![[The_Hadzabe_house.jpg]] *[Hazda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people) hunter-gatherers in Tanzania in 2023.* But we should also question our assumptions about the lifestyles of these hunters and gatherers. As I mentioned previously, the fact that people living this lifestyle _today_ tend to be confined to some of the most marginal land (land that nobody with more power wants), _does not_ mean that ancient people found themselves in the same circumstances -- at least, at first. In fact, it's likely that people who lived by gathering and hunting probably first occupied places where resources were most abundant. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some of the people living in a "land of milk and honey" would prefer to stay put, and that their population would grow. Although they might still organize their societies around small bands, these bands would not be separated by great distances as they would be where resources were scarce. We have no idea what these cultures might have looked like; although like anthropologists, we might be able to make some guesses based on the ways historical populations like Native Americans organized themselves. But it becomes more plausible to imagine a population of pre-agricultural people building large monuments like the ones mentioned, if they aren't worrying about where their next meal is coming from. But again, this begs the question, _why_ shift to agriculture? This, along with the curious simultaneity of agricultural developments worldwide, suggests a possible answer. As you'll recall, the five staple crops we still depend on to feed the world were all developed by different ancient cultures, beginning about ten thousand years ago. Although we can't rule it out, we don't have evidence that cultures like the ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Chinese were in contact with each other, sharing ideas about cultivation and plant propagation. And it's extremely unlikely that the ancient Native Americans in what's now Mexico, Peru, and the Amazon knew about agricultural developments in Eurasia -- even if they might have been talking to each other. In the past, historians have sometimes resorted to the supernatural to explain how these diverse and isolated cultures all managed to have the same revolutionary idea at about the same time. While some have just chalked it up to coincidence, others have suggested some type of collective unconscious to explain these parallel developments. Others on the fringes of magical thinking have even imagined aliens or Atlanteans or some other long-forgotten advanced civilization, spreading this knowledge to people throughout the world. Personally, I think this type of explanation, like many religious beliefs, just pushes the question back to another level; failing to explain how _those_ advanced people discovered these techniques. A more plausible answer might be that techniques that led to the beginning of farming may have been extremely ancient; possibly even developed before the ancestors of these diverse cultures went their separate ways. What if people who gathered plant foods noticed that seeds they dropped in camp grew into the very plants they had found and brought back home with them? Certainly people whose lives depended on the foods they gathered, would be likely to notice this type of thing and take advantage of it. ----- Next: [[2.3 - Native Americans an Analogy?]] Back: [[2.1 - River Valleys and Cultural Change]]