The Biggest Mistake Humans Ever Made?
Driving Question: How could the development of agriculture be considered both good and bad for humanity?
Everything changed for humanity once our foraging ancestors began to settle down in early farming communities. Agriculture not only dramatically changed the diets of early humans, but also their communities, lifestyles, networks, and systems of production and distribution—and these changes have had and continue to have massive consequences.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn about differing perspectives for why early humans made the transition from foraging to farming.
- Evaluate why some foraging communities began to farm and how farming led to more-complex societies.
- Use the historical thinking practice of causation to analyze why many early human communities made the switch from foraging to farming.
Vocab Terms:
- agrarian
- causation
- domesticate
- hierarchy
- infectious
- pathogen
- surplus
Practice creating a causal map for Jack and the Giant Beanstalk to identify cause-and-effect relationships and prepare you to understand the causes and consequences of the Agricultural Revolution.
Now is a great time to correct a few misconceptions your students might have:
- Not everyone transitioned to farming as soon as it became available. Many communities purposely avoided it, retreating into the hills and wildlands away from the lure of the plow and seed. Many agricultural communities continued to rely on foraging to supplement their farming, either by doing it themselves or by trading with foragers. In some places and for some people—such as the Hadzabe in Tanzania and Inuit communities in the Arctic—foraging remains a way of life today.
- Some scholars have argued that farming actually made life worse for humans. Foragers had more leisure time, less conflict, and their societies were more equal. That doesn’t mean that we should abandon penicillin and the internet, but farming took a while to pay off. Early farmers suffered from diseases and social problems their foraging forebears never had.
The shift to farming was an important change, and not without consequences. In this article and activity, you’ll examine the bumpy road from foraging to farming.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the article. Be sure to look at the section headings and any images.
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- What is one theory that could show that farming began unintentionally?
- How did the rise of fixed farming communities change what people’s daily work looked like?
- How did the rise of villages both expand and shrink networks?
- What were the benefits and drawbacks of foraging as a system of production and distribution?
- What were the benefits and drawbacks of farming as a system of production and distribution?
After you read
Respond to this question: Given the evidence in this article, would you have preferred to have been a farmer or a forager?
Marketing 201: Agricultural Influencers
- Using evidence and storyboard directions from the Marketing 101 activity, prompt AI to create an advertising poster that takes a side on the foraging vs. farming debate.
- Then, students complete at least three iterations of the poster, refining prompts as they go and improving the final product.
- Wrap-up discussion debrief: Students use AI as a judge of the posters, instructing it to select the ones it deems most convincing. What choices did it make? Does the class agree? How does the AI evaluate claims differently than humans would?
How this helps: Students use art and historical evidence to craft a claim. The process of prompt refining will deepen their understanding of the changes that accompanied the transition to agriculture.
History is filled with choices: isolationism vs. internationalism, modernists vs. traditionalists, war vs. peace. You’ll face a choice of your own in this activity: foraging or farming?
Remind students that they will see these Unit Notebooks at the beginning and end of each unit. If your students didn't complete the Unit Notebook at the beginning of this unit, you might want to skip this activity and try it next unit.
By comparing their responses in this activity to those at the start of the unit, students see what they’ve learned and how their thinking has changed. It’s a great opportunity for self-reflection.
Time to revisit your Unit Notebook. What’s new? What’s stayed the same?
Khanmigo Writing Coach is an AI-powered tool designed specifically for teachers and students in K–12 and secondary classrooms. This tool can help you teach many OER Project: World History writing activities. It can be used to provide individual feedback and revisions on early student work. If you’re interested, check out this Khanmigo Writing Coach Guide.
In this writing activity, you’ll use evidence from sources to support an argument that responds to the question: Was farming an improvement over foraging for early humans?
Historians suggest that the advent of farming led to the creation of states. You’ll examine the seeds of this argument in this video on farming and the state.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you watch
Preview the questions below, and then review the transcript.
While you watch
Look for answers to these questions:
- What do Candice Goucher and Laura Mitchell think about the argument that farming was a precondition for the state?
- What evidence do Goucher and Trevor Getz provide as a counterargument to the claim that grain farming, in particular, led to states?
- What does Mitchell say about the connection between labor and the state?
- Given the added labor and tax burden, do Goucher and Mitchell think the state was a good idea?
- According to Goucher, is there still a connection between farming and the state today?
After you watch
Respond to these questions: Do you think some foraging communities could also be called states? What conditions might foragers need in order to develop things like specialization of labor or social hierarchies?