Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers
Encyclopedia
Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began is a book by the British science writer Colin Tudge
. The book is one of a series of long essays by respected contemporary Darwinian
thinkers, which were published under the collective title Darwinism Today; the series was inspired by a course of 'Darwin Seminars' which took place at the LSE
in London in the late 1990s. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/cpnss/darwin/index.htm
In Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers, Colin Tudge offers an explanation for the beginning of the population explosion. Tudge explains that farming was not suddenly invented 10,000 years ago, but had existed as what he called proto-farming or hobby farming for at least 30,000 years earlier. What happened 10,000 years ago in the fertile crescent
was the raising of sea level
at the end of the ice age
over a relatively short period of time. This forced a population who were primarily hunter-gatherers to leave a rich prey region and to move inland. The new area was less able to support these immigrants as hunter-gatherers, and they were forced to increase their labors to extend their use of farming in order to maintain their population. The following quote gives Tudge's explanation for what happened next.
Colin Tudge
Colin Tudge is a British science writer and broadcaster. A biologist by training, he is the author of numerous works on food, agriculture, genetics, and species diversity....
. The book is one of a series of long essays by respected contemporary Darwinian
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
thinkers, which were published under the collective title Darwinism Today; the series was inspired by a course of 'Darwin Seminars' which took place at the LSE
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
in London in the late 1990s. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/cpnss/darwin/index.htm
In Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers, Colin Tudge offers an explanation for the beginning of the population explosion. Tudge explains that farming was not suddenly invented 10,000 years ago, but had existed as what he called proto-farming or hobby farming for at least 30,000 years earlier. What happened 10,000 years ago in the fertile crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
was the raising of sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
at the end of the ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
over a relatively short period of time. This forced a population who were primarily hunter-gatherers to leave a rich prey region and to move inland. The new area was less able to support these immigrants as hunter-gatherers, and they were forced to increase their labors to extend their use of farming in order to maintain their population. The following quote gives Tudge's explanation for what happened next.
- "Hunter gatherers take from their environment only what their environment happens to produce; and if they take too much, the desirable prey species collapse. [...] But the whole point of agriculture is to manipulate the environment so as to increase the amount of food that it will provide. [...] And if you increase the food supply, you can increase your own population. But then, of course, the farmers find themselves in a vicious spiral. The more they farm, the more their population rises and the more they are obliged to farm, because only by farming can they feed the extra mouths."
External links
- Colin Tudge's Biography
- Short summary of the book (Yale Press)