Number of words – 297

In more temperate regions in Africa, there are hunter-gatherer tribes today who manage well enough by spending only a couple of days a week in food gathering task. They may not have their own kinds of leisure time activities.

So, if the Neolithic life style was that pleasant, why did it ever change? We may presume that it changed in response to changes in the environment. The glaciers of the last ice age receded, the general climate became warmer and warmer. That resulted in increase in the supply of plant food. This meant that humans did not have to range as far for food as they had previously. In some particular regions, vegetation was luxuriant enough that they could stay in one place for an extended period of time. They could settle down.

Now, if less travelling is needed, a certain natural limit to population is removed. When a family is on the move most of the time, a woman cannot handle more than one infant. This requires that births be spaced. Without techniques of artificial birth control, some other process is needed. Sometimes it was infanticide. Sometimes to the point that if twins were born, one would be killed. Some cultures practised abstinence from intercourse as long as the infant needed to be carried. When the family can settle down, such practices are less necessary.

Then, with more mouths to feed, more food must be found. There is evidence from about 16,000 years ago that the diet of some groups was extended to include a broader range was extended to include usual up till then. This suggests that populations may have increased beyond the level appropriate to the initial improvement in vegetation.

Excerpted from ‘Children of Promotheus: A history of Science and Technology’ by James McLachlan