3 ms·
> farming may have been independent of the crops used rather than being independently invented that many times. Could you please expand on that? I'm not sure
by EdwardDiego 4y ago
> farming may have been independent of the crops used rather than being independently invented that many times.
Could you please expand on that? I'm not sure I parsed it correctly - I read that as "people were already looking for useful plants they could encourage the growth of, rather than they discovered useful plants and decided to encourage their growth", but I'm not sure that's right.
- Retric 4y agoThere are several cultures that include some versions of tossing a portion of a meal away in thanks from tossing salt over your shoulder in luck to burning meat as a sacrifice to the gods. I could easily see such a tradition developing around foraged food independent of conscious knowledge that doing so directly causes them to grow. It might start as simply as never harvesting all of any one plant in an area. With more effective versions of the traditions eventually getting closer to farming as we would think of it.