Afaq Rouf – (22-11145)

SOC 223
Mam Julie Flowerday

Social Anthropology 223, Fall 2019

“The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond

1) What three major problems does Diamond identify in the transition from hunter-
gatherer to agricultural existence some 10,000 years ago? Support your answer
with an explanation of each problem.

Ans: As the hunter-gatherers took up the concept of farming due to the necessity,
rather than choice, because of the increase in the population. Farming could feed
more mouths than solely hunting and gathering. But, many archaeologists argue
that the human kind and that time traded “Quality for quantity”.

1- Hunter-gatherers enjoyed varied diet, while farmers obtained most of the food
from a very few starchy crops, the farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of
poor nutrition. Even today, bulk of the calories consumed by the human species is
provided by a very few crops, namely, wheat, corn and rice, which are the
carbohydrate plants
2- Due to the dependence on a very few number of crops, farmer had the risk of
starvation, if even the one crop failed. For example, the potato famine of the Irish
people.
3- Agriculture encouraged more people to clump together in crowded societies,
many of which societies, then carried out trade with the other societies, which led
to spread of parasites and infectious diseases. Epidemics could not take place
when populations were scattered into small bands and often shifted camp sites.

2) What is wrong with the popular belief that Hunters and Gatherers suffered
searching for roots and berries every day and struggled all the time for
sustenance? Give an example from Diamond.

Ans: The life of hunter-gatherers has been labelled by many philosophers as

short, brutish and nasty, since no food is grown and little is stored, and there is no
respite from the struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid
starvation according to them. The progressivist party is of the view that as
farming enabled us to store food, so the human kind had more leisure time that
resulted in flowering and growth of the art.

But, if the recitals of twentieth-century hunter-gatherers are taken into account,

Kalahari Bushmen and Hadza nomads of Tanzania to name a few, who still
support and sustain themselves because of hunting and gathering, it turns out
that these people have plenty of leisure time, and sleep a good deal and amazingly
work less hard than the modern day farmers. Kalahari Bushmen spend only 12-
19 hours per week, in search for the food, whereas the Hadza nomads of Tanzania
 only spend 14 hours or less.
The mixed and varied diet of the hunter-gatherers provide them with more
vitamins and better balance of other nutrients, while farmers only concentrate on
high carbohydrate crops like, rice, wheat and corn.
In one study it was found out that the average intake of calories of a hunter-
gatherer is 2140 and 93 grams of protein, which is considerably greater than the
recommended daily allowance for people of their size.
So, it can be deduced that the life of a hunter-gatherer is not as brutish and nasty.

3) Based on Diamond’s observations, what is the quality of life for a woman in an

agricultural society? How might this compare to women living in a hunter-
gatherer society?

Ans: Some may argue that the farming has encouraged inequality between the
sexes. Women in agricultural societies have sometimes been made beasts of
burden, also, as the farming women were under a considerable pressure to
produce more hands to till the fields, consequently the farming women tend to
have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts, which
causes drains in the health of farming women. As far as the case of farming
women being the beasts of burden is concerned, for instance, in New Guinea, the
author writes that he often sees women staggering under loads and piles of
weights, whereas, men walk empty handed. He gave an example; when he
wanted his goods transported from airstrip to mountain camp, he offered to pay
the villagers in order to supply his goods, the heaviest of his luggage was one
110 pound bag, which he suggested four men to transport, but as he caught up
with the villagers, one woman who weight was probably less than the bag, was
carrying that bag all alone.

4) What’s wrong with the argument that agriculture is a social advancement

because it supports larger populations? Use Diamond’s paleopathology data,
which includes age of death and evidence of disease from early agricultural
gravesites, and data from early hunter-gatherer gravesites to support your
response.

Ans: Some paleopathologists have learned from skeletons, regarding the changes
in heights. Skeletons from the Greece and Turkey show that the average height of
hunter-gatherers toward the end of ice ages was a generous 5’9 for men, 5’5 for
women. With the adoption of agriculture, the heights crashed, 5’3 for men and 5’0
for women, by 3000 B.C.
Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from
burial mounds in Illinois and Ohio river valleys. Archaeologists have excavated
some 800 skeletons that shed some light on health changes when hunter-
gatherers gave way to intensive maize farming around A.D. 1150. Studies by
Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these
early farmers paid a price for their new found livelihood. Compared to the
hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had nearly a 50 percent
 increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron
deficiency anemia, a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in
general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, due to hard
physical labour.
“Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was about twenty six
years, but in the post-agricultural community it reduced to 19 years, so these
episodes of nutritional stress and infectious diseases were seriously affecting
their ability to survive”, Says Armelagos.
Apart from malnutrition, starvation and epidemic diseases, farming also helped
bring in another curse upon humanity, deep class divisions, and inequality
between sexes. For instance, skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae 1500 B.C.
suggest that royals enjoyed a better diet than commoners, since the royal
skeletons were two or three inches taller and had better teeth.

5) In your opinion, roughly 10,000 years ago did all people adopt agriculture
because they knew it would lead to a better life?

Ans: Postulating from the careful observation and assessment of the mentioned
study, the life of a hunter-gatherer was not that short, nasty and brutish after all,
contrary to the common belief. The hunter-gatherer enjoyed varied and mixed
diet full of plenty of nutrients, unlike the farmers, who preferred quantity over
quality because the agricultural communities came into being in order to fulfill
the needs of the ever growing population of masses, they just have a few number
of crops that contain essential nutrients like carbohydrates. It can be postulated
that maybe not all of them wanted to adopt agriculture, as it was substantiated in
the study that hunter-gatherers had a relatively easier life, they had to work less
hard, they had less chances of falling prey to infectious diseases, they enjoyed
quality food enriched with healthy nutrients, also, they used to get ample free and
leisure time, even more than the farming counterparts, even some of the hunter-
gatherers groups living today, such as, Kalahari Bushmen, enjoy all of the afro-
mentioned luxuries so to speak, unlike most of their farming counterparts. But
hunter-gatherers back then were left less in numbers than their farming
counterparts, because they started to grow in numbers and had a significant
majority. If there was 1 hunter-gatherer per square mile, there were 100 farmers
per square mile, completely dominating. So, eventually, the hunter-gatherers,
who were already less in numbers, were mostly crushed and ran over by the
farmers.