Lecture 25: The Origins of Agriculture
In Lecture Twenty-Four, we saw that agriculture appeared within a few
thousand years in many different parts of the world. How can we explain
this odd near-simultaneity? Let’s begin by clearing away some popular
misconceptions. The ¿ rst is that extraterrestrials did it. In 2001 , Stanley
Kubrick hinted that aliens gave humans periodical technological nudges.
This idea might explain the timing (lots of monoliths?), but historians will
rightly reject it until hard evidence of aliens turns up!More inÀ uential has been the idea that agriculture appeared as a brilliant
one-off invention, like the steam engine, whose bene¿ ts were so obvious that
it spread rapidly from a single point of origin. This is what archaeologists
call a “diffusionist” view. In the 19th century, such views were popular,
at least in part because they ¿ tted an imperialist view of civilization as
something brought from advanced to less-advanced societies. Diffusionism
in some form was the orthodox explanation for the origins of agriculture
until recently. It is now rejected for several reasons.x Agriculture was not one invention but a cluster of linked innovations
requiring entirely new lifeways.x Agriculture did not necessarily improve living standards, which
is why many foragers who knew about farming rejected it.
Archaeological evidence suggests they may have been right,
for many early farmers suffered from poor health and nutrition.
This idea encourages us to look for “push” rather than “pull”
explanations, for factors that forced people to take up agriculture
whether they wanted to or not.x Finally, agriculture was invented not once, but many times.
Diffusionist arguments cannot explain this odd timing, though they
can help explain how agriculture then spread from a number of
distinct centers.Modern explanations include several interlocking factors. First, foragers
already knew how to increase the productivity of favored species. Firestick
farming was just one of many such techniques. The knowledge was there,
so the problem is to explain why foragers in different parts of the world