Neolithic (R)evolution: By Choice Or By Need?

In a political science course at Brown University this spring, philosopher Jason Brennan presented the neolithic revolution as an opportunity to engage in trade. As part of a hypothesis about the Neanderthal extinction, Brennan introduced the idea of Homo sapiens coming to dominance through the establishment of trade and the advent of agriculture. Few would contest the fact that the neolithic revolution led to a transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to more stable sedentary societies, and that this transition was the gateway for market economics, technology, and cultural advancement.

Yet the way professor Brennan posed the question was to ask how exactly our hominid ancestors were able to make this transition, and what factors allowed them to finally make this obviously beneficial transition. But was the neolithic revolution truly based on a novel idea which led to such momentous change, or is it more accurate to say that necessity was the mother of this invention.

The move to agriculture happened all over the globe within a very limited timescale. It is exceedingly unlikely that someone suddenly realized that planting crops would be a good idea, and that the neolithic revolution is simply the spread of this idea. People tended to crops long before they began planting them. The first forms of irrigation were simple modifications of the landscape in order to divert water to patches of desirable plants. People knew about irrigation and the raising of crops long before the agricultural revolution began.

So why wait? Why did the neolithic revolution happen all of a sudden across the globe. I think it was a matter of necessity. As our ancestors proliferated and expanded across the globe, a phenomenon called the Pleistocene Extinctions occured- this was the mass extinction of megafauna which occured in the period leading up to around 10,000 years ago. Although there is controversy, these extinctions were most likely due to overhunting by humans. From moose to mammoths to giant beavers, much of the world's large mammal population was decimated, leaving few large animals to hunt and gather.

Agriculture is really not that much of a good thing. Taking care of crops restricts you to eating only very few types of plants, as opposed to the hundreds of types available to hunter-gatherers. This makes crops easily subject to disease, not to mention the risk of soil demineralization. Any animals that were raised were in close proximity to humans, and many of the world's worst disease have arisen precisely when the disease spreads from animals to humans (think avian flue, swine flue, and bubonic plague for starters). Additionally, by adopting a sedentary lifestyle our ancestors lived in close proximity to their feces, also increasing the risk of disease exposure.

So in the end, was the neolithic revolution a wonderous idea which finally enabled hunter-gathering Homo sapiens to embrace its destiny of trade, economics, and structured society, or was it simply a choice of the lesser of two evils, making the best of a lousy situation when animal food supplies were running short? It is important to consider the past when examining the present, but it is equally important to fully understand the past which we seek to consider.