Sapiens had been shaped under the solid and merciless rules of evolution. Scholars believed that Sapiens reached their final (current) body and psyche 70.000 years ago. This means our body and psyche had been shaped before 70.000 BC while hunting and gathering.
So, today, most of our biological behaviours are products of that evolution occurred in hunting and gathering lifestyle. For example colours which were important in our ancestors' life are still important in our life. Almost everybody's reactions to same colours are same; whereas red colour triggers hunger; blue makes us feel secure and trust. Though different languages had been evolved through centuries because of geographical isolations; body language is almost same at all over the world. If I want to threaten you, I would trespass on to your secure area as many animals do.
So evolutionary scholars estimate behaviours as if they have been done in hunter and gatherer society in order to find reasons lay behind our biological behaviours. For example, it is paradoxical situation to be such fearful specie while there are lots of extinctions records lay on our own past. Or it is meaningless to feel fresh when sitting in front of beautiful seascape, feel comfortable and secure while assemble around the fire, feel secure when put your back to the wall etc. All of these behaviours seem meaningless for us today, since often our cultural behaviours are not harmonious with our biological behaviours.
First break between cultural and biological behaviours and senses occurred 10000 years ago. Our ancestors changed their lifestyle from hunter gatherer to agricultural. Sapiens who could only find temporary settlements before this revolution began to build permanent settlements which would be turn into villages, towns, cities, kingdoms and empires. Many of our current cultural behaviours, senses and ideas were shaped as a result of this revolution.
What happened 10000 years ago? Why Sapiens preferred to seed instead of hunt and gather though these are effortless in compare to seeding?
The main reason was the change on climate. The temperature began to decrease 20.000 years ago, great ice-fields began to melt, Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Northern Sea were formed, and at Northern part of the world great forests spread, %75 amount of animals that had been hunted by sapiens decreased. Western and Middle Asia were far worse than Northern part of the world, wide lands turned into deserts and origin of life was stuck next to rivers, high lands and oasis. So Sapiens who are more and more able to adapt nature than their cousins, prefer to seed and control their food. It was far harder than hunting and gathering to wake up every morning, go to land and work all of the day, wait sun and hope sunny or rainy days, take risk to lose all of your food and effort by single heavy rain or something else.
However they succeeded. They devote almost all their time and effort to manipulating the lives of a few animal and plant species. By the first AD almost all of the sapiens were agriculturists.
First wheat and goat were domesticated. (9000 BC). Then peas and lentils (8000 BC). Olive trees followed them by 5000 BC and horses by 4000 BC. Today an ordinary man takes %90 of his energy from that plants and animals which were domesticated between 9000 BC and 3500 BC.
Future was never been as important as it has been during agricultural revolution. Humans worked to gather more food, they worried from their tomorrows, they worked harder, they need more workers and they were able to feed more population, their population rise, they worried from their children's tomorrows, they worked harder, every child learned to live from their parents, they began to forget hunting and gathering, which animal is dangerous, which plant is poisonous, collective information for survival in hunting and gathering lifestyle disappeared year by year. Their fearful psyche which had been shaped through millions of years, said them to live in shelter, do not go to forest for hunting, do not leave your homes. It was scary enough to live as hunter and gatherer without any permanent shelter, powerful weapons and tools; however forgotten information and lifestyle during agricultural revolution made it impossible.
The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. As a result;
1 – Population rise, sapiens built cities.
2 – Though basic commercial activities were available during hunting and gathering between tribes, more complex commercial activities began between and within tribes.
3 – Collective imagination created intersubjective stories, gods and cults. First story tellers, prophets and teologs appeared.
4 – Many plants and animals guaranteed their survival by domestication. (Wheat – cow – chicken – horse – dog)
5 – As Marx argued hunter and gatherer tribes were primitive communists, however agricultural efficiency rise and it let to create surplus value which would let to class distinctions and struggles.
7 – Worse diet (carbohydrate based diet or single type diet) let many diseases.
8 – Sapiens stayed in shelters together with their domesticated animals, this let many other diseases.
9 – Sapiens began to play dominant role over nature.
10 – New metals and materials began to be used.
