THE Transition to Agriculture – Neolithic Revolution 1/4
Published by Until about 13,000 years ago all humans obtained their food through hunting and gathering, but thereafter people in some parts of the world began a transition to agriculture.
The resulting spike in local population density reduced the marginal product of labor in foraging and made agriculture attractive. Once agriculture was initiated, rapid technological progress through artificial selection on plant characteristics led to domesticated varieties. Farming became a permanent part of the regional economy when this productivity growth was combined with climate recovery.
PART 1: http://scienceray.com/biology/ecology/the-transition-to-agriculture-neolithic-revolution-14/
PART 2: http://socyberty.com/issues/neolithic-revolution-24/
PART 3: http://scienceray.com/biology/ecology/neolithic-revolution-34/
PART 4: http://socyberty.com/social-sciences/neolithic-revolution-44/
1. Introduction
Anatomically modern humans have existed for at least 100,000 years, and judging
from artwork, funeral practices, and tool design, cognitively modern humans have existed
for at least 50,000 years. Yet until about 13,000 years ago, all humans obtained their food
by hunting animals or gathering wild plants. The shift to domesticated plants and animals
began at this time in southwest Asia. Independent points of origin also included north
China, south China, sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico, the Andes, and the eastern U.S., with
subsequent diffusion to most parts of the globe. This transition was arguably the most
consequential case of rational economic choice in human history. It was necessary for the
existence of cities, states, and writing, and with relatively few exceptions for specialized
crafts, hierarchy, inequality, and organized warfare.
How can one explain the long lag between the evolution of modern humans and the
shift to agriculture? Why did farming emerge when and where it did? Many answers have
been advanced by archaeologists, anthropologists, and demographers, among others, with
economists being relative latecomers to the debate. We review the extensive literature on the
subject below after an overview of our own proposed explanation.
Several authors have recently pointed to climate change as a leading suspect behind
the agricultural transition. For example, Richerson et al. (2001) assert that agriculture was
“impossible” in the most recent Ice Age because prevailing climatic conditions–low mean
temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels, extreme aridity, and high-amplitude fluctuations
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