http://www.sigervanbrabant.be/docs/Diamond.PDF
Interesting article from 1987 Discover magazine on what happened when humans invented agriculture.
According to the author, humans shrunk, lived less long showed increased incidence of malnutrition in tooth and bone structure, and started the population boom in order to have sufficient hands to till the earth.
I'm not advocating any conclusions from the article, as clearly there's no room for 7B people to be hunter gatherer's, but it raises the issue that without agriculture, and later, free calories from underground (oil) there wouldn't BE 7B mouths to feed.
Inferences on a non productive upper class system also that can only arise with storage of food...
As to that last point, I read an interesting definition of currency the other day as "the medium that your rulers accept for the payment of taxes/tithes"...was much more convenient than sheep and potatoes.
Interesting article from 1987 Discover magazine on what happened when humans invented agriculture.
According to the author, humans shrunk, lived less long showed increased incidence of malnutrition in tooth and bone structure, and started the population boom in order to have sufficient hands to till the earth.
I'm not advocating any conclusions from the article, as clearly there's no room for 7B people to be hunter gatherer's, but it raises the issue that without agriculture, and later, free calories from underground (oil) there wouldn't BE 7B mouths to feed.
Inferences on a non productive upper class system also that can only arise with storage of food...
As to that last point, I read an interesting definition of currency the other day as "the medium that your rulers accept for the payment of taxes/tithes"...was much more convenient than sheep and potatoes.