
Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought - xaedes
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/evidence-that-humans-had-farms-30000-years-earlier-than-previously-thought/
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zackabaker
> "Anthropologists are simply realizing that early cities took extremely
> diverse forms. "Clearly, urbanism is different in different parts of the
> world, and we need to be more flexible in how we define this," he explained.
> The tropics demonstrate that where we draw the lines of agriculture and
> urbanism can be very difficult to determine."

It seems that the more humans learn about any topic: our own agricultural
history, biology, psychology, mathematics, etc we begin to reach conclusions
similar to the above. Wow, this is much more complex than we thought it was. I
find this in my own life as I explore socio-political topics also - it seems
the deeper one dives into any topic the more difficult it is to, as the
article says, "draw the lines". Has anybody experienced an intellectual
exploration to the contrary?

~~~
xapata
Yes, in the sense that cross-discipline study sometimes reveals common themes.
One field having complex dynamics might make the world seem complicated. When
many fields have _the same_ complex dynamics, you start to wonder if there's
something simple you can tease out of it.

~~~
Retric
Are you sure your digging deep enough? I have seen plenty of cases where
different fields seemed to share a theme. But, the details always diverged on
closer inspection, limiting the value of the comparison.

To stretch an analogy stacking blocks seems like you can add the heights,
except the weight of the stack deforms them, so addition is misleading.

~~~
fsloth
Human themes (archaeology, art, architecture, urban development, etc) share
the commonality of the human. As we learn more about general themes driving
our psyche and human groups general themes start to emerge. Of course, the
emergent behavior of human societies is really complex. I like Noel Harari's
"Sapiens" as he really strives to find the high level themes in humanitys
development.

IMO, if a topic sounds overtly complex and focuses on a legion arbitrary
seeming minutiae and, most crucially, you can't find the _empiric or
mathematical root cause_ for this complexity it's likely the direction of
study is more or less bogus and based on academic eminence rather than
evidence.

~~~
Retric
Urban development really is it's own thing dominated by transportation
systems, wealth, waste management etc. The complex math is vital and
independent from other human constructs. Architecture was often influenced by
the tax code, climate, material property's etc so again the details really are
important and separate from everything else.

Now, sure the boundarys around a field gets fuzzy and sculpture and
architecture are both influenced by the human visual system so there is
overlap. But, that's not a shared theme that's D.C. and Baltimore being next
to each other and sharing a few suburbs at one end, but not all suburbs.

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adrianratnapala
Here's enough TLDR so that my comment makes sense: _In the tropics, the
distinction between agriculture and hunter-gathering less sharp than in
temperate climates. Thus early signs of tropical agriculture (from 20-30
kyears ago) pre-date the traditionally understood rise of agriculture about 9
kyears ago)._

This confirms my Sri Lankan bemusement at the term "temperate climate". The
tropics can be a PITA in many ways, but they have no shortage of biomass.
Subsistence gardens abound and are productive. Even more than in other
gardens, the issue is less to make things grow, but to stop the wrong things
from growing. It's hardly surprising if ancient jungle dwellers long ago to
tilted nature's bounty in their direction.

But I do take exception to the somewhat hippy-dippy claim that _... "colonial,
industrial societies" came from outside the tropics and tried "to practice
monoculture, pastoralism, and urbanism within them."_ Those "evils" took place
in the tropics for thousands of years before western colonialists turned up.

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firefoxd
When I was growing up, things seemed pretty much settled. We knew where the
first humans came from, we knew when and where agriculture started, we even
had 9 planets in our solar system.

This was the truths scientists had discovered and it was unquestionable. It
was printed in books to last forever.

But you grow up, and you realize that these things are malleable. It's more
like as of 1998, Lucy is the oldest human remains we discovered, using x
method.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, but I think we should leave a
little wiggle room in the way we make these statements from now on.

Though I haven't read a history or science book from a school curriculum in
years so I can't say if that's already what is being done.

~~~
photon-torpedo
Yeah, absolute statements like "the science is settled" are rather
unscientific. Good science must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and
leave the door open to being proven wrong.

~~~
Will_Parker
Every point of knowledge has a degree of certainty or uncertainty around it.
It certainly isn't a point that is taught well enough in education.

"The science is settled that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old" is
a perfectly fair statement, for instance.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Science never settles anything, it's why it's such a successful idea. "Current
evidence says the world is about 13.8 billion years old" is the way I would
word that. With your method, a later revision says science was wrong, when it
just didn't have enough evidence.

~~~
Will_Parker
It makes a difference whether you're speaking pragmatically or
philosophically. Since we live in a practical universe, there are facts of
science that are so well established that there is no reason to doubt them.
And many facts that aren't as well established.

~~~
meric
I know in this practical universe, Newton's laws of physics and Einstein's
views of quantum physics were both at one point "facts" but later shown to be
mere approximations and both of them worth being doubted. There's no point to
having science if all we are going to do is assume everything that comes out
of the process as the gospel.

~~~
burntsushi
> There's no point to having science if all we are going to do is assume
> everything that comes out of the process as the gospel.

As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread is even remotely suggesting that.

~~~
meric
If I didn't think the parent I was replying to was suggesting exactly that,
then I wouldn't have made the reply I did.

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Mikeb85
This isn't exactly news. Archaeologists have known this for awhile, though
it's maybe not part of popular thought. We have populations on earth that live
as Paleolithic peoples elsewhere once did, and they cultivate plants.

The importance of the Neolithic Revolution was the population explosion that
came with easily harvested grain in a hospitable environment and the resultant
freeing up of labour to create more complex societies and technologies.

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sohkamyung
The tropics being the tropics (lots of plant growth), it was probably
difficult to do such studies before the era of satellites and lidar that is
able to penetrate the forests and topsoil to reveal just what was hidden.

Going forward, we'll probably learn much more about the practice of ancient
agriculture and hunter-gathering societies in tropical regions.

BTW, Paleontology has a similar problem. Most fossils are found in deserts or
as part of construction work simply because they are easier to find in those
areas. There are probably as many fossils buried in tropical regions but the
difficulty of digging through the tropical forests to find them limits the
number of fossils found.

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zebraflask
Anthropologists have known this for at least 50 years.

Props for raising awareness of the field, though.

~~~
Ologn
Yes, some of the things mentioned as new ideas were discussed years ago. Like
the idea that some primitive form of plant domestication may have been
happening prior to the agricultural revolution of 9000-10000 years ago.

~~~
zebraflask
I hate to break your bubble, there, but the concept of an agricultural
revolution was also disproved quite a while ago.

~~~
frankter75
Gobekli tele is between 12000 - 9000 ac

~~~
zebraflask
That's fantastic for them, I guess. It doesn't mean it was unique. It might
just be me, but the idea that ancient peoples were so dumb that figuring out
how to grow some plants was a miraculous idea that only happened once in one
specific part of the world . . . come on. The ethnocentrism with that idea is
glaring.

~~~
Zardoz84
As far I know, the classic knowledge was that agriculture raised nearly at
same time from the fertile crescent & Egipt, China, Indus valley and central
America.

I read about Gobekli tepe. It's a interesting ruins, not only because are very
old. Also, shows a very advanced knowdlege about how sculpt stones. Take a
look to the animal scupts on the stones. They are very detailed. They look
really advanced for being too old.

Another interesting old ruins are :

\- Yonaguni Monument . The last time that this ruins was over the water was
9000 years ago!

\- Sumerged ruins of Gulf of Khambhat . Very old cities of Indus valley that
are from 7000-9000 years. And if I remember correctly there was a urbanized
zone big as new york itself!

\- Tiwanaku . Where we can found something like a mass produced stones with a
really awesome quality. Look like these pre-incan culture discovered Ford's
production chain and apply over standarized stones that can put like a gigant
lego, and not need any kind of cement to stay together!

The real truth is that we don't know very well these ancient eras. We assume
that our ancestors must be more stupid that ours. But this is false. They are
equal capable that any actual person. We only, don't know how they did it, or
when (exactly) they did something or how many times something was
rediscovered.

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forkLding
Note that the editor highlighted that this didn't mean that they had farms at
the time, the editor identifies this finding more as "proto-agriculture" or
before what could be considered farming.

Just to help those who might be confused

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kees99
Obligatory plug when discussing early/primitive human tech:

[https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/](https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/)

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mrb
For the actual research paper, look for
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.93](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.93)
into sci hub.

