Civilization Vs Hunter Gathers

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

The start of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution led directly to the beginning of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution, which happened 10,000 years ago, was the shift from hunter-gathers to a food-producing culture meaning humans started to farm and domesticate animals. This was the catalyst to help create civilizations. We know now how to distinguish groups of humans from actual civilization if those groups have certain characteristics. Those characteristics are complex institutions, record keeping, advanced cities, specialized workers, and advanced technology. A result of the Neolithic Revolution is that more people were able to thrive since there was a surplus of food. These early civilizations were able to take advantage of the rivers and create irrigation systems to water their crops.

Approximately 2.5 million years ago humans lived as hunter-gatherers that would move in bands, later on, they would turn into the great civilization of the ancient world due to better technique and a more organized society. Starting from the neolithic age which consists of hunter-gatherers. There were basically early modern humans. Hunter-gatherers had populated a lot of the earth by 30,000 years ago, continued the hunter and gathering way of life. They would feed off of wild plants and animals and move from one location to another. They would also use the fur of their killings as clothes. In a hunting and gatherings economy, they would move from one location to another to secure their food supply. Hunter-gatherers were very self-sufficient.

Agriculture is the main reason we have civilization today, for without food surplus people would spend their days finding food and water constantly. Native Americans started like all other people in the world, doing just that, until over time they turned food production into an art. Without the elaborate specialization of crops over time, people would not have reached the point that they had before the Europeans had arrived. The allowance of food surplus led to the ability to advance culturally, scientifically, and economically.

Whether mistakes are minor and forgotten within a day or so drastic they are remembered for years’ mistakes are one thing members of society all have in common. Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography and Physiology at the University of California, mentions an important mistake in his essay, The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. Diamond discusses agriculture versus the hunter-gatherer method of acquiring food. He exclaims that agriculture is the worst mistake human race has made. Additionally, Diamond introduces two perspectives towards agriculture. A person may take a revisionist standpoint and “advocate revision of a system, theory, etc” (OED). Oppositely, a person may take a progressivist standpoint and become involved in

Agricultural societies allow for a greater population density, than hunter-gatherer societies. With a greater population of people, not everyone has to farm; therefore people can ‘specialize’ in other areas such as political organization. Also, people can focus on gun, steels, and ships other than just

Overall, the benefits of living in a civilization outweigh the cons. Although life was best suited for men of high status in civilizations compared to the egalitarian life in hunter-gatherer societies, it was an easier lifestyle. A well-controlled government with extra safety precautions led people to have safer lives. Also food was copious in amounts and allowed the population to grow, and for people’s life spans to increase. Without civilizations, technology, politics, economy, and social structures would be able to advance in the

Early agricultural societies differed from those of the Paleolithic era in many different ways. They were two similar and different things. The Paleolithic era was more towards not staying in one specific area. They wanted to follow where their food went. In the agricultural societies, many people leaned towards being a lot less nomadic. They stayed in one spot and decided to farm for food.

Modern day wouldn’t be what it was if early civilizations didn’t rise from nomadic life. Over periods of time, civilizations had evolved into what we know as modern day civilizations, but it couldn’t be possible without these two early civilizations. Between the years 3200-500 B.C two regions Middle East and Egypt had thriving societies. Ancient Middle East consisted of the civilizations of Sumer and Mesopotamia while Ancient Egypt consisted of the civilization of Egypt.Regions like these had developed the technology that has evolved into what people use in modern day. These regions relied on multiple items that allowed it to inhabit civilizations for so long. These two areas were different from one another, but they had many similarities. For example, even though Ancient Middle East and Ancient Egypt share their reliability on rivers and social structure, they differ because of their cultural arts and their views on the afterlife.

The two books " A History of the World I Six Glasses," by Tom Standage and " A People's History of the World," by Chris Harman both talked about ancient world history. Agriculture was a big party in ancient civilization. Before agriculture civilization started with hunters and gatherers. But, after the domestication of plants and animals it helped with the economy. This period was called the Neolithic Era. After that human society began to evolve, creating an easier life style.

A Civilization improves people’s lives in comparison to the Neolithic Society as it shows an advanced step into a social development and human society. The Neolithic Age which began around 8,000 B.C.E could be possibly describe as the greatest single change in human history, this is probably because everything really revolves around it in our society now. As said by William Howells, Back of History, Doubleay Co. “It was dramatic, but long after, in its consequences, because everything else we have achieved flowed out of this as a beginning…” During the time of the Neolithic Revolution, people had to set up temporary camps to live there for a while until the food begin to dwindle as starvation was one step away with the weather changes and the animal migration! With the time passing by, they were able to develop agriculture and with that people were able to farm instead of hunting and gathering which lead to population expansion thus this is when a Civilization begin. With a Civilization, the people within the society sets forth a form of government standard and a writing language.

Early civilization shared similar common features, because all of these societies were under the same pressures. Their whole purpose was survival as it is to this day. Each societies main focus was to become established, stay in one place provide food, shelter and protection for their families. Early civilizations materialize along rivers, because rivers supplied a continuous and dependable supply of water for farming and human consumption. Agriculture today has had an enormous benefit on today’s society, there are now more farmers growing organic fruits and vegetables because the realize the great health benefits organic foods have on human consumption, providing less risk of pesticides and or chemicals on their food.

In the first civilization, both Mesopotamia and Egypt relied on a hunter-gatherer economic system, during that time, every country in the world strived on it. Mesopotamia had rich soil for agriculture, but experiences floods. For the Mesopotamians, these floods would destroy major cities, but for the Egyptians it would keep the soil rich all year long without the damage that the Mesopotamians had experienced.

How did early civilizations effectively develop and utilize early plants and vegetables to move from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists, and what were the impacts socially, politically, and technically? “Agriculture did not emerge from an untapped resource base or randomly distributed family or tribal units of Homo sapiens sapiens. It emerged as the result of efforts by highly organized ecologically canny communities composed of skilled hunter-gatherers.” In the beginning of what is considered burgeoning civilization, humanities ancestors were what were called hunter-gatherers. They moved from place to place, following the source of their food in order to survive the brutal aspects of early life. If they could not find food, or not find it in sufficient amount, they would starve and eventually die off. Thus, the only decision facing them was to relocate their tribes in order to better take advantage of the available game. As the second portion of their name implied, they were also considered gatherers, in which they subsisted on whatever grains and green vegetables or fruits they could find to eat. It was this kind of lifestyle which led to a smaller, tribal mindset in which you ate what you could, when you could. Over time this began to change, with the establishment of agricultural practices which allowed for availability of much needed crops and the decision of tribes to establish permanent communities, as well as the increase in both number of members and life terms.

William Golding was born in 1911 in Cornwall, England. In 1930 Golding attended Brasenose College to achieve a degree in science. After years of studying science William Golding decided to switch majors and study English Literature. At the beginning of World War II, Golding joined the Royal Navy, during his time in the Navy he saw the destruction humans can convey and how a normal person can go from a civilized human being to a savage. After the war, he went back to teaching and started writing his books again. His most famous novel Lord of the Flies was published in 1954. The events he saw at war made his associate the war with evil, which he put into Lord of the Flies (Golding.)