Over time, people have evolved from hunter-gathers to agriculture and pastoralism. Somehow this human evolution has enabled people to build from survival in small numbers to prosperity as an immense society. Although, people have questioned whether becoming an agricultural society was a innovative step into the future or a catastrophe step for foreseeable future of all society. In Jared Diamond’s article ‘ The worst mistake in the history of the human race, ‘ he describes just how the advancement of an agricultural society is now a step towards complete disaster.
I disagree with Diamond about this notion and truly believe that it was a radical step towards the future on becoming an agricultural society. In the third paragraph of the article ‘ The worst mistake in the history of the human race,’ it says, ‘ Of course they adopted it because agriculture is an efficient way of obtaining more food for less work.’ It’s an excellent example of why it was an evolutionary divergence to embrace agricultural life. Hunter-gatherers eventually began farming, they finally settled without having to travel everywhere after their food.
Perhaps this eventually resulted in a significant increase in their population so that they could support more individuals with the surplus of food produced. In the fourth paragraph of the article, it says, “Since crops can be stored, and since it takes less time to pick food from a garden than to find it in the wild, agriculture gave us free time that hunter-gatherers never had.” This gives all the reason as to why our society was able to flourish so prosperously in societal advancements. This saved people time with agriculture to think of things other than survival.
For instance, it gave the genius of the Renaissance time to think about literature, mathematics and new inventions with this excess of time. Jupiter, Florida is another example. I was born in Palm Beach County, Florida where my parents also grew up here. Before it was populated by a vastly growing population, however, it was an area cultivated singly by woods and farming purposes solely.
As more people moved to the beach and overrun the area, the woods and farms were dismantled, and the farm lands and woodlands became real estate to support the region’s expanding population. Financial reasons are another advantage of the agricultural revolution. According to the AP Environmental Science textbook in lesson 1.02, ‘ Even the poorest villagers used some land for growing or grazing livestock. ‘
This reveals just how the poor came together to make money and survive. It was less expensive for people to buy seeds as a village and it was cheaper to have a village oxen team. This enabled the towns to save some money by helping each other. Yet another benefit of the agricultural uprising was the technological innovation. When technology was advanced, people were given time to think of other things to improve.
One instance is the development of high-quality items in order to drive sales and increase profits for farmers. The last benefit, finally, is that it creates a sense of unity as a community. According to the AP Environmental Science Lecture Book in lesson 1.02, ‘ The system encourages cooperation and the sharing of tools because agriculture is very labor intensive. ‘ They were working as a large community and used oxen to mow the fields.
In general, the Agriculture Revolution was a massive step for the future. The effect of the agriculture revolution has left such a vital mark on history. If we didn’t have these revolutionary advancements throughout society, we would all still be trying to survive and thrive in the wild hunting for food and the resources we need.
There would be no large urban centers, because nobody would have time to concentrate on everything but find their next meal. Population would hardly ever increase because hunter-gatherers needed to keep their populations small so that traveling around following food sources was easier and more efficient. The Agriculture Revolution why today we are so technologically advanced.
