Guns, Germs And Steel Part 3

In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game. Today, for instance, Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy. In addition, some big domestic mammals served as sources of milk and of milk products such as b.u.t.ter, cheese, and yogurt. Milked mammals include the cow, sheep, goat, horse, reindeer, water buffalo, yak, and Arabian and Bactrian camels. Those mammals thereby yield several times more calories over their lifetime than if they were just slaughtered and consumed as meat.

Big domestic mammals also interacted with domestic plants in two ways to increase crop production. First, as any modern gardener or farmer still knows by experience, crop yields can be greatly increased by manure applied as fertilizer. Even with the modern availability of synthetic fertilizers produced by chemical factories, the major source of crop fertilizer today in most societies is still animal manure-especially of cows, but also of yaks and sheep. Manure has been valuable, too, as a source of fuel for fires in traditional societies.

In addition, the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak / cow hybrids. Here is one example of their value: the first prehistoric farmers of central Europe, the so-called Linearbandkeramik culture that arose slightly before 5000 B.C. B.C., were initially confined to soils light enough to be tilled by means of hand-held digging sticks. Only over a thousand years later, with the introduction of the ox-drawn plow, were those farmers able to extend cultivation to a much wider range of heavy soils and tough sods. Similarly, Native American farmers of the North American Great Plains grew crops in the river valleys, but farming of the tough sods on the extensive uplands had to await 19th-century Europeans and their animal-drawn plows.

All those are direct ways in which plant and animal domestication led to denser human populations by yielding more food than did the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. A more indirect way involved the consequences of the sedentary lifestyle enforced by food production. People of many hunter-gatherer societies move frequently in search of wild foods, but farmers must remain near their fields and orchards. The resulting fixed abode contributes to denser human populations by permitting a shortened birth interval. A hunter-gatherer mother who is shifting camp can carry only one child, along with her few possessions. She cannot afford to bear her next child until the previous toddler can walk fast enough to keep up with the tribe and not hold it back. In practice, nomadic hunter-gatherers s.p.a.ce their children about four years apart by means of lactational amenorrhea, s.e.xual abstinence, infanticide, and abortion. By contrast, sedentary people, unconstrained by problems of carrying young children on treks, can bear and raise as many children as they can feed. The birth interval for many farm peoples is around two years, half that of hunter-gatherers. That higher birthrate of food producers, together with their ability to feed more people per acre, lets them achieve much higher population densities than hunter-gatherers.

A separate consequence of a settled existence is that it permits one to store food surpluses, since storage would be pointless if one didn't remain nearby to guard the stored food. While some nomadic hunter-gatherers may occasionally bag more food than they can consume in a few days, such a bonanza is of little use to them because they cannot protect it. But stored food is essential for feeding non-food-producing specialists, and certainly for supporting whole towns of them. Hence nomadic hunter-gatherer societies have few or no such full-time specialists, who instead first appear in sedentary societies.

Two types of such specialists are kings and bureaucrats. Hunter-gatherer societies tend to be relatively egalitarian, to lack full-time bureaucrats and hereditary chiefs, and to have small-scale political organization at the level of the band or tribe. That's because all able-bodied hunter-gatherers are obliged to devote much of their time to acquiring food. In contrast, once food can be stockpiled, a political elite can gain control of food produced by others, a.s.sert the right of taxation, escape the need to feed itself, and engage full-time in political activities. Hence moderate-sized agricultural societies are often organized in chiefdoms, and kingdoms are confined to large agricultural societies. Those complex political units are much better able to mount a sustained war of conquest than is an egalitarian band of hunters. Some hunter-gatherers in especially rich environments, such as the Pacific Northwest coast of North America and the coast of Ecuador, also developed sedentary societies, food storage, and nascent chiefdoms, but they did not go farther on the road to kingdoms.

A stored food surplus built up by taxation can support other full-time specialists besides kings and bureaucrats. Of most direct relevance to wars of conquest, it can be used to feed professional soldiers. That was the decisive factor in the British Empire's eventual defeat of New Zealand's well-armed indigenous Maori population. While the Maori achieved some stunning temporary victories, they could not maintain an army constantly in the field and were in the end worn down by 18,000 full-time British troops. Stored food can also feed priests, who provide religious justification for wars of conquest; artisans such as metalworkers, who develop swords, guns, and other technologies; and scribes, who preserve far more information than can be remembered accurately.

So far, I've emphasized direct and indirect values of crops and livestock as food. However, they have other uses, such as keeping us warm and providing us with valuable materials. Crops and livestock yield natural fibers for making clothing, blankets, nets, and rope. Most of the major centers of plant domestication evolved not only food crops but also fiber crops-notably cotton, flax (the source of linen), and hemp. Several domestic animals yielded animal fibers-especially wool from sheep, goats, llamas, and alpacas, and silk from silkworms. Bones of domestic animals were important raw materials for artifacts of Neolithic peoples before the development of metallurgy. Cow hides were used to make leather. One of the earliest cultivated plants in many parts of the Americas was grown for nonfood purposes: the bottle gourd, used as a container.

Big domestic mammals further revolutionized human society by becoming our main means of land transport until the development of railroads in the 19th century. Before animal domestication, the sole means of transporting goods and people by land was on the backs of humans. Large mammals changed that: for the first time in human history, it became possible to move heavy goods in large quant.i.ties, as well as people, rapidly overland for long distances. The domestic animals that were ridden were the horse, donkey, yak, reindeer, and Arabian and Bactrian camels. Animals of those same five species, as well as the llama, were used to bear packs. Cows and horses were hitched to wagons, while reindeer and dogs pulled sleds in the Arctic. The horse became the chief means of long-distance transport over most of Eurasia. The three domestic camel species (Arabian camel, Bactrian camel, and llama) played a similar role in areas of North Africa and Arabia, Central Asia, and the Andes, respectively.

The most direct contribution of plant and animal domestication to wars of conquest was from Eurasia's horses, whose military role made them the jeeps and Sherman tanks of ancient warfare on that continent. As I mentioned in Chapter 3, they enabled Cortes and Pizarro, leading only small bands of adventurers, to overthrow the Aztec and Inca Empires. Even much earlier (around 4000 B.C. B.C.), at a time when horses were still ridden bareback, they may have been the essential military ingredient behind the westward expansion of speakers of Indo-European languages from the Ukraine. Those languages eventually replaced all earlier western European languages except Basque. When horses later were yoked to wagons and other vehicles, horse-drawn battle chariots (invented around 1800 B.C. B.C.) proceeded to revolutionize warfare in the Near East, the Mediterranean region, and China. For example, in 1674 B.C. B.C., horses even enabled a foreign people, the Hyksos, to conquer then horseless Egypt and to establish themselves temporarily as pharaohs.

Still later, after the invention of saddles and stirrups, horses allowed the Huns and successive waves of other peoples from the Asian steppes to terrorize the Roman Empire and its successor states, culminating in the Mongol conquests of much of Asia and Russia in the 13th and 14th centuries A.D. A.D. Only with the introduction of trucks and tanks in World War I did horses finally become supplanted as the main a.s.sault vehicle and means of fast transport in war. Arabian and Bactrian camels played a similar military role within their geographic range. In all these examples, peoples with domestic horses (or camels), or with improved means of using them, enjoyed an enormous military advantage over those without them. Only with the introduction of trucks and tanks in World War I did horses finally become supplanted as the main a.s.sault vehicle and means of fast transport in war. Arabian and Bactrian camels played a similar military role within their geographic range. In all these examples, peoples with domestic horses (or camels), or with improved means of using them, enjoyed an enormous military advantage over those without them.

Of equal importance in wars of conquest were the germs that evolved in human societies with domestic animals. Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals (Chapter 11). The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases. When such partly immune people came into contact with others who had had no previous exposure to the germs, epidemics resulted in which up to 99 percent of the previously unexposed population was killed. Germs thus acquired ultimately from domestic animals played decisive roles in the European conquests of Native Americans, Australians, South Africans, and Pacific islanders.

In short, plant and animal domestication meant much more food and hence much denser human populations. The resulting food surpluses, and (in some areas) the animal-based means of transporting those surpluses, were a prerequisite for the development of settled, politically centralized, socially stratified, economically complex, technologically innovative societies. Hence the availability of domestic plants and animals ultimately explains why empires, literacy, and steel weapons developed earliest in Eurasia and later, or not at all, on other continents. The military uses of horses and camels, and the killing power of animal-derived germs, complete the list of major links between food production and conquest that we shall be exploring.

CHAPTER 5

HISTORY'S HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS

MUCH OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS CONSISTED OF UNEQUAL conflicts between the haves and the have-nots: between peoples with farmer power and those without it, or between those who acquired it at different times. It should come as no surprise that food production never arose in large areas of the globe, for ecological reasons that still make it difficult or impossible there today. For instance, neither farming nor herding developed in prehistoric times in North America's Arctic, while the sole element of food production to arise in Eurasia's Arctic was reindeer herding. Nor could food production spring up spontaneously in deserts remote from sources of water for irrigation, such as central Australia and parts of the western United States. conflicts between the haves and the have-nots: between peoples with farmer power and those without it, or between those who acquired it at different times. It should come as no surprise that food production never arose in large areas of the globe, for ecological reasons that still make it difficult or impossible there today. For instance, neither farming nor herding developed in prehistoric times in North America's Arctic, while the sole element of food production to arise in Eurasia's Arctic was reindeer herding. Nor could food production spring up spontaneously in deserts remote from sources of water for irrigation, such as central Australia and parts of the western United States.

Instead, what cries out for explanation is the failure of food production to appear, until modern times, in some ecologically very suitable areas that are among the world's richest centers of agriculture and herding today. Foremost among these puzzling areas, where indigenous peoples were still hunter-gatherers when European colonists arrived, were California and the other Pacific states of the United States, the Argentine pampas, southwestern and southeastern Australia, and much of the Cape region of South Africa. Had we surveyed the world in 4000 B.C. B.C., thousands of years after the rise of food production in its oldest sites of origin, we would have been surprised too at several other modern breadbaskets that were still then without it-including all the rest of the United States, England and much of France, Indonesia, and all of subequatorial Africa. When we trace food production back to its beginnings, the earliest sites provide another surprise. Far from being modern breadbaskets, they include areas ranking today as somewhat dry or ecologically degraded: Iraq and Iran, Mexico, the Andes, parts of China, and Africa's Sahel zone. Why did food production develop first in these seemingly rather marginal lands, and only later in today's most fertile farmlands and pastures?

Geographic differences in the means by which food production arose are also puzzling. In a few places it developed independently, as a result of local people domesticating local plants and animals. In most other places it was instead imported, in the form of crops and livestock that had been domesticated elsewhere. Since those areas of nonindependent origins were suitable for prehistoric food production as soon as domesticates had arrived, why did the peoples of those areas not become farmers and herders without outside a.s.sistance, by domesticating local plants and animals?

Among those regions where food production did spring up independently, why did the times at which it appeared vary so greatly-for example, thousands of years earlier in eastern Asia than in the eastern United States and never in eastern Australia? Among those regions into which it was imported in the prehistoric era, why did the date of arrival also vary so greatly-for example, thousands of years earlier in southwestern Europe than in the southwestern United States? Again among those regions where it was imported, why in some areas (such as the southwestern United States) did local hunter-gatherers themselves adopt crops and livestock from neighbors and survive as farmers, while in other areas (such as Indonesia and much of subequatorial Africa) the importation of food production involved a cataclysmic replacement of the region's original hunter-gatherers by invading food producers? All these questions involve developments that determined which peoples became history's have-nots, and which became its haves.

BEFORE WE CAN hope to answer these questions, we need to figure out how to identify areas where food production originated, when it arose there, and where and when a given crop or animal was first domesticated. The most unequivocal evidence comes from identification of plant and animal remains at archaeological sites. Most domesticated plant and animal species differ morphologically from their wild ancestors: for example, in the smaller size of domestic cattle and sheep, the larger size of domestic chickens and apples, the thinner and smoother seed coats of domestic peas, and the corkscrew-twisted rather than scimitar-shaped horns of domestic goats. Hence remains of domesticated plants and animals at a dated archaeological site can be recognized and provide strong evidence of food production at that place and time, whereas finding the remains only of wild species at a site fails to provide evidence of food production and is compatible with hunting-gathering. Naturally, food producers, especially early ones, continued to gather some wild plants and hunt wild animals, so the food remains at their sites often include wild species as well as domesticated ones. hope to answer these questions, we need to figure out how to identify areas where food production originated, when it arose there, and where and when a given crop or animal was first domesticated. The most unequivocal evidence comes from identification of plant and animal remains at archaeological sites. Most domesticated plant and animal species differ morphologically from their wild ancestors: for example, in the smaller size of domestic cattle and sheep, the larger size of domestic chickens and apples, the thinner and smoother seed coats of domestic peas, and the corkscrew-twisted rather than scimitar-shaped horns of domestic goats. Hence remains of domesticated plants and animals at a dated archaeological site can be recognized and provide strong evidence of food production at that place and time, whereas finding the remains only of wild species at a site fails to provide evidence of food production and is compatible with hunting-gathering. Naturally, food producers, especially early ones, continued to gather some wild plants and hunt wild animals, so the food remains at their sites often include wild species as well as domesticated ones.

Archaeologists date food production by radiocarbon dating of carbon-containing materials at the site. This method is based on the slow decay of radioactive carbon 14, a very minor component of carbon, the ubiquitous building block of life, into the nonradioactive isotope nitrogen 14. Carbon 14 is continually being generated in the atmosphere by cosmic rays. Plants take up atmospheric carbon, which has a known and approximately constant ratio of carbon 14 to the prevalent isotope carbon 12 (a ratio of about one to a million). That plant carbon goes on to form the body of the herbivorous animals that eat the plants, and of the carnivorous animals that eat those herbivorous animals. Once the plant or animal dies, though, half of its carbon 14 content decays into carbon 12 every 5,700 years, until after about 40,000 years the carbon 14 content is very low and difficult to measure or to distinguish from contamination with small amounts of modern materials containing carbon 14. Hence the age of material from an archaeological site can be calculated from the material's carbon 14 / carbon 12 ratio.

Radiocarbon is plagued by numerous technical problems, of which two deserve mention here. One is that radiocarbon dating until the 1980s required relatively large amounts of carbon (a few grams), much more than the amount in small seeds or bones. Hence scientists instead often had to resort to dating material recovered nearby at the same site and believed to be "a.s.sociated with" the food remains-that is, to have been deposited simultaneously by the people who left the food. A typical choice of "a.s.sociated" material is charcoal from fires.

But archaeological sites are not always neatly sealed time capsules of materials all deposited on the same day. Materials deposited at different times can get mixed together, as worms and rodents and other agents churn up the ground. Charcoal residues from a fire can thereby end up close to the remains of a plant or animal that died and was eaten thousands of years earlier or later. Increasingly today, archaeologists are circ.u.mventing this problem by a new technique termed accelerator ma.s.s spectrometry, which permits radiocarbon dating of tiny samples and thus lets one directly date a single small seed, small bone, or other food residue. In some cases big differences have been found between recent radiocarbon dates based on the direct new methods (which have their own problems) and those based on the indirect older ones. Among the resulting controversies remaining unresolved, perhaps the most important for the purposes of this book concerns the date when food production originated in the Americas: indirect methods of the 1960s and 1970s yielded dates as early as 7000 B.C. B.C., but more recent direct dating has been yielding dates no earlier than 3500 B.C. B.C.

A second problem in radiocarbon dating is that the carbon 14/carbon 12 ratio of the atmosphere is in fact not rigidly constant but fluctuates slightly with time, so calculations of radiocarbon dates based on the a.s.sumption of a constant ratio are subject to small systematic errors. The magnitude of this error for each past date can in principle be determined with the help of long-lived trees laying down annual growth rings, since the rings can be counted up to obtain an absolute calendar date in the past for each ring, and a carbon sample of wood dated in this manner can then be a.n.a.lyzed for its carbon 14 / carbon 12 ratio. In this way, measured radiocarbon dates can be "calibrated" to take account of fluctuations in the atmospheric carbon ratio. The effect of this correction is that, for materials with apparent (that is, uncalibrated) dates between about 1000 and 6000 B.C. B.C., the true (calibrated) date is between a few centuries and a thousand years earlier. Somewhat older samples have more recently begun to be calibrated by an alternative method based on another radioactive decay process and yielding the conclusion that samples apparently dating to about 9000 B.C. B.C. actually date to around 11,000 actually date to around 11,000 B.C. B.C.

Archaeologists often distinguish calibrated from uncalibrated dates by writing the former in upper-case letters and the latter in lower-case letters (for example, 3000 B.C. B.C. vs. 3000 vs. 3000 B.C. B.C., respectively). However, the archaeological literature can be confusing in this respect, because many books and papers report un uncalibrated dates as B.C. B.C. and fail to mention that they are actually uncalibrated. The dates that I report in this book for events within the last 15,000 years are calibrated dates. That accounts for some of the discrepancies that readers may note between this book's dates and those quoted in some standard reference books on early food production. and fail to mention that they are actually uncalibrated. The dates that I report in this book for events within the last 15,000 years are calibrated dates. That accounts for some of the discrepancies that readers may note between this book's dates and those quoted in some standard reference books on early food production.

Once one has recognized and dated ancient remains of domestic plants or animals, how does one decide whether the plant or animal was actually domesticated in the vicinity of that site itself, rather than domesticated elsewhere and then spread to the site? One method is to examine a map of the geographic distribution of the crop's or animal's wild ancestor, and to reason that domestication must have taken place in the area where the wild ancestor occurs. For example, chickpeas are widely grown by traditional farmers from the Mediterranean and Ethiopia east to India, with the latter country accounting for 80 percent of the world's chickpea production today. One might therefore have been deceived into supposing that chickpeas were domesticated in India. But it turns out that ancestral wild chickpeas occur only in southeastern Turkey. The interpretation that chickpeas were actually domesticated there is supported by the fact that the oldest finds of possibly domesticated chickpeas in Neolithic archaeological sites come from southeastern Turkey and nearby northern Syria that date to around 8000 B.C. B.C.; not until over 5,000 years later does archaeological evidence of chickpeas appear on the Indian subcontinent.

A second method for identifying a crop's or animal's site of domestication is to plot on a map the dates of the domesticated form's first appearance at each locality. The site where it appeared earliest may be its site of initial domestication-especially if the wild ancestor also occurred there, and if the dates of first appearance at other sites become progressively later with increasing distance from the putative site of initial domestication, suggesting spread to those other sites. For instance, the earliest known cultivated emmer wheat comes from the Fertile Crescent around 8500 B.C. B.C. Soon thereafter, the crop appears progressively farther west, reaching Greece around 6500 Soon thereafter, the crop appears progressively farther west, reaching Greece around 6500 B.C. B.C. and Germany around 5000 and Germany around 5000 B.C. B.C. Those dates suggest domestication of emmer wheat in the Fertile Crescent, a conclusion supported by the fact that ancestral wild emmer wheat is confined to the area extending from Israel to western Iran and Turkey. Those dates suggest domestication of emmer wheat in the Fertile Crescent, a conclusion supported by the fact that ancestral wild emmer wheat is confined to the area extending from Israel to western Iran and Turkey.

However, as we shall see, complications arise in many cases where the same plant or animal was domesticated independently at several different sites. Such cases can often be detected by a.n.a.lyzing the resulting morphological, genetic, or chromosomal differences between specimens of the same crop or domestic animal in different areas. For instance, India's zebu breeds of domestic cattle possess humps lacking in western Eurasian cattle breeds, and genetic a.n.a.lyses show that the ancestors of modern Indian and western Eurasian cattle breeds diverged from each other hundreds of thousands of years ago, long before any animals were domesticated anywhere. That is, cattle were domesticated independently in India and western Eurasia, within the last 10,000 years, starting with wild Indian and western Eurasian cattle subspecies that had diverged hundreds of thousands of years earlier.

LET'S NOW RETURN to our earlier questions about the rise of food production. Where, when, and how did food production develop in different parts of the globe? to our earlier questions about the rise of food production. Where, when, and how did food production develop in different parts of the globe?

At one extreme are areas in which food production arose altogether independently, with the domestication of many indigenous crops (and, in some cases, animals) before the arrival of any crops or animals from other areas. There are only five such areas for which the evidence is at present detailed and compelling: Southwest Asia, also known as the Near East or Fertile Crescent; China; Mesoamerica (the term applied to central and southern Mexico and adjacent areas of Central America); the Andes of South America, and possibly the adjacent Amazon Basin as well; and the eastern United States (Figure 5.1). Some or all of these centers may actually comprise several nearby centers where food production arose more or less independently, such as North China's Yellow River valley and South China's Yangtze River valley.

In addition to these five areas where food production definitely arose de novo, four others-Africa's Sahel zone, tropical West Africa, Ethiopia, and New Guinea-are candidates for that distinction. However, there is some uncertainty in each case. Although indigenous wild plants were undoubtedly domesticated in Africa's Sahel zone just south of the Sahara, cattle herding may have preceded agriculture there, and it is not yet certain whether those were independently domesticated Sahel cattle or, instead, domestic cattle of Fertile Crescent origin whose arrival triggered local plant domestication. It remains similarly uncertain whether the arrival of those Sahel crops then triggered the undoubted local domestication of indigenous wild plants in tropical West Africa, and whether the arrival of Southwest Asian crops is what triggered the local domestication of indigenous wild plants in Ethiopia. As for New Guinea, archaeological studies there have provided evidence of early agriculture well before food production in any adjacent areas, but the crops grown have not been definitely identified.

Table 5.1 summarizes, for these and other areas of local domestication, some of the best-known crops and animals and the earliest known dates of domestication. Among these nine candidate areas for the independent evolution of food production, Southwest Asia has the earliest definite dates for both plant domestication (around 8500 B.C. B.C.) and animal domestication (around 8000 B.C. B.C.); it also has by far the largest number of accurate radiocarbon dates for early food production. Dates for China are nearly as early, while dates for the eastern United States are clearly about 6,000 years later. For the other six candidate areas, the earliest well-established dates do not rival those for Southwest Asia, but too few early sites have been securely dated in those six other areas for us to be certain that they really lagged behind Southwest Asia and (if so) by how much.

The next group of areas consists of ones that did domesticate at least a couple of local plants or animals, but where food production depended mainly on crops and animals that were domesticated elsewhere. Those imported domesticates may be thought of as "founder" crops and animals, because they founded local food production. The arrival of founder domesticates enabled local people to become sedentary, and thereby increased the likelihood of local crops' evolving from wild plants that were gathered, brought home and planted accidentally, and later planted intentionally.

TABLE 5.1 Examples of Species Domesticated in Each Area 5.1 Examples of Species Domesticated in Each Area

Area Domesticated

Plants Animals Earliest Attested Date of Domestication Independent Origins of Domestication

1. Southwest Asia wheat, pea, olive sheep, goat 8500 B.C. B.C.

2. China rice, millet pig, silkworm by 7500 B.C. B.C.

3. Mesoamerica corn, beans, squash turkey by 3500 B.C. B.C.

4. Andes and Amazonia potato, manioc llama, guinea pig by 3500 B.C. B.C.

5. Eastern United States sunflower, goosefoot none 2500 B.C. B.C.

? 6. Sahel sorghum, African rice guinea fowl by 5000 B.C. B.C.

? 7. Tropical West Africa African yams, oil palm none by 3000 B.C. B.C.

? 8. Ethiopia coffee, teff none ?

? 9. New Guinea sugar cane, banana none 7000 B.C. B.C.?

Local Domestication Following Arrival of Founder Crops from Elsewhere

10. Western Europe poppy, oat none 60003500 B.C. B.C.

11. Indus Valley sesame, eggplant humped cattle 7000 B.C. B.C.

12. Egypt sycamore fig, chufa donkey, cat 6000 B.C. B.C.

In three or four such areas, the arriving founder package came from Southwest Asia. One of them is western and central Europe, where food production arose with the arrival of Southwest Asian crops and animals between 6000 and 3500 B.C. B.C., but at least one plant (the poppy, and probably oats and some others) was then domesticated locally. Wild poppies are confined to coastal areas of the western Mediterranean. Poppy seeds are absent from excavated sites of the earliest farming communities in eastern Europe and Southwest Asia; they first appear in early farming sites in western Europe. In contrast, the wild ancestors of most Southwest Asian crops and animals were absent from western Europe. Thus, it seems clear that food production did not evolve independently in western Europe. Instead, it was triggered there by the arrival of Southwest Asian domesticates. The resulting western European farming societies domesticated the poppy, which subsequently spread eastward as a crop.

Another area where local domestication appears to have followed the arrival of Southwest Asian founder crops is the Indus Valley region of the Indian subcontinent. The earliest farming communities there in the seventh millennium B.C. B.C. utilized wheat, barley, and other crops that had been previously domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and that evidently spread to the Indus Valley through Iran. Only later did domesticates derived from indigenous species of the Indian subcontinent, such as humped cattle and sesame, appear in Indus Valley farming communities. In Egypt as well, food production began in the sixth millennium utilized wheat, barley, and other crops that had been previously domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and that evidently spread to the Indus Valley through Iran. Only later did domesticates derived from indigenous species of the Indian subcontinent, such as humped cattle and sesame, appear in Indus Valley farming communities. In Egypt as well, food production began in the sixth millennium B.C. B.C. with the arrival of Southwest Asian crops. Egyptians then domesticated the sycamore fig and a local vegetable called chufa. with the arrival of Southwest Asian crops. Egyptians then domesticated the sycamore fig and a local vegetable called chufa.

The same pattern perhaps applies to Ethiopia, where wheat, barley, and other Southwest Asian crops have been cultivated for a long time. Ethiopians also domesticated many locally available wild species to obtain crops most of which are still confined to Ethiopia, but one of them (the coffee bean) has now spread around the world. However, it is not yet known whether Ethiopians were cultivating these local plants before or only after the arrival of the Southwest Asian package.

In these and other areas where food production depended on the arrival of founder crops from elsewhere, did local hunter-gatherers themselves adopt those founder crops from neighboring farming peoples and thereby become farmers themselves? Or was the founder package instead brought by invading farmers, who were thereby enabled to outbreed the local hunters and to kill, displace, or outnumber them?

In Egypt it seems likely that the former happened: local hunter-gatherers simply added Southwest Asian domesticates and farming and herding techniques to their own diet of wild plants and animals, then gradually phased out the wild foods. That is, what arrived to launch food production in Egypt was foreign crops and animals, not foreign peoples. The same may have been true on the Atlantic coast of Europe, where local hunter-gatherers apparently adopted Southwest Asian sheep and cereals over the course of many centuries. In the Cape of South Africa the local Khoi hunter-gatherers became herders (but not farmers) by acquiring sheep and cows from farther north in Africa (and ultimately from Southwest Asia). Similarly, Native American hunter-gatherers of the U.S. Southwest gradually became farmers by acquiring Mexican crops. In these four areas the onset of food production provides little or no evidence for the domestication of local plant or animal species, but also little or no evidence for the replacement of human population.

At the opposite extreme are regions in which food production certainly began with an abrupt arrival of foreign people as well as of foreign crops and animals. The reason why we can be certain is that the arrivals took place in modern times and involved literate Europeans, who described in innumerable books what happened. Those areas include California, the Pacific Northwest of North America, the Argentine pampas, Australia, and Siberia. Until recent centuries, these areas were still occupied by hunter-gatherers-Native Americans in the first three cases and Aboriginal Australians or Native Siberians in the last two. Those hunter-gatherers were killed, infected, driven out, or largely replaced by arriving European farmers and herders who brought their own crops and did not domesticate any local wild species after their arrival (except for macadamia nuts in Australia). In the Cape of South Africa the arriving Europeans found not only Khoi hunter-gatherers but also Khoi herders who already possessed only domestic animals, not crops. The result was again the start of farming dependent on crops from elsewhere, a failure to domesticate local species, and a ma.s.sive modern replacement of human population.

Finally, the same pattern of an abrupt start of food production dependent on domesticates from elsewhere, and an abrupt and ma.s.sive population replacement, seems to have repeated itself in many areas in the prehistoric era. In the absence of written records, the evidence of those prehistoric replacements must be sought in the archaeological record or inferred from linguistic evidence. The best-attested cases are ones in which there can be no doubt about population replacement because the newly arriving food producers differed markedly in their skeletons from the hunter-gatherers whom they replaced, and because the food producers introduced not only crops and animals but also pottery. Later chapters will describe the two clearest such examples: the Austronesian expansion from South China into the Philippines and Indonesia (Chapter 17), and the Bantu expansion over subequatorial Africa (Chapter 19).

Southeastern Europe and central Europe present a similar picture of an abrupt onset of food production (dependent on Southwest Asian crops and animals) and of pottery making. This onset too probably involved replacement of old Greeks and Germans by new Greeks and Germans, just as old gave way to new in the Philippines, Indonesia, and subequatorial Africa. However, the skeletal differences between the earlier hunter-gatherers and the farmers who replaced them are less marked in Europe than in the Philippines, Indonesia, and subequatorial Africa. Hence the case for population replacement in Europe is less strong or less direct.

IN SHORT, ONLY a few areas of the world developed food production independently, and they did so at widely differing times. From those nuclear areas, hunter-gatherers of some neighboring areas learned food production, and peoples of other neighboring areas were replaced by invading food producers from the nuclear areas-again at widely differing times. Finally, peoples of some areas ecologically suitable for food production neither evolved nor acquired agriculture in prehistoric times at all; they persisted as hunter-gatherers until the modern world finally swept upon them. The peoples of areas with a head start on food production thereby gained a head start on the path leading toward guns, germs, and steel. The result was a long series of collisions between the haves and the have-nots of history. a few areas of the world developed food production independently, and they did so at widely differing times. From those nuclear areas, hunter-gatherers of some neighboring areas learned food production, and peoples of other neighboring areas were replaced by invading food producers from the nuclear areas-again at widely differing times. Finally, peoples of some areas ecologically suitable for food production neither evolved nor acquired agriculture in prehistoric times at all; they persisted as hunter-gatherers until the modern world finally swept upon them. The peoples of areas with a head start on food production thereby gained a head start on the path leading toward guns, germs, and steel. The result was a long series of collisions between the haves and the have-nots of history.

How can we explain these geographic differences in the times and modes of onset of food production? That question, one of the most important problems of prehistory, will be the subject of the next five chapters.

CHAPTER 6

TO FARM OR NOT TO FARM

FORMERLY, ALL PEOPLE ON EARTH WERE HUNTER-GATHERERS. Why did any of them adopt food production at all? Given that they must have had some reason, why did they do so around 8500 B.C. B.C. in Mediterranean habitats of the Fertile Crescent, only 3,000 years later in the climatically and structurally similar Mediterranean habitats of southwestern Europe, and never indigenously in the similar Mediterranean habitats of California, southwestern Australia, and the Cape of South Africa? Why did even people of the Fertile Crescent wait until 8500 in Mediterranean habitats of the Fertile Crescent, only 3,000 years later in the climatically and structurally similar Mediterranean habitats of southwestern Europe, and never indigenously in the similar Mediterranean habitats of California, southwestern Australia, and the Cape of South Africa? Why did even people of the Fertile Crescent wait until 8500 B.C. B.C., instead of becoming food producers already around 18,500 or 28,500 B.C. B.C.?

From our modern perspective, all these questions at first seem silly, because the drawbacks of being a hunter-gatherer appear so obvious. Scientists used to quote a phrase of Thomas Hobbes's in order to characterize the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers as "nasty, brutish, and short." They seemed to have to work hard, to be driven by the daily quest for food, often to be close to starvation, to lack such elementary material comforts as soft beds and adequate clothing, and to die young.

In reality, only for today's affluent First World citizens, who don't actually do the work of raising food themselves, does food production (by remote agribusinesses) mean less physical work, more comfort, freedom from starvation, and a longer expected lifetime. Most peasant farmers and herders, who const.i.tute the great majority of the world's actual food producers, aren't necessarily better off than hunter-gatherers. Time budget studies show that they may spend more rather than fewer hours per day at work than hunter-gatherers do. Archaeologists have demonstrated that the first farmers in many areas were smaller and less well nourished, suffered from more serious diseases, and died on the average at a younger age than the hunter-gatherers they replaced. If those first farmers could have foreseen the consequences of adopting food production, they might not have opted to do so. Why, unable to foresee the result, did they nevertheless make that choice?

There exist many actual cases of hunter-gatherers who did see food production practiced by their neighbors, and who nevertheless refused to accept its supposed blessings and instead remained hunter-gatherers. For instance, Aboriginal hunter-gatherers of northeastern Australia traded for thousands of years with farmers of the Torres Strait Islands, between Australia and New Guinea. California Native American hunter-gatherers traded with Native American farmers in the Colorado River valley. In addition, Khoi herders west of the Fish River of South Africa traded with Bantu farmers east of the Fish River, and continued to dispense with farming themselves. Why?

Still other hunter-gatherers in contact with farmers did eventually become farmers, but only after what may seem to us like an inordinately long delay. For example, the coastal peoples of northern Germany did not adopt food production until 1,300 years after peoples of the Linearbandkeramik culture introduced it to inland parts of Germany only 125 miles to the south. Why did those coastal Germans wait so long, and what led them finally to change their minds?

BEFORE WE CAN answer these questions, we must dispel some misconceptions about the origins of food production and then reformulate the question. What actually happened was not a answer these questions, we must dispel some misconceptions about the origins of food production and then reformulate the question. What actually happened was not a discovery discovery of food production, nor an of food production, nor an invention invention, as we might first a.s.sume. There was often not even a conscious choice between food production and hunting-gathering. Specifically, in each area of the globe the first people who adopted food production could obviously not have been making a conscious choice or consciously striving toward farming as a goal, because they had never seen farming and had no way of knowing what it would be like. Instead, as we shall see, food production evolved evolved as a by-product of decisions made without awareness of their consequences. Hence the question that we have to ask is why food production did evolve, why it evolved in some places but not others, why at different times in different places, and why not instead at some earlier or later date. as a by-product of decisions made without awareness of their consequences. Hence the question that we have to ask is why food production did evolve, why it evolved in some places but not others, why at different times in different places, and why not instead at some earlier or later date.