Selective Breeding of Crops

[Issue313]

Its weird, we know virtually nothing at all about human life on this planet besides fossils from more than 30,000 years ago. I guess people didn't have decent grains, agriculture wasn't worth it, and maybe they lived as hunter-gatherers before that, but you'd wonder why there were no major civilisations like the "Ancient" Chinese or Romans that we can find evidence of from more than 30,000 years ago. Perhaps what changed people more than anything was the transition to farmers, and that took the invention of selective breeding. If you look around you'll see that the Mayans were making better maize, the Chinese presumably better rice, and Europeans probably oats or something, and all at the same time (within 1000 years or so). Clearly they communicated.

[mksnowboarder]

Originally Posted by Issue313

Its weird, we know virtually nothing at all about human life on this planet besides fossils from more than 30,000 years ago. I guess people didn't have decent grains, agriculture wasn't worth it, and maybe they lived as hunter-gatherers before that, but you'd wonder why there were no major civilisations like the "Ancient" Chinese or Romans that we can find evidence of from more than 30,000 years ago. Perhaps what changed people more than anything was the transition to farmers, and that took the invention of selective breeding. If you look around you'll see that the Mayans were making better maize, the Chinese presumably better rice, and Europeans probably oats or something, and all at the same time (within 1000 years or so). Clearly they communicated.

First of all, I'm not really sure what your question/topic of discussion is exactly. Why there weren't large societies before a certain period of time?

Well, I'm rusty on this, but I used to read about it a bit. Around the time of the neolithic revolution, the climate was changing. People disagree as to how. Some say the increase in climate stability was necessary before agrarian societies could begin. Another likely climate impetus could have been changes in weather that limited access to established plants/animals for hunter/gatherers. They could have been forced into oasis' of life with certain plants and animals.

Whatever allowed it to begin, it was certainly caused by population levels. Normally, animals increase in population along a bell curve, until reaching the apex, which is determined by the limiting factor for survival in the environment (in this case, food). Most organisms suffer an extinction at that point, but humans are particularly adaptable.

Somehow, early humans were forced into close contact with a few certain species of plants and animals by food availability or other environmental factors. It was probably simple observation, the likes of which we're denied these days.

"Oh, hey, these plants are good to eat, and I've noticed that when certain parts of the plant get back into the soil, more plants grow!

Not only that, but animals can become accustomed to close contact with us, so that we needn't travel to chase them. If we confine them, they reproduce"

This likely occurred simultaneously in several parts of the world, again, pointing to a primarily climate based explanation. Once humans adapted and were able to meet food needs for growing populations, it wasn't necessary for everyone to spend all their time hunting/gathering. This lead to specialization. People learned specific, diverse tasks to help their society. People were able to learn new skills, which in turn allowed us to defeat other factors limiting population (disease, clean water, security). This is what allowed civilizations like the one's you speak of to arise.

So, it's simple why these societies didn't pop up before a certain period of time: there was no impetus for evolution or adaptation to lead us to sedentary societies. The climate and population levels hadn't forced us to develop new ways to survive.

I might be rambling, but I haven't had a good history debate in awhile, I'mma go read up on the neolithic revolution and stop back.

Edit: Also, selective breeding of crops was the title of your thread, but didn't appear to be the main content of the post. I would say that selective breeding wouldn't be developed for awhile into the neolithic revolution. It's one thing to learn that you can grow things, it's another to figure out how to cross-breed intentionally or allow it to happen accidentally. I'll go see what I can find.

mike

[Issue313]

Modern humans have a natural ability to talk and cooperate, and there's no reason to suggest they didn't form complex spoken hunter-gatherer cultures. Is it possible that hunter-gatherers in one spot evolved a common understanding and language to conduct trade of some kind, and that they eventually created a static trading post? Perhaps they fished. Travellers brought together the know how and the skills to advance the town and eventually they began to grow food, and sort of expanded their little civilisation from there? It doesn't seem likely that a nomad would invent agriculture. It seems more likely to me that it was someone who was already settled down, or staying in one place for long periods of time, yet comfortable enough and safe enough from attack to be able to try experiments with different grains. Maybe they started off with fruit trees?

[mksnowboarder]

Originally Posted by Issue313

Modern humans have a natural ability to talk and cooperate, and there's no reason to suggest they didn't form complex spoken hunter-gatherer cultures. Is it possible that hunter-gatherers in one spot evolved a common understanding and language to conduct trade of some kind, and that they eventually created a static trading post? Perhaps they fished. Travellers brought together the know how and the skills to advance the town and eventually they began to grow food, and sort of expanded their little civilisation from there? It doesn't seem likely that a nomad would invent agriculture. It seems more likely to me that it was someone who was already settled down, or staying in one place for long periods of time, yet comfortable enough and safe enough from attack to be able to try experiments with different grains. Maybe they started off with fruit trees?

Sorry, that makes no sense at all. Hunter/gatherer's may have had language; I don't recall. However, them forming large cultures is nonsensical prior to the neolithic revolution. They would be competing for the same limited food supplies.

Neither evolution nor adaptation really work like that, either. We're all basically the same organism. Same DNA, same impulses. If we accept that world-wide climate change is a probable cause of the change, you have to accept that humans in similar situations in different parts of the world, are likely to adapt similarly, as a species (not necessarily as individuals).

Plus there's evidence that people started this behavior in several different locations around the same time, when their civilizations probably had little to no contact. I was gonna cite the wiki article, but it didn't have the specific facts I wanted. It's not long though, and it covers briefly the different regions.

I'm sure that some people did spread the knowledge of farming, but one isolated community beginning and then spreading agriculture isn't a very good explanation. It's more like lots of different people were forced to learn to farm around the same time because they faced the same conditions.

You may be confusing agricultural with the study of botany. Yes, it would probably be in an established population that there would be enough free time and specialization to take the basic idea of planting and harvesting and start cross-breeding plants for desireable traits. But it would be impossible for a city or town or anything like that to have formed prior to agriculture. Agriculture lead to civilization, not the other way round.

mike

[Issue313]

Is their any evidence for your climatic explanation? Also we'd have to believe that climate was changing so quickly that farming was impossible? Over the previous million years? Climate generally changes over hundreds of years, and the neolithic revolution, 11,000 years ago was actually right in the middle of the last great ice age IIRC. Its probable that the region of the Fertile Cresent, where archaeology indicates agriculture started was much wetter and more temperate back then, but I doubt similar conditions didn't exist in many other times and places.

People still live as nomads in many parts of the world, we need to look at their culture, and we find that, yeah, they talk, yeah they meet up and trade whatever they can, most importantly they trade offspring to each other so genetic diversity is maintained. Hunter-gatherers weren't loners.