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May 24, 2024, 7:22 am UTC    
December 23, 2005 11:54PM
Unless you talk about proto-agricultural living, where a plase of residence is not estavlished to be a citizen of, which is a basis of civilization.

Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers : How Agriculture Really Began (Darwinism Today series) by Colin Tudge

Colin Tudge surmises that, in many cases, late paleolithic hunter-gatherers (maybe from about 40.000 B.P. on) already practised "proto-agricultural" techniques, that enabled them to manipulate the ecosystem they were living in, so that its productivity was increased. Quite a few recent hunter-gatherer people knew such practices (Australian aborigines, for instance, who never developed agriculture, used practises like burning brush land in order to make place for a vegetation in which more useful plants could grow, protecting trees bearing usefull fruits and enhancing their growth by selectively cutting down competiting trees, putting back into the earth the vegetative upper part of an excavated tuber so that a new tuber can grow at the same spot, etc.), so the author's assumption is anything but unlikely.
"Real" agriculture, when it did start from about 10.000 B.P. on, was thus less a "revolutionary invention" than an intensification and extension of already existing practices. The problem is, as the author himself aknowledges, that these "proto-agricultural" techniques almost never leave any traces that the archeologist of today could identify without ambiguity. His assertion is therefore of a rather speculative nature. Nevertheless, the book is an eye-opener. We should not exclude the possibility that our late paeolithic ancestors used more sophisticated food producing techniques than is usually thought, simply because these techniques did not leave any traces in the archeological record.

The booklet is well written and very short. You could read it in about two hours.

[www.amazon.com]
Subject Author Posted

A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Salsassin December 19, 2005 07:13PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Simon December 19, 2005 07:35PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Salsassin December 19, 2005 11:57PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Simon December 20, 2005 10:12AM

Actually...

Simon December 20, 2005 10:20AM

Re: Actually...

Salsassin December 20, 2005 04:51PM

Re: Actually...

Simon December 20, 2005 04:57PM

Re: Actually...

Salsassin December 20, 2005 11:15PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Davel temp December 19, 2005 07:42PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Salsassin December 19, 2005 11:58PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Inanna December 22, 2005 10:09AM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Salsassin December 22, 2005 04:48PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Marduk December 23, 2005 11:06PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Salsassin December 23, 2005 11:54PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Spidey December 19, 2005 09:10PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Pacal December 20, 2005 09:55PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Katherine Reece December 20, 2005 10:15PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Spidey December 21, 2005 12:51PM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Pete Clarke December 20, 2005 03:53AM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Hans December 20, 2005 08:12AM

Re: A Timeline on the earliest civilizations?

Peski December 20, 2005 01:08PM



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