>My main point is, we did start cultivating grains even
>though game was readily available.  I like the storage
>scenario as an explanation, but who knows for sure.

First, we have to ask the question - *was* game always readily available?

The buffalo in North America is mentioned, but keep in mind at that time
the human population in the Old World was magnitudes greater than in the
Americas. So, using that as an example seems kinda silly to me. Would it
not be better to ask the question "was game easily/readily available at the
time that ice sheets covered most of Europe?" Or at least, around the time
that agriculture initially started (roughly 13,000 years ago)?

According to http://whyfiles.org/122ancient_ag/2.html, it was during the
Younger Dryas (a little ice age) that agriculture really "took root" (;)
because of an absence of easily taken game and plants. Soon.. perhaps
within a century or two... wild wheat became tame wheat, and the rest is
history. The storage theories, wealth theories, etc. are all good, but I
believe the underlying cause was a shortage of paleo foodstuffs. (I have a
hard time with the "drug-like" effects of wheat/carbs).