Altered Maps XII: Not to Scale

[madviking]

Not a single one of those other states is worth association.

Yea, but same with Virginia outside of Nova.

 

[Save_Ferris]

I assume Delaware is named after the river? Given that it only really has Philadelphia, it would be the equivalent of naming the United States Potomac, so a better name would be the Atlantic Confederacy or something.

 

[Mango Elephant]

Can a state be called a confederacy? I honestly don't know. But I named it Delaware because that was the prettiest name out of all the states that once existed there. Same with Georgia, Montana and Colorado.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Can a state be called a confederacy? I honestly don't know. But I named it Delaware because that was the prettiest name out of all the states that once existed there. Same with Georgia, Montana and Colorado.

It can be a confederacy if it's multiple states.

 

[Winner]

You realize Diamond is the guy who hates civilization itself, right?

No I don't, and I have read most of his books. Perhaps you should too before writing such nonsense

 

[Huayna Capac357]

No I don't, and I have read most of his books. Perhaps you should too before writing such nonsense

He wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was the worst event in the history of the world because it led to civilization which led to (etc. etc.) but it didn't seem like he was literally saying that civilization was evil.

http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I'm back with a map from when John McCain and Alan Keyes defeated Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000.

McCain/Keyes (R) 283 electoral votes, 51.5% of popular vote

Gore/Lieberman (D) 254 electoral votes, 47.3% of popular vote

 

[Save_Ferris]

He wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was the worst event in the history of the world because it led to civilization which led to (etc. etc.) but it didn't seem like he was literally saying that civilization was evil.

http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

He didn't say it was evil, he just said it was a bad choice. Ironically, agriculture led to civilization, which led to history

 

[Arakhor]

I'm back with a map from when John McCain and Alan Keyes defeated Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000.

Yes, it's an altered map, but what purpose does it serve?

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

Yes, it's an altered map, but what purpose does it serve?

I wish that a Republican other than George Bush was President from 2001 to 2009.

 

[Winner]

He wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was the worst event in the history of the world because it led to civilization which led to (etc. etc.) but it didn't seem like he was literally saying that civilization was evil.

http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

He didn't say it was evil, he just said it was a bad choice. Ironically, agriculture led to civilization, which led to history

A way to miss his point - he doesn't say our civilization is evil, he says that when agriculture was adopted, human life got a lot worse in most aspects of it. Basically the article is a bit tongue-in-cheek challenge to the view that agriculture > hunting-gathering, no exceptions allowed. And he is right about that.

Doesn't mean we want to return to hunting gathering, does it? We in the developed world have finally made our civilization work for the most of us, not just for narrow elites. We're healthier, happier and live longer than any society in the history of our planet, agricultural or not. Now it's just a matter of making sure our way of life is made compatible with the need to not totally screw what's left of the environment that sustains it.

Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed a crucial stage at which we made the worst mistake in human history. Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny

And the Third world is doing it again...

---

I wish that a Republican other than George Bush was President from 2001 to 2009.

Nice. What about the purpose?

 

[TheLastOne36]

He wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was the worst event in the history of the world because it led to civilization which led to (etc. etc.) but it didn't seem like he was literally saying that civilization was evil.

http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

I remember reading that paper before, nice to see and read it again after a few years.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, Diamond's work is always interesting.

But he doesn't explain really how or why agriculture arose. Just that people adopted it because of increasing population.

I have read, somewhere (and I really forget where), that agriculture was begun in the Fertile Crescent as a natural consequence of the gathering lifestyle. Where wild cereals were so abundant that simply gathering the grain and taking it back to a, more or less, permanent camp and accidentally dropping some meant that cultivated fields arose almost spontaneously. And spontaneous selective cultivation led to modern grain crops.

It seems very unlikely that, simply, with increasing population, some people sat down and pondered what to do and came up with the idea of agriculture.

 

[really]

Hurling final this afternoon - Galway against Kilkenny.
Nobody likes Kilkenny.

 

[Winner]

Yes, Diamond's work is always interesting.

But he doesn't explain really how or why agriculture arose. Just that people adopted it because of increasing population.

I have read, somewhere (and I really forget where), that agriculture was begun in the Fertile Crescent as a natural consequence of the gathering lifestyle. Where wild cereals were so abundant that simply gathering the grain and taking it back to a, more or less, permanent camp and accidentally dropping some meant that cultivated fields arose almost spontaneously. And spontaneous selective cultivation led to modern grain crops.

It seems very unlikely that, simply, with increasing population, some people sat down and pondered what to do and came up with the idea of agriculture.

I think it was more or less an "accident". By that I don't mean humans invented agriculture purely by accident and not by a long trial-and-error process. I mean that the dependency on agriculture was probably unintentional consequence of its invention.

I picture it like this (in veeery simple terms): people find out how to grow certain plants. It may be less pleasant than hunting and gathering, but it is a bit more convenient. They still do a lot of hunting and gathering anyway, and the few fields they till only supplement their diet. Over time, the relative weight of farmed food vis-a-vis gathered food increases due to the fact that farming is by default a more productive activity (more food from smaller land area), and perhaps also because it doesn't require so much skill. Any half-wit can do the menial tasks associated with farming; hunting on the other hand requires physical fitness, perseverance, patience, and great skill, and even then positive results are not assured (and there is a greater risk of getting injured or even killed, since the world is still full of predatory animals).

Therefore, little by little, what was originally a predominately hunter-gatherer community doing a little farming on the side becomes a predominantly farming society which supplements its diet with some hunting and gathering. Since farming produces more food and removes some of the pressures that force people to have fewer children, the population starts growing fast. Suddenly these people can't go back to pure hunter-gatherer lifestyle, because the surrounding lands can't support all of them. They could migrate (and I am sure that happened in thousands of separate cases) to find more land, attack other groups of people and drive them out of their hunting grounds, or intensify farming to make food for the increased number of people. This further reduces the viability of hunting-gathering in the area and its importance for the society's survival, so it declines both relatively and absolutely.

From there, the vicious circle continues to the modern era, where (some) people finally managed to stop themselves from popping out kids every year and a half since reaching sexual maturity.

 

[Borachio]

Çatalhöyük is an interesting site.
According to Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Realm of the Gods Lewis-Williams and Pearce, neolithic people started building houses because the area they lived in lacked caves where they could continue with their cosmological practices. So architecture was a side-effect of religion.

Likewise, they seem to have been intensely interested in bull culture. And a side-effect of this became cattle domestication.

 

[Winner]

Uh-oh, most stone age people did *not* live in caves. The whole "caveman" stereotype is very misleading and based largely on the fact that cave environment tends to preserve things much better than open surface areas. I'd say the reason they started building houses was, well, to protect themselves from the elements. Houses are thus a natural continuation of the shelters they used before, made possible by the fact farming societies were tied to one place and didn't have to move around so much. A sturdy permanent shelter, a house, thus became a worthy investment.

I haven't read the book, this is just my comment on your comment It's just that a red light starts blinking in my head whenever someone wants to claim that religion gave us this and that benefit (or perceived benefit) of civilization. We have had a similar discussion here before, something about how organized religion allegedly pre-dated permanent settlements and made them possible.

 

[Borachio]

You're dead right people didn't live in caves. Certainly not of the type used at Altamira and the like.

What the Catalhoyuk thesis maintains is that people used caves for religious purposes, as evidenced by cave art dating back 50,000 years.

The cosmology theory has it that people thought they were accessing the underworld and their ancestors.

Catalhoyuk was, they maintain, an attempt to reproduce this. Which is why access was through the roof, people were buried there and other features which I forget. So I really can't see how this construction would be the result of a progression from a primitive shelter.

Now, I quite agree that caution is called for. But it is a neat explanation, that architecture and domestication were side effects of other, let's call it religious, activity.

 

[Gigaz]

I think it was more or less an "accident". By that I don't mean humans invented agriculture purely by accident and not by a long trial-and-error process. I mean that the dependency on agriculture was probably unintentional consequence of its invention.

I picture it like this (in veeery simple terms): people find out how to grow certain plants. It may be less pleasant than hunting and gathering, but it is a bit more convenient. They still do a lot of hunting and gathering anyway, and the few fields they till only supplement their diet. Over time, the relative weight of farmed food vis-a-vis gathered food increases due to the fact that farming is by default a more productive activity (more food from smaller land area), and perhaps also because it doesn't require so much skill. Any half-wit can do the menial tasks associated with farming; hunting on the other hand requires physical fitness, perseverance, patience, and great skill, and even then positive results are not assured (and there is a greater risk of getting injured or even killed, since the world is still full of predatory animals).

Therefore, little by little, what was originally a predominately hunter-gatherer community doing a little farming on the side becomes a predominantly farming society which supplements its diet with some hunting and gathering. Since farming produces more food and removes some of the pressures that force people to have fewer children, the population starts growing fast. Suddenly these people can't go back to pure hunter-gatherer lifestyle, because the surrounding lands can't support all of them. They could migrate (and I am sure that happened in thousands of separate cases) to find more land, attack other groups of people and drive them out of their hunting grounds, or intensify farming to make food for the increased number of people. This further reduces the viability of hunting-gathering in the area and its importance for the society's survival, so it declines both relatively and absolutely.

From there, the vicious circle continues to the modern era, where (some) people finally managed to stop themselves from popping out kids every year and a half since reaching sexual maturity.

Hunting and gathering takes actually much less effort then agriculture.

It is often argued that agriculture gave humans more control over their food supply, but this has been disputed by the finding that nutritional standards of Neolithic populations were generally inferior to that of hunter gatherers, and life expectancy may in fact have been shorter, in part due to diseases. Average height, for example, went down from 5' 10" (178 cm) for men and 5' 6" (168 cm) for women to 5' 3" (165 cm) and 5' 1" (155 cm), respectively, and it took until the twentieth century for average human height to come back to the pre-Neolithic Revolution levels.

I think the dominant theory today is that people first settled down because they found a place that was so fertile that a nomadic lifestile was not necessary anymore. Later the environment changed because of pressure from hunting humans and climate change. The hunter/gatherers knew very well how plants and animals reproduce but they had long lost the knowledge they needed for a nomadic lifestyle. To avoid starvation, they had to domesticate animals and grow their own crops.

 

[Dachs]

I think the dominant theory today is that people first settled down because they found a place that was so fertile that a nomadic lifestile was not necessary anymore. Later the environment changed because of pressure from hunting humans and climate change. The hunter/gatherers knew very well how plants and animals reproduce but they had long lost the knowledge they needed for a nomadic lifestyle. To avoid starvation, they had to domesticate animals and grow their own crops.

That's a very nice explanation for one group. It doesn't explain the phenomenon of the adoption of agricultural practices in general.