Are there any good reads on why changes in food production were so hard to shift? Don’t understand how hunter-gatherers couldn’t just learn to farm, or why Arctic tribes couldn’t adopt each other’s toolkits.
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Agree. Eg. Native American hunter-gatherers in the midwest repeatedly rejected becoming yeoman farmers even when the US govt gave them resources. It would entirely upend their cultural identity, norms, sense of freedom & appropriate relationship to land. Plus, it was drudgery.
the garden of eden is just an idealised hunter-gatherer state; in retrospect agriculture might be viewed as an unfortunate development. of course with specialisation & population increase it was also irreversible. the cherubim with swords of flame
