On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Robert McGlohon wrote:

> > I'm not aware of any evidence that agriculture was the result of
> > a shortage of other food.  And since there were plenty of plants
> > known to be edible, it would have made no sense at all to
> > cultivate inedible plants in response to a food shortage.
> > Todd Moody
> > [log in to unmask]
>
> Any ideas on where agriculture DID come from?
>
> It seems to me that grains must have been a small part of the H-G's diet (as
> a condiment, to borrow a phrase).  This I can understand (I think).  What
> puzzles me is the seemingly wholesale and relatively sudden switch to grain
> as a staple.

Exactly.  I have heard the argument that the initial switch was
to raise food for herd animals, not for humans, but this makes no
sense either.  Herd animals, as we know, do quite well on wild
grasses, and there would be no need to single out wheat and
barley, etc., for domestication and cultivation.  Any old grass
would do.

Likewise, I question the addiction theory.  Although
grain-derived opioids may play a causal role in some cases of
schizophrenia and autism, the vast majority of people are neither
schizophrenic or autistic, and it hasn't been shown that they
have high opioid levels.  In addition, if grains weren't being
eaten in any quantities by hunter-gatherers, I doubt that their
alleged addictive qualities would have been apparent.  If this is
what they were after, I think the Fertile Crescent would have
been devoted to cultivation of fields of opium poppies, not
wheat.  Finally, I've eaten raw wheat and didn't get high.

To state the paradox differently: The less grain paleolithic
hunter-gatherers ate, the more inexplicable is the rather abrupt
switch to grain domestication and cultivation; the more grain
paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate, the less reason there is to
insist that the paleolithic diet was grain-free.

Todd Moody
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