<HTML>I have just purchased and am now reading Egypt Before the Pharaohs by Michael A. Hoffman (Knopf, 1979) in which the subject of agricultural development is discussed. Hoffman says that Professor Wendorf believed that late Pleistocene peoples were experimenting with plant domisticates by 12,000 B.C. and that these experiments eventually faltered due to climactic changes (p.87). He acknowledges the radical nature of Wendorf's conjecture in pushing back the boundaries of time with respect to agriculture but said that to him it made sense in the context of continuous technological progress. He says that the implements of hunting and gathering technology, being of stone, preserve better than woven baskets and nets and so bias the historical record.
My point is that at best there were selective nut and berry pickers dodging stone pointed spears and arrows, hardly the stuff of advanced civilizations.</HTML>
