The Transition to Domestication, Essay Example

For most of the time that human beings (homo sapiens) have existed, the hunter-gatherer model served as the primary means of survival. Also known by experts as foraging, human beings lived in nomadic groups for tens of thousands of years, moving from one area to another in search of food. Every aspect of life was centered on the need to find food, and the constant movement meant that human beings generally lived in natural shelters or in shelters that could be quickly built. As some human beings developed the capacity to domesticate plants and animals, the impact on the entire human species was enormous. Domestication arose only in some small areas among relatively small groups of people, and these people were able to dominate the human population, spreading their genes, and their cultures, across the globe. As one expert notes, “about 88% of all humans alive today speak some language belonging to one or another of a mere seven language families confined in the early Holocene to two small areas of Eurasia” (Diamond, 2002). The advent of domestication served as the basis for the development of modern technology and social structures, and gave human beings enormous benefits and also enormous challenges.

Beginning about 12000 years ago some human beings began to develop the capacity to domesticate plants and animals, a move which also made it possible to stay in the same places on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. In some parts of what is now China, for example, humans learned to domesticate grains like rice, which mean that they could have a steady supply of food (Wuketis and Antweiler, p144, 2004). As these humans transitioned from nomadic societies to sedentary societies, other cultural developments followed. Many aspects of culture, such as language and artistic expression, became more sophisticated. Technology used for making tools, building shelters, and making clothing all became more complex and advanced. The people who became accustomed to domestication were able to use their technology to spread into other regions and dominate or wipe out less advanced societies that were still foraging or had less advanced means of domestication.

In his essay “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Jared Diamond argues that this transition to domestication and agricultural societies was actually a bad thing for the human species and for the planet in general. Diamond begins by listing some of the scientific fields that have advanced our understanding of the world, such as astronomy, biology, and archaeology. It is specifically the field of archaeology that Jared says can prove how domestication was actually bad for the human species. Diamond goes so far as to say that domestication was a “catastrophe from which we have never recovered” (Diamond, 1999). Diamond recognizes that his views are in opposition to the general belief that contemporary human beings are better off than  people from earlier times in human history, because they have access to better technology, food supplies, medicine, and other benefits of modern life.

According to Diamond, however, the price that human beings have paid for these advances in technology and culture are too high. Diamond acknowledges that it is easy to understand why human beings adopted domestication: simply, it allowed more and better access to food supplies. But with the advantages of domestication we have also had to face “the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence” (Diamond, 1999). In order to support his argument, Diamond uses examples of some semi-nomadic foraging societies that have survived in some parts of the world. According to Diamond, the people in these societies have more leisure time, more time to sleep, and have steady supplies of food from nature that are unaffected by the famine that can affect agricultural societies. Diamond argues that domestication both allowed human societies to grow larger and also made in necessary for this growth to occur.

Diamond goes on to argue that “domestication was bad for health” (Diamond, 1999), and that the explosive growth of the size of human societies also brought new diseases, more sophisticated weapons, and new forms of conflict that did not exist in earlier times. Diamond also asserts that domestication and agriculture were the reason that class divisions and social strata began to form, and that many people have suffered lives of slavery and subjugation because of domestication and agriculture.

Even if Diamond is correct that foraging societies were better off in some ways than domesticated societies, his argument is not completely convincing. First of all, it is difficult to accept the idea that domestication was a “mistake,” as if early humans were making a choice between continuing to forage or growing food. He imperative to survive is biological, and is not something that people (or any other living things) decide to do. So domestication and agriculture was inevitably going to spread. And even if it did lead to many negative consequences, it also led to better lives for billions of people. It is not just the technological advances, or improvements to health care or food supplies that are some of the advantages of domestication and agriculture.  There are other things, such as artistic expression and intellectual achievement that would never have been possible in a foraging society. It may be difficult to quantify the value of these things, but they do add value to the experience of living. Diamond is correct that there are negative consequences associated with domestication, but there are at least as many positive consequences as well.

Works cited

Diamond, Jared. ‘Evolution, Consequences And Future Of Plant And Animal Domestication’. Nature418.6898 (2002): 700–707. Print.

Diamond, Jared. ‘The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race’. Discover 8.5 (1987): 64–66. Print.

Wuketits, Franz M, and Christoph Antweiler. Handbook Of Evolution. 1st ed. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2004. Print.