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Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging.

ABSTRACT: Did foragers become farmers because cultivation of crops was simply a better way to make a living? If so, what is arguably the greatest ever revolution in human livelihoods is readily explained. To answer the question, I estimate the caloric returns per hour of labor devoted to foraging wild species and cultivating the cereals exploited by the first farmers, using data on foragers and land-abundant hand-tool farmers in the ethnographic and historical record, as well as archaeological evidence. A convincing answer must account not only for the work of foraging and cultivation but also for storage, processing, and other indirect labor, and for the costs associated with the delayed nature of agricultural production and the greater exposure to risk of those whose livelihoods depended on a few cultivars rather than a larger number of wild species. Notwithstanding the considerable uncertainty to which these estimates inevitably are subject, the evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the productivity of the first farmers exceeded that of early Holocene foragers. Social and demographic aspects of farming, rather than its productivity, may have been essential to its emergence and spread. Prominent among these aspects may have been the contribution of farming to population growth and to military prowess, both promoting the spread of farming as a livelihood.

SUBMITTER: Bowles S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3064343 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging.

Bowles Samuel S

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20110307 12

Did foragers become farmers because cultivation of crops was simply a better way to make a living? If so, what is arguably the greatest ever revolution in human livelihoods is readily explained. To answer the question, I estimate the caloric returns per hour of labor devoted to foraging wild species and cultivating the cereals exploited by the first farmers, using data on foragers and land-abundant hand-tool farmers in the ethnographic and historical record, as well as archaeological evidence. A ...[more]

PMID: 21383181

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Project description:Living on a farm has been linked to a lower risk of immunoregulatory disorders, such as asthma, allergy, and inflammatory bowel disease. It is hypothesized that a decrease in the diversity and composition of indoor microbial communities is a sensible explanation for the upsurge in immunoregulatory diseases, with airborne bacteria contributing to this protective effect. However, the composition of this potentially beneficial microbial community in various farm and suburban indoor environments is still to be characterized. We collected settled airborne dust from stables and the associated farmers' homes and from suburban homes using electrostatic dust collectors (EDCs) over a period of 14 days. Then, quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to assess bacterial abundance. The V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced using Ilumina MiSeq in order to assess microbial diversity. The Divisive Amplicon Denoising Algorithm (DADA2) algorithm was used for the inference of amplicon sequence variants from amplicon data. Airborne bacteria were significantly more abundant in farmers' indoor environments than in suburban homes (p < 0.001). Cow farmers' homes had significantly higher bacterial diversity than pig farmers' and suburban homes (p < 0.001). Bacterial taxa, such as Firmicutes, Prevotellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Lactobacillus were significantly more abundant in farmers' homes than suburban homes, and the same was true for beneficial intestinal bacterial species, such as Lactobacillus amylovorus, Eubacterium hallii, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Furthermore, we found a higher similarity between bacterial communities in individual farmers' homes and their associated cow stables than for pig stables. Our findings contribute with important knowledge on bacterial composition, abundance, and diversity in different environments, which is highly valuable in the discussion on how microbial exposure may contribute to the development of immune-mediated diseases in both children and adults.

Dataset Information

Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging.

Publications

Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging.

Similar Datasets

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