Pre-Historic 'History'

Strictly speaking of course we know nothing about prehistoric man, for the simple reason that he was prehistoric. The history of prehistoric man is a very obvious contradiction in terms.1

These wise words from almost a century ago2 are brought to mind as I read that the progressive view of history3 is being challenged by increasing amounts of evidence that our shift from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural one was at best a mixed blessing.4 That statement is at best itself an over simplification; while the article refutes certain common ideas, it ignores others. I strongly suspect that the real picture is, naturally, very very complex.

The main factual evidence is based on archaeological reconstructions of health data. Things like the average height of people over time (based on skeletons), evidence of disease and malnutrition (also based on skeletons and teeth) are used to construct rough mortality tables. Based on this data, they estimate that the shift to farming for communities near the Spoon and Illinois rivers changed the average life expectancy at birth from twenty-six years to nineteen years.5 Similarly, they estimate that the average height in Turkey dropped from 5'9" for men and 5'5" for women to 5'3 for men and 5' for women, something the article claims that they have still not fully recovered from.6

The article also has some more speculative comparisons. It looks at the average diet of an African bushman to that of some of the surrounding agricultural communities, and notes that the bushman has a better diet, and more leisure time. It looks at instances of inequality between the sexes in farming communities like New Guinea, and references works of art by groups like the Eskimos as further proof that is false.

I do not really doubt most of its premises. Some of them are quite interesting. I do, as I said initially, think it is over simplifying and ignoring some things. While art may not have come from farming, the article makes no mention of things like currency, writing, mathematics, or philosophy. This is not to say that members of a hunter/gatherer tribe cannot be wise, but rather that without writing, their wisdom will be lost within a few generations. Sure, much can be passed on through oral histories and ballads, but not everything. Additionally, while the shift from a lifespan of twenty-six years to nineteen years is a drastic example of backsliding, you really cannot argue that twenty-six years is good for an average. The infant and child mortality to drive such a low number must have been heart crushing.

If it is not that agriculture is universally better, it may be, as the article suggests, that it enables more people.7 To make an analogy, it may be healthier to live on a farm than in a city, but the city holds more people, and at the end of the day, gets more done. Which is better? It depends on how you measure.