> > [log in to unmask] wrote:
> > I believe most people made the conversion to the neolithic willingly.
> --Jim

I wrote:
 > Yes, I agree. By "those who refused" I meant a minority of the
> "barbarians," not a majority. 

In thinking about this further I realized I should have included a qualifier. While most HGs, pastoralists and horticulturalists may have chosen large-scale crop agriculture willingly (though Dadamo, a questionable source, argues otherwise at http://www.dadamo.com/wiki/wiki.pl/Neolithic), they probably did so because they saw no other option for survival, not because they preferred agriculture. 

Jared Diamond states in "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" (October 21st, 2007, http://www.awok.org/worst-mistake/) that "The evidence suggests that the Indians at Dickson Mounds, like many other primitive peoples, took up farming not by choice but from necessity in order to feed their constantly growing numbers." Paleopathologist Mark Cohen agrees with Diamond on this.

The Plains Indians demonstrated this by abandoning agriculture when Spanish horses became available. I also read somewhere that a hunter-gatherer or pastoral people of the Ukrainian steppe adopted agriculture but so hated it that they returned to their old way of life. Unfortunately, I can't find the reference. Does anyone else recall it?