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> My guess is agriculture is what selectively picked humans with long-term thinking (strategizing) and ultimately led to civilizations. (all civilizations start
by AlotOfReading 5y ago
> My guess is agriculture is what selectively picked humans with long-term thinking (strategizing) and ultimately led to civilizations. (all civilizations started with agriculture around a river)
Foragers are the vast majority of human history and they're just as capable of weighing long-term risks as you or I. It would also be incorrect to say that all agriculture originated around river valleys. Mexico and New Guinea are both counterexamples.
- csomar 5y agoNew Guinea is an island, definitively not a river but the sea is rich in resources; kinda of a different regime. For Mexico, I thought they had lots of water (assuming you mean Tenochtitlan). The city was literally floating in water.
- AlotOfReading 5y agoAll agriculture happens in places with water. That's sort of a necessary prerequisite. In Mexico we're really talking about Oaxaca and especially the highlands in early agriculture. In New Guinea, the whole island is a swampy tropical rainforest. Neither of these are compatible with the hydraulic hypothesis though.
- imbnwa 5y agoAlso Southern Florida's indigeneous people's aquaculture