Neanderthals, Bandits, and Farmers
What a cool little book this is! Although it’s only 53 pages, the information is so densely packed and insightful that it’s worth more that a lot of 300+ page books. It is from a series of books on evolutionary science and by a scholar of the London School of Economics by the name of Colin Tudge..
Tudge’s basic thesis is that early humans practiced agriculture on various levels from a much earlier time period before the Neolithic age started and current large scale agriculture is said to have started – about 10,000 years ago. However, the theory goes, this was done on an occasional basis to supplement their hunting and gathering – a kind of safety net of sorts. However, once the ice age ended, this decreased the amount of habitable land, forcing humans into smaller areas and the resulting competition for a more limited food supply drove them to using agriculture less as a “hobby” and more for survival. This then became a vicious cycle as agriculture provides more food and thus fuels population growth, which than requires more foods and so on.