IP Blog

Societies in the beginning of human history mainly practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Dictionary.com provides the definition of a hunter-gatherer as “a member of a group of people who subsist by hunting, fishing, or foraging in the wild.” Eventually, many of these nomadic hunter-gatherer bands made a shift to a sedentary farmer-herder type lifestyle. Although a farmer-herder lifestyle obviously seems more beneficial, looking at it now, many times farmer-herders had a tougher time surviving than hunter-gatherers. In other words, the advantages were not always obvious. So, what caused humans to shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to this farmer-herder lifestyle? Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, And Steel, answers this question with multiple reasons. As Diamond states, “the first farmers on each continent could not have chosen farming consciously, because there were no other nearby farmers for them to observe.” (108) Diamond’s reasons for this sub-conscious shift are comprised of several proximate factors. These factors include the availability of wild foods, the increase of domesticable wild foods, development of technologies, and an increase in human population (110-111). Of these four proximate factors, the single most important aspect in the development of food production is the availability of domesticable wild foods.

In order to survive, humans need enough food so that the body can sustain itself and reproduce. Possessing the right domesticable wild foods allowed societies to be able to support themselves nutritiously. Diamond lists 8 founder crops that were essential to supporting newly emerged farmer-herders. These 8 crops include emmer wheat, barley, lentil pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax (126-127). These crops are also extremely prevalant and valuable today. As Diamond states, “As a result, cereals today account for over half of all calories consumed by humans and include five of the modern world’s 12 leading crops” (125).  These crops were extremely important because of their high nutritious value which allowed societies to be well-nourished and supported. Furthermore, these crops were all domesticable in the right places, making them easy and plentiful for societies. Possessing these crops made it easier for hunter-gatherers to become more sedentary because it provided enough nutrition in plentiful amounts; therefore, the hunter-gatherers could do less roaming.

Hunter-gatherers did not consciously choose to become farmer-herders. Instead, the availability to grow domesticable wild plants made this choice for them. These domesticable crops only began to be farmed when it was realized that they could grow easily. This observation was made only through natural causes and not conscious ones. Diamond uses the example of a strawberry. Strawberries went through a natural evolution to be able to reproduce and spread, and strawberries are now a crop that can be planted and harvested( 116-117). This example gives some insight into how hunter-gatherers observed that plants could be farmed. Diamond states that “those principles of crop development by artificial selection still serve as our most understandable model of the origin of species by natural selection(130). For example, hunter-gatherers could eat many strawberries, and eventually pass out the seeds through in latrines. After returning to these latrines after time has past, the hunter-gatherer may notice that strawberries have grown in these places. It is this natural process that leads to the beginnings of the farmer-herder lifestyle. As long as hunter-gatherers were in possession of crops like these, as well as some of the 8 founder crops, they could support the switch to the farmer-herder lifestyle. Without these domesticable wild foods, hunter-gatherers could obviously never have cultivated any crops that could sustain a sedentary lifestyle.