Re: What did Agriculture DO for us?


<larryc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1161878523.331423.269960@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jois wrote:
Hey, while we are looking over the timing of agriculture you might want
to
look at the changes agriculture made:


http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/cslarsen/larsen.html

This is a well written paper, but hardly ground breaking. The decline
in human health and stature with the rise of agriculture has been known
for decades. Some of the dental problems of early farmers were caused
by chewing abrasives in grains caused by stone grinding of seeds.

This paper does contain one misconception. Members of hunter-gatherer
societies generally had more leisure time than early farmers.
Examination of mass kill sites shows that mesolithic hunters butchered
and smoked huge quantities of meat against the onset of winter.
Year-round agricultural leisure arose in a privileged class with
civilization, and did not become common until the advent of
mechanization.


Not ground breaking. Just tossing it in for information since some other
basic questions were being discussed and because Larsen is a great
researcher and writer.

Jois


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