And similarly the idea that native Americans left the land pristine and were therefore a symbol for environmentalism
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I have (at least) two beliefs roughly of this form- that a shift from meat-based to grain-based diets caused pervasive nutrient deficiency, and that massive deworming initiatives caused autoimmune disorders and allergies
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There’s also ‘hunter gatherers were egalitarian because they had no way to store their surplus, storing grains led to patriarchy’
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I like to frame this one as “malnourished soldiers pwn well-fed generalists”
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Grain heavy diet wasn't very good for these folks, now starved of vitamins, iron, protein. Avg height dropped 6 inches. And yet, the (unnutritious) food surplus allowed specialization. Specialized, malnutritioned soldiers were still able to drive remaining hunter-gatherers away
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I think so... Imo you don’t even need to add “more kids” into the equation to make sense of it - it could be “not everybody has to go hunting/gathering -> some of us get good at other things instead”
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IIRC farming is actually less efficient in terms of labour per person though - farmers working more hours per week than equivalent hunter gatherers.
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have to be careful to disambiguate
1. farmers work more hours per week than hunter-gatherers, because farming itself is labor-intensive (long process)
2. farmers produce *much* more calories in sum than hunter gatherers, enough to feed others on top of themselves
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it's certainly more efficient for an individual to hunt and/or gather to feed themselves than to farm, but a farmer can feed an army that then enslaves the hunter-gatherers
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as recently as the 60s, !Kung bushmen were working 25% of the hours that people in modern cities were
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Study in 1960s found that !Kung bushmen worked as little as 12 hours a week, 25% of urban executives then. They hunt and gather in the day, pool their food in the evening - strong emphasis on sharing + high frequency of movement = minimal surplus accumulation, low inequality
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I like to call this one 'Marx was actually correct' (about surplus value).
Cool discussion, btw.