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The common wisdom that I've heard was the opposite of that: hunter-gatherer societies had a wealth of free time. It's with agriculture, permanence, and the opti
by WaxProlix 8y ago
The common wisdom that I've heard was the opposite of that: hunter-gatherer societies had a wealth of free time. It's with agriculture, permanence, and the optimization that they allow that we start to lose it. Similarly though, no real citations here.
- btilly 8y agoIf you read Guns, Germs and Steel you will find the same information, with citations of anthropological research supporting it.
- fleitz 8y agoYeah, exactly. Lets get some horses ride around and kill shit, and then we'll setup camp near where we killed the shit, and have a BBQ sounds way more fun than farming. Building dumbass fences to keep the tasty animals out of your bitter lettuce that doesn't actually produce much at this point.
- RoboTeddy 8y agoThis is supported for example by Richard B Lee's work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Borshay_Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Borshay_Lee)
- CuriouslyC 8y agoThere's a hint of truth in there. Farming increased the productivity of the land such that it could support more people. Some of the new people supported by the land weren't working it, such as bureaucrats and nobles. I'm don't know if the total calories per man hour went up or down, but the distribution of those man hours definitely became less uniform. Some people worked less, while most people probably worked more.