The Neolithic Revolution was the transition from hunting animals to farming. This alteration had many benefits and consequences according to The Worst Mistake in The History of the Human Race by Jared Diamond. One of these benefits were that, you would be able to make a lot of crops without having to do as much work, compared to a hunter gatherer who, would go to the wild to find their food. The consequences however, were the spread of diseases, poor health and sexual inequalities. While some would agree the Neolithic Revolution had many benefits, others disagree that the Neolithic Revolution had a plethora of negative effects on many and may be deemed as the worst mistake in the history of the human race. The Neolithic Revolution was considered …show more content…
This is interesting that the Paleolithic community had a longer life expectancy than Neolithic community, signaling that because of the diseases that aroused from farming, it can be concluded that farming had little nutritional value compared to the food that hunter-gatherers found. This is why the Neolithic Revolution was the worst mistake in history. Another reason why the Neolithic Revolution was the worst mistake in history is because of inequalities. It states, “farming women tended to have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts -- with consequent drains on their health. Among the Chilean mummies for example, more women than men had bone lesions from infectious disease.” Women in the Neolithic Revolution had more pregnancies than women in the Paleolithic Revolution, which was detrimental to farmers because they would have more mouths to feed and have to do more work to support their family, causing them to be tired. Plus, the population size has increased to the point where there isn’t much space for farmers to live. Women also, had more bone …show more content…
Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to. While post-agricultural technological advances did make new art forms possible and preservation of art easier, great paintings and sculptures were already being produced by hunter-gatherers 15,000 years ago, and were still being produced as recently as the last century by such hunter-gatherers as some Eskimos and the Indians of the Pacific Northwest.” This shows that hunter-gatherers had just as much free time as farmers and were making art plus, sculptures just before the farmers, and paintings and sculptures are still being produced by hunter-gatherers. It also states, “The evidence suggests that the Indians at Dickson Mounds, like many other primitive peoples, took up farming not by choice but from necessity in order to feed their constantly growing numbers. “I don 't think most hunter-gatherers farmed until they had to, and when they switched to farming they traded quality for quantity," says Mark Cohen.” This explains that hunter-gatherers had to pick up farming because of the population growth. They had to pick up farming in order to feed more mouths, and have more food to supply for their families, which resulted in the nutritional value of the crops to go down. Because of the population growth, hunter-gatherers had to pick up agriculture which resulted in a plethora of tragedies such as spread of diseases the many injuries the farmers
The industrial revolution had mainly negative effects. The industrial revolution was a time in world history that has technically never ended. It is the time when society started to mass produce goods in order to provide enough goods for the booming population. People started to move from villages to cities where factories were looking for workers. New medical advances were made and people began to live longer. While some might argue that industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of the increased amount of new and cheaper products, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s negative effects were the dangerous and sometimes lethal work areas, poor living conditions and cramped housing,
McNeill stated: “Perhaps Diamond makes too much of Eurasia 's east-west axis. After all, India and Southeast Asia occupy different latitudes from Europe, the Middle East and north China: and the deserts and highlands of central Asia pose obstacles to diffusions of crops comparable to any in Africa or America” (McNeill 3). But the spread of crops and grow local availability food on their own farm are usually a common act. Like seeds blown by the wind or spread through water canals to other areas, and animals who carries the fertilizers can easily bring the crop and growth of the crop to nearby areas. Along the East-West, the axis of Eurasia, cattle were such an important domestication in Europe, yet it wasn’t so important in China. This is because of the environment and the state of the weather was not suitable for raising the cattle. And because of cattle naturally can cope with the hot and cold weather they are more suitable to be raised in some area better than others, regardless of geography. Because of these reasons, I concluded that Diamond argues too much on the geography side of the history, rather than the actual history of the Neolithic
12,000 years ago, the discovery of agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that we now call this important era in time the “Neolithic Revolution.” Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles were cast away in favor of more permanent settlements and a reliable food supply. Agriculture helped form cities and civilizations, and because crops and animals could now be farmed to meet growing demand, populations skyrocketed from around five million people 10,000 years ago, to more the more than seven billion people that walk this earth today.1
Agriculture is the practice of farming and it has widely affected the world today. There are some believers that it has ruined human race because of how it revolutionized the hunter- gatherer’s society. Jared Diamond, an author, wrote “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” which he explains how he believes that agriculture has ruined us today. He states many facts about the conversion of being a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society ruined the world. The transition had a negative effect on the human race, but the positivity that came out of it outweighed the bad and it has allowed the world to progress and advance every day.
c. 8000 B.C.E. was the beginnings of agriculture also known as the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution. Agricultural Revolution transformed human life across the planet. This event demonstrates KC 1.2: I.A because this led to cultivation of plants and domestication of animals that caused creating abundant amount of food supplies. It illustrates the interaction between human and environment, development of technology, settling patterns, and how natural resources gave some lands advantages over others. Agriculture developed independently at different times in different regions. Historians believe that the Agricultural Revolution might have originated from Middle East (ME), although they are not fully sure.
Firstly, the Neolithic Revolution is a great place to start in History because that is when the first major shift of among people’s way of life throughout the whole world occurs. It occurred approximately 10,000 years ago. Many hunter-gatherers turned into farmers because they saw it was a good opportunity to have a larger quantity of food readily available. This change in living caused a massive landslide of other changes to occur with it, such as growth in populations, cities were built and a rise of cities occurred, quantity of food over quality of food, sometimes crops were destroyed by nature, and disease spread because of larger populations living together. Although some negative effects from early farming occurred, the good effects eventually got better and overshadowed the negative. The main advantage to this change, is that people learned and continue to learn how to better develop farming, city building, and health techniques over time, even to this day in the year 2014!
64-66), author Jared Diamond claims that agriculture as opposed to popular belief, didn’t help civilization bloom, but instead proved detrimental to human lives ever since its introduction. He states that the progressives believe agriculture was adopted due to its efficiency and how it complimented our race. He contradicts this view with multiple studies and expert sources. According to his research, modern day humans are much worse off than their hunter gatherer counterparts due to a variety of lifestyle changes ranging from greatly deteriorated nutritional quality to increased sexual discrimination. He gathers the support from various archaeological research conducted on various remains found in Chile, Greece, Turkey, etc. Archaeologists can further point out the date at which this switch (from Gathering to agriculture) took place. He further establishes that Hunter gatherers may have chosen to change ways with the preconceived idea that the capability to feed more people and reducing the burden on mothers (hence allowing them to bear a child every 2 years instead of 4) would in turn drastically improve quality of life. He concludes the article by emphasizing on how it created disparities between the elite and the commoners and by defending his own kind for having discovered mankind’s biggest mistake and the motive behind
Civilization is not beneficial to humanity because the political leaders could abuse the general public, social barriers developed, and there were problems with agriculture.
Life before the agricultural revolution was made out to be awful. It was a huge advancement that let us keep up with our population increase. What I did not think about is what agriculture is doing to other species. Agriculture is not our downfall; the extent to which man takes it is our downfall. It is stated that agriculture supports population growth, and that can damage diversity. The more our species expands, the more of a threat it poses to other species. Ishmael states that Takers and Leavers pass down different types of knowledge from generation to generation. Takers pass down knowledge of knowledge and how to grow crops where as the Leavers pass down ways to live a better life. In Takers culture we want to keep advancing so we discard old ideas and keep creating new ones to replace the old ones. In Leavers culture, each generation learns ways to live from the previous and so on. We are taught to believe that technology advancements are great successes and that before it life was not as great, when in fact they could be our downfall. I had a Pre-calculus teacher in high school that believes this as well, he believes technology is our greatest downfall and claims it is dumbing us down. He would always yell at our class and say that back in the day they did not have calculators and everyone was smarter back then because they all had to think for themselves.
These great changes were the start of agriculture and the start of animal domestication. The start of agriculture was a major factor in the improvement of civilization. Due to agriculture, women didn’t have to keep searching for fruits, berries, roots, and grasses, like they usually did. Scientists don’t really know how and why agriculture came to be in this time period, but believe it had to do with the change in climate. Due to the start of agriculture, women just had to plant their fruits and berries instead of going out of their way to try to find their resources. In addition, due to agriculture, resources wouldn’t run out and it also led to a settled way of life. Another great change that came in the Neolithic period was animal domestication. The expert knowledge of hunters on wild animals played a key role in animal domestication. Due to animal domestication, hunters didn’t have to keep hunting and wasting their resources, all they had to do was to get one male and one female animal together in a barn, and more food would be produced. Agriculture and animal domestication were the two great changes that came in the Neolithic period, and both led to a settled way of
Jared Diamond Argues that the worst mistake in Human History is the invention and widespread introduction of agriculture, because it has created a plethora of social, economic, and health problems for the word. One example of this is when the article states, “Hunter-Gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition.” This illustrates that the author's main argument is that agriculture was the worst mistake in human history because it shows how agriculture has negatively impacted health of both early farmers and people today by creating mass produced bulk crops that are low in nutrition. Furthermore, another example
Jared Diamond makes the argument that when humans decided 10,000 years ago to no longer be hunter-gatherers and made the decision to become sedentary and start domesticating their animals and crops, the result is that the human race has experienced a steady downfall. Diamond makes the point that “with agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence,” (Diamond). While the present system certainly is far from being perfected, Diamond’s various complaints and solutions certainly would not be of much use in the present time either.
Watkins, Jeffery. Regents Prep: Global History: Change & Turning Points:, "Neolithic Revolution." Last modified 2003. Accessed March 23, 2012. http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/change/neo.cfm
The blessing and curse of the Agricultural Revolution is advocated with its augmentation and dissemination. Taking the stipulative definition of “blessing” and “curse” from the original premise, one can only superimpose the layman’s terms of “negative” and “positive”. Upon examination of the two classifications within the Neolithic Period and ancient Mesopotamian civilization one can confirm the premise. Therefore, the agriculture revolution was a blessing and a curse for humanity. Human society began to emerge in the Neolithic Period or the New Stone Age. This new age began around 9,000 B.C.E. by the development of agriculture in the region surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is commonly referred to as “The Fertile Crescent” located in West Asia.1 The very development of agriculture had benefited humans by no longer having to move about in search of wild game and plants. Unencumbered by nomadic life humans found little need to limit family size and possessions and settled in a single location for many years. One negative aspect of this settling is that the population increased so much so that wild food sources were no longer sufficient to support large groups. Forced to survive by any means necessary they discovered using seeds of the most productive plants and clearing weeds enhanced their yield.2 This also lead humans to develop a wider array of tools far superior to the tools previously used in the Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age. The spread of the Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Period also cultivated positive aspects by creating connections with other cultures and societies. Through these connections they exchanged knowledge, goods, and ideas on herding and farming.3 Another major positive aspec...
One of the most significant inventions was introduced during the Neolithic period. It was the shift from hunting animals and gathering plants to the production of food. People no longer had to travel long distances to search for water and food because they learned how to grow