Did Cro-Magnon Make a Mistake By Turning To Agriculture?

[Psychonaut]

Lately in my World Civ class we have been discussing the Neolithic Revolution and the switch from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies with early Cro-Magnon.

In an article named "The Worst Mistake in Human History" by Jared Diamond (and a number of other articles), several pros and cons of the switch to an agricultural society were listed:

Pros:
-less work for more food
-More food = more people
-reliable source of food
-societies can become permanent, more complex
-trade increases and commerce develops
-division of labor allows workers to specialize

Cons:
-crop failures due to weather or famine (could be fatal, look at the Irish Potato Famine)
-floods, fires, or raiders could destroy villages
-disease spread easily with people living together
-more people =overcrowding
-overcrowding = some people starve

Along with that, I also read that people were taller before the switch to agriculture (5'9" for men and 5'5" for women on average) and after the switch they were shorter (5'3" for men and 5' for women). With that there were a number of other health problems that hunter-gatherers didn't have, and nutritional deficiancies in people after the switch to agriculture.

I'll try to put up more info later. And before I get bombarded with "Sources!?!?! Where are your sources!?!?!!", I got all of my info from articles my teacher printed out and I have no idea what website they are from.

Now, the question, do you think Cro-Magnon made a mistake by largely abondoning hunting/gathering for agriculture?

EDIT: I found the link to the Jared Diamond article I read, you might want to take a look at it:
http://www.environnement.ens.fr/pers...ed_diamond.pdf


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[Tiberius Tosi]

No, all of the things that could go wrong with agriculture could also go wrong if you just don't happen to find any food in the wild. It just made life easier in general, and if not for it we would be doing the same hunting and gathering that they were, not sitting here on our high horse judging them like we are right now lol.

(Well actually without the switch I would never be alive in the first place because of a birth complication with my older brother that would have killed my mom and brother. So I'm all for civilization and agriculture lol)

[Psychonaut]

Life wasn't neccessarily harder, though. I mean look at the Kalahari Bushmen of Africa.They are hunter-gatherers and they on average only devote 12-19 hours per week on finding food, and they have plenty of leisure time.
And if you didn't find food in the wild, you could simply move to a new area and look, while with agriculture you're kinda stuck where your farms are and can't really go out that far and find food if a famine hit.

[Gustav21]

One bad thing about the introduction of agriculture was the creation of a repressive social structure. As soon as you get people with a surplus of food, you get the power of that person over the rest. I still voted no however since it allowed the advancment of Human civilization.

[BNS]

One bad thing about the introduction of agriculture was the creation of a repressive social structure. As soon as you get people with a surplus of food, you get the power of that person over the rest. I still voted no however since it allowed the advancment of Human civilization.

So for you what matters is that they where equal. Equally poor that is. Quite naive considering that even with the wealth gap our common man lives way more comfortably than any old tribal man.

[Psychonaut]

^^ Good point, as with hunters and gatherers there was no surplus of food so everyone stayed just about equal.

[Tiberius Tosi]

A bigger and stronger person could still fight over food with someone, or kill them over it. In a hunter gatherer society the physically strong always came out on top, an agricultural society evened the playing field a little more, even if it did lead to slightly more oppression being enacted upon the individual.

It is not uncommon for someone hungry without food to kill someone with food.

[Psychonaut]

Yes but in a hunter/gatherer society, each person was equally important for finding food, so people wouldn't kill each other, it would lessen the chance of getting food for themselves.

[Ardruire Iacób]

Yes but in a hunter/gatherer society, each person was equally important for finding food, so people wouldn't kill each other, it would lessen the chance of getting food for themselves.

So, if there are two hunters, one of whom has a gammy leg and can't run fast and the other one is a long distance runner - are they equally important? They catch food, a third hunter comes along - kills both - and makes off with all their food, I'd say he's done quite well for himself without having to do any hunting of his own.

[Del Valle]

I find it idiotic that people even think the agricultural revolution was bad. If it wasn't for the agricultural revolution, Jarod Diamond would probably be desperately praying to the mother spirit that the lion pack doesn't notice him hiding under the rock instead of receiving acclaim for articles. Who cares if we got shorter or starvation became more frequent (I'd like a source on this), agriculture has propelled us from being a few primates wandering around on Earth's to literally the dominant species on the planet, carving the planet at our will and killing off competitors on a whim. If it wasn't for agriculture, I probably wouldn't be typing this on a website on the Internet in the comfort of my air-conditioned home.

[Psychonaut]

I find it idiotic that people even think the agricultural revolution was bad. If it wasn't for the agricultural revolution, Jarod Diamond would probably be desperately praying to the mother spirit that the lion pack doesn't notice him hiding under the rock instead of receiving acclaim for articles. Who cares if we got shorter or starvation became more frequent (I'd like a source on this), agriculture has propelled us from being a few primates wandering around on Earth's to literally the dominant species on the planet, carving the planet at our will and killing off competitors on a whim. If it wasn't for agriculture, I probably wouldn't be typing this on a website on the Internet in the comfort of my air-conditioned home.

I never said it was a bad thing; I do indeed think it is good, though there are some bad effects from it. I was simply asking whether or not you guys think it was good or bad, and stated a few facts about some things that were better before the revolution, and have basically just played the devil's advocate against Tiberius Tosi.

Seriously, man, chill.

And about the sources: one again - I got them from worksheets in my World Civ class.

[Del Valle]

I never said it was a bad thing; I do indeed think it is good, though there are some bad effects from it. I was simply asking whether or not you guys think it was good or bad, and stated a few facts about some things that were better before the revolution, and have basically just played the devil's advocate against Tiberius Tosi.

Seriously, man, chill.

And about the sources: one again - I got them from worksheets in my World Civ class.

I wasn't talking about you, mate. This Jarod Diamond guy though, he seems like the usual university airhead that makes a living publishing controversial material.

[Tiberius Tosi]

Also, there were obviously benefits and life was more stable. Otherwise why would they have made the switch. It would kind of be silly to think that unconnected people all over the world would decide "hey this farming thing makes life worse, but lets do it anyways".

[BNS]

It's simply the division of labor that makes it so great. Thanks to the surpluses of food and relative economic stability man was able to dedicate his energy to the production of other goods. The accumulation of capital and knowledge that came as a result continues to this day to further divide labor and advance society.

[Tiberius Tosi]

It's simply the division of labor that makes it so great. Thanks to the surpluses of food and relative economic stability man was able to dedicate his energy to the production of other goods. The accumulation of capital and knowledge that came as a result continues to this day to further divide labor and advance society.

Well, the people who didn't want to stay around and farm always had the option to go back to hunter gatherer type lifestyle, but they chose not to. Sadly you can't usually do things the other way around so easily.

Anyways, in a hunter gatherer society when there was a lack of resources the strong would still take all they needed or wanted from the weaker. The same human mindset was in play and they acted just like we do today, except without the luxuries.

[Psychonaut]

@ Del Valle: Oh...okay, then. Sorry about that. Yeah Jarod Diamond was way over the top in some parts of the article, though some of his arguments were well put, just as well as some were rediculous.

[Del Valle]

About repressive social structures, weren't tribes just as repressive as agricultural societies? If you didn't devote your full effort to the tribe, you would probably be expelled or killed or killed and eaten if you rolled with cannibals.

[Boer]

I think there is an easy way to find an answer to this question:
As was pointed out, not every one switched to agriculture at the same time, some never have. So we have/had two competing systems hunting-gathering vs agriculture. Now, of the major/dominant civilizations were/are they mostly hunter-gatherers or agrarian?

[pannonian]

The Dawkinsian argument would be to look at the range and numbers of people before agriculture, compared to now. Since there are, by orders of magnitude, more people than pre-agriculture, the success of agriculture in helping to propagate genes is undeniable.

[Last Roman]

For all today's problems, I'd still take this over where we were 10,000 years ago.