Asking the wrong questions

The next three chapters, in Part III, focus on the agricultural phase. This chapter notes that there are contrasting interpretations of the impact of the introduction of agriculture, one seeing it as a disaster for humans. If it is such a disaster, why did humans voluntarily adopt it? Agriculture is defined as the domestication of plants and animals. Elements of agriculture were introduced into the forager economy, broadening the range of foodstuffs available to humans and stretching the revolution over thousands of years. Sometimes the relevant technologies were spread by migrating farmers, sometimes what was moved was the idea of agriculture. This chapter stresses that sedentism, the concentration of population, occurred earlier than agriculture, at least in some places. Later population growth made agriculture necessary. The chapter concludes with an indication of the varying sequence of events which led in different places to entry into the agricultural phase.