Summary Of Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race By Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond makes a compelling case for why “the adoption of agriculture was in many ways a catastrophe” in his 1987 Discover Magazine article “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” however I am not convinced. An Agricultural Revolution is a “significant change in agriculture that occurs when there are discoveries, inventions, or new technologies that change production” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015) and the development of agriculture has been a fundamental part of the march of civilization. The Agricultural Revolution was not a catastrophe from which we have never recovered, it was the groundwork for the rise of civilization.
Cynthia Stokes Brown, author of Big History- From The Big Bang To The Present states
“Experts feel certain that hunter-gatherers were speaking with each other in some kind of language” (Brown, 2012). This development of language occurred due to the fact that the hunter-gatherers had to develop some sort of speech in order the effectively communicate. In these small sites which they lived, everyone had to do their fair share in order to accommodate the needs of their growing groups. This did not just mean in regards to the actual acts of hunting and gathering. This has to do with their lifestyle and all aspects of it. Women would ensure that they had children at least four years apart. This is because with this nomadic lifestyle, they did not have a place to call home. They were continuously on the move once their hunting and gathering became barren. Women could not care for several children while holding up their responsibilities for their group. Not only this, but schedules were not a thing that hunter-gatherers had to adhere to. They choose when and what time they were going to continue their duties. Sometimes, hunter’s would leave for weeks at a time. This meant when they finally came back to their current site they would stay for as long as they wanted until thy had to go back and hunt again. This type of lifestyle just would not be possible for our populations to continue to grow successfully as they do today. What do we have to thank for success of our society?