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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...
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This section contains 299 words (approx. 1 page at 400 words per page) |