foragers lived quite well. The evidence on early farmers is mixed. The ¿ rst
generation or two probably lived well, enjoying improved food supplies.
However, within a few generations, population growth created problems
that nomadic foragers had never faced. Sedentary villages attracted vermin
and rubbish, and diseases spread more easily with a larger pool of potential
victims to infect, particularly after the introduction of domesticated animals,
which passed many of their parasites on to humans. Studies of human bones
from early Agrarian communities hint at new forms of stress, caused by the
intense labor of harvest times, or by periodic crop failures, which became
more common because farmers generally relied on a more limited range of
foodstuffs than foragers. Periodic shortages may explain why skeletons seem
to get shorter in early Agrarian villages. On the other hand, early Agrarian
communities were probably fairly egalitarian. Relative equality is apparent
even in large sites such as Catal Huyuk, where buildings are similar in size,
though differences in burials show there were some, possibly hereditary,
differences in wealth.
The early Agrarian era transformed a world of foragers into a world of
peasant farmers. Within these denser communities new forms of complexity
would begin to emerge. Yet by some criteria, living standards may have
declined. Complexity does not necessarily mean progress! Ŷ
Brown, Big History, chaps. 4–5.
Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 8.
Fagan, People of the Earth, chaps. 9–13.
Bellwood, First Farmers.
Coatsworth, “Welfare.”
Mithen, After the Ice.
Essential Reading
Supplementary Reading