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gjm comments on Stupid Questions June 2015 - Less Wrong
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This theory assumes that developing that sort of society is a step that every group will take if given the opportunity.
I would think it's entirely possible for a group of people who could switch to systematic agricultural life not to do so, for several different reasons. They might just not think of doing it. They might predict that it would make things worse rather than better (and I've seen it suggested that the transition from hunting-and-gathering to agriculture really did make things worse rather than better for quite some time, even though it eventually enabled the rise of modern society with all its advantages). They might not want to take the risk. They might see the hunter-gatherer lifestyle as favoured by gods or ancestral spirits or what-have-you and think they shouldn't change.
If that's right, then you can't infer anything much from the fact that a given group of people didn't switch from hunting-and-gathering to something more settled and complicated.
You don't need a whole group to choose to switch to agriculture; just one innovator to show that it works better and the others to not burn that person at the stake for doing it. I say agriculture; but it could be as simple as. I try to encourage this plant to grow more by spreading its seeds, Oh look we have lots of food-plant-X now. Or:
My point (which I am really not showing well) is that the early stages of agriculture are pretty easy to slip into if you have spare thinking space. And after you have them; what you do with your spare time is up to you...
And then defend the resulting plants from animals and other tribes.
Yes its hard to map all of history without living it personally; but its the best I can do for a map on short notice.
Can one innovator really show that it works better? Especially back before agriculture got started, and hence before we started breeding plants that were well adapted to human needs. E.g., a lot of agriculture now is based on wheat, but wheat was a much less effective food plant before human intervention.
Almost by definition, "more complicated culture and a structured society" isn't a thing one person can try out on their own and demonstrate the superiority of. Probably some individual interventions along the path are, but I don't think we know that "pre-colonial indigenous people" didn't try any of them. (Do we?) And even those individual interventions -- if one of them produces (say) more fruit but at the cost of catching fewer deer, would it have been obvious whether it was a win?
One person to show that it is possible to co-operate with animals, and train them to follow you around for food; and the rest of people to not murder him for his tasty friends.
Once you have some agriculture; you can have more - spread out into other species of animal and plant - then you settle down. Once you have monoculture you need some kind of trading system between farming groups. When someone gets wise about bartering or inventing a representative currency you start to get civilisation... Or when someone "offers" to pick up a sword so others can keep farming...
I see two failure modes for agriculture:
Unsuitable land. A tundra or desert would be an extreme example. Something like a steppe could lack arable land and almost require a nomadic lifestyle.
Land of plenty. If food is easy to come by and hunger almost non-existent, agriculture might not be worth the effort in the short-term.
in mode 1: those who can conserve food resources and potentially grow food where it would be naturally scarce will survive.
in mode 2: the population should expand to meet the available food and force scarcity eventually.
People who do not use agriculture are typically nomadic -- they don't stay in one single place long enough.
An experiment to try agriculture would involve settling down in one spot -- and if that experiment fails you're in a lot of trouble.
This is entirely true; but in my purely made up example - birds are transportable; they leave fertiliser as they go and probably improve the quality of the soil. Assuming a nomad repeats their path; they will eventually pass across previously visited places with edible plants growing where they have passed.
The model of try new crazy ideas that sound good and see if they fail can probably be compared to modern day "startups" (within reason). Where startups fail etc. Whereas feeding some birds can probably be compared to "minimum viable products". No one farmer ever tried to domesticate lions in a day. But someone somewhere probably fed the pigeons the scraps.
But back to the question at hand - were they malnourished? Yes probably.
There is a rather different cost of failure. And I'm not sure your actual point "that the early stages of agriculture are pretty easy to slip into" is valid -- in particular if you separate agriculture (growing plants) and husbandry (having domestic animals). I think domesticating animals -- in particular, hunting companions (dogs) and pack animals -- came before agriculture proper. Domesticating animals is easy to "slip into", committing to planting a field and waiting for the harvest -- not so much.
well; the risks of failing at a startup really hinge on how much you put on the line. Similarly if you sit on your ass hoping a field will grow you are probably putting too much on the line.
I suspect we are talking about different definitions of the parts of agriculture. I can confidently say that if some idiot tried to plant an entire field at once from scratch - they deserved to get what was coming to them.
Just like if I decided to try to run a startup with too bold goals and no profit turning opportunity till its fully established; I would expect people to give me wild looks from time to time, and chance of failures to be high.
dogs probably came before husbandry which probably came before monoculture. But planting a few seeds here and there probably happened concurrently to husbandry. With viability of some plants there would have been growth; with growth - more opportunity for mass-farming... etc - till today.
I am not sure that we disagree much.
History of agriculture is not a new topic of inquiry :-)
briefly; many models - we don't know how it all started. Neat!