Earliest Ag?

A seminal event in the evolution of our species Homo sapiens occurred when we transitioned from a hunter-gatherer existence to a horticultural/agricultural way of life. For hundreds of thousands of years or longer we lived in small bands of a couple dozen or so closely-related people—surviving on what we could scavenge in the way of wild plants and animals. We were hunter-gatherers. When food became scarce in one location, we'd move on, seeking places that offered more sustenance. We were wanderers.

An enormous change in our lives happened when we discovered that we need not gather and eat only what Mother Nature provided freely, but that we could select for and encourage those plants that were tastiest and most nutritious. We transitioned from hunter-gatherers to cultivators. We also discovered that the meat we'd come to crave didn't always have to be hunted down in the wild, but that we could domesticate some of the more tame critters to supply our protein. Very slowly we transitioned from wanderers to settled people—living all year long in one location and building permanent dwellings.

One of the biggest changes that this development brought to Homo sapiens—and one we continue to struggle with—is that our communities grew larger. Whereas hunter-gatherer bands contained at most a few dozen people, we began forming villages of several hundred or more people. It made life a lot more challenging to find ways to allow humans to live together in crowded situations, without constantly getting in each others' faces. Violence and its associated moral dilemmas are problems that we have struggled with ever since. While we had hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of years to find out ways to get along as hunter-gatherers, we've had only several thousand years to figure out how to live in crowded conditions, without waging constant wars. We're still working on it.

How long ago did that transition to agriculture occur? When did we settle down and begin to create cities and nations? Until recently, the accepted date was about 12 thousand years ago. Archaeological evidence suggested that humans invented agriculture and domesticated animals in the Middle East about then. Of course, the transition took some time—it wasn't an “overnight sensation.”

A recent discovery in Israel, however, seems to push that date much further back—to about 23 thousand years ago. Ancient settlements along the Sea of Galilee from that time have been carefully examined. Researchers found permanent huts, hearths, stone tools, and animal and plant remains. Precursors to domestic plants were also discovered; such as wheat, barley, lentils, figs, grapes, etc.

What I find fascinating is that the clincher to the fact that these 23-thousand-year-old people were farming is that they fought weeds invading their food plantings. What kinds of weeds? The same two prolific varieties that pester farms in Israel today. It seems that after humans clear some land, cultivate the soil, maybe fertilize it a little, what comes next? Weeds. Mother Nature abhors a cleared piece of land, so she created weeds. Our deep ancestors cultivated some of the first crops that humans grew, and had to deal with the same weedy critters that we do today. Fascinating.

Does it matter that we've now discovered that Homo sapiens settled down much longer ago that we'd thought? Maybe not. Maybe it tells us that we've had nearly twice as long to accommodate to an urban lifestyle, and that we should be further along than we are. That could be fodder for evolutionary psychologists who try to understand why our minds work the way they do. Maybe it tells us that we shouldn't get too locked into one theory of how we evolved. Maybe it has deeper implications about human nature, that we have yet to figure out. Maybe it's just more evidence that weeds are here to stay in our human-horticultured world.