Chapter 10, Agriculture's Mixed Blessings Summary and Analysis

Agriculture is nearly unique human but is a very recent innovation, being practiced first only 10,000 years ago. Several dozens of species of ants also practice agriculture by growing fungus gardens or herding aphids; the behavior of these ant species is incredible but does not approach human agriculture in diversity. No non-human primates demonstrate any predilection to agricultural practices.

The conventional wisdom suggests that pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were crude organizations where individuals lived short, brutish, and violent lives. An analysis of today's few remaining hunter-gatherer societies does not suggest that the conventional wisdom is correct. Indeed, paleopathology investigations demonstrate conclusively that the health of the average pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer human was superior in nearly all respects to the health of an average early agricultural human. Various physical illnesses and social disease arise only with the advent of...