ability to realize that showing a fellow tribe member (offspring?) how to make their own was a good thing and they should do it. Which leads to more abstract knowledge that needs to be passed on, like the best season to plant… How to tell which rocks are good for making knives, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/119 "2017-06-01T13:05:27Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > But farming starts with tools… and passing on wisdom. Does’t have to. Ants farm without either. ---
**Author:** ![SeniorCitizen007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@SeniorCitizen007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeniorCitizen007)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632/120 "2017-06-01T14:59:31Z")
Maybe hunter gatherers associated with places like Gobekli Tepe had to start farming or move away from what were apparently the most advanced construction projects man had yet priduced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-start-farming/787632.md?page=7)