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>Charles sent:
>**The only reason people start agriculture is when  they are
>forced to. Humans by nature are nomadic, and prefer to roam far and
>wide.Hunting and gathering are much more enjoyable and stimulating than
>monoculture. It is only when their territory is restricted by other
>groups,or other reasons, that agriculture develops.**
>
>Ardeith writes:
>I have some problems with this.....

i have also
>
>**"The only reason people start agriculture is when  they are
>forced to."**
>
>Can we make a distinction between intensive agriculture
>and gardening?   People everywhere have "gardened",
>planting and encouraging favored plant foods...just as
>the Native tribes in the US did....planting maize, beans,
>squashes, groundnuts and lots of varieties of 'greens'...

or the gardenning of wild plants in the pacific north west like camas that
were privately owned and cared ( weeded)  for or berry patch that were
created by changing the landscape.
we have to understand of the diference in mentality when  humans were still
responsible for their food source  gathering is not in that context a mere
"shopping " it is carefull managing  and they had the responsibility of
perpetuating favorising their food sources

>Granted these were additions to their meaty diets,
>rather than the sole source of food....but our ancestors
>were too smart to pass up any food source......and
>there is no reason to think my European ancestors
>were less smart than the Native American tribes.....

that is even questionnable considering that anthropologists were mostly male
and more intersted by men activity than women activity diminishing the
importance of gathering as the "primary " food supply.
>
>**"Humans by nature are nomadic, and prefer to roam far and
>wide."**
>
>Many of them did....sure....particularly those who
>followed the herds on their migrations.....but many
>early humans spent their whole lives within a specific
>area...just moving around to take advantage of
>different resources at different seasons.....I imagine
>coastal peoples knew when the turtles came ashore
>to lay eggs, and made sure they were near the shore
>at that time to harvest eggs and turtles....later in the
>year they might have moved into an area where the
>berries were ripening....or other fruits that could be
>dried and taken on walk-about.....

yes may be only the native of the plains were purely nomad and this may be
more recently with the help of horses. There is many advantage of having a
base to work from
>
>**"Hunting and gathering are much more enjoyable and>**"It is only when
their territory is restricted by other
>groups,or other reasons, that agriculture develops."**
>s
>Monoculture/intensive agriculture is no doubt a fairly
>recent development.....perhaps 10-12 K years old...

and may be the result of careful management of wild plants then gardenning
by restricting access to the patches with intention of gaining power inside
the tribe  or over other tribes
If i refer to  the work of .Malinoski in the TRobriand islands and  REich
interpretation,i can see how the cultivation of one food crop ( yam) have
been a transformative tool to go from matriarcat to patriarcat , from
primitive communism economy to a capitalist economy , from  political
co-responsiblity to monarchism or other political form of distribution of
power, from free sexuality to organised mariages etc...
I can imagine the slow process of civilisation being rooted in the
exploitation of wheat as a a political manipulation to gain power inside the
tribe and between tribes .
There is a net advantage of getting a secure CONTROLABLE  stapple food to
win wars
between tribes ( more difficult to obtain with moving animals than with
plants)
Also , There is interest in protecting crops from predation of animals and
humans  and competition with other wild plants , rendering the old ways of
hunting and gathering  difficult further allienating peoples in a given
region and giving the irreversible quality to this process
It is the other way around domestication of plants lead to scarcity of wild
life
to see this process now just look at the way the last  hunter gatherers are
alleniated in amazonia or other still  wild regions of the world.
but domestication being a slow process it goes both way.
jean-claude