Talk:Neolithic Revolution

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Contents

I still believe this article is need of significant re-writing. The section on the causes of the neolithic revolution is vague and almost non-sensical. As a lay-person reading this article, I find it deeply confusing and discursive. The first table seems to come out of no-where and isn't explained at all until afterward. If there's so much conflicting scholarship regarding the nature of the neolithic revolution (as it appears from reading this article) then the conflict needs to be organized and explained.

[edit] Old discussion

I tagged this for clean-up. It needs breaking into sections, which will possibly require some restructuring. —Jwanders 12:17, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I moved sections around, changed wording slightly, added headings. Perhaps it could still use a bit of wikification here and there -- I tried not to overlink. I don't know if it's worthy of removing the cleanup tag yet. Perhaps someone else can take a look and either clean it up some more or judge it good enough and remove the tag. Thanks.—GraemeMcRaetalk 07:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, great job! I added a couple more wikilinks and have remove the clean-up tag. —Jwanders 13:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


Would it be appropriate to post a link to a thesis which analyzes the Neolithic Revolution from an economics standpoint? In the interest of full disclosure, it might be important to add that I wrote the thesis. - Redfax12.54, 5 December (UTC)

If it's on-line, how could it hurt? Just my opinion...--Wetman 17:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy and NPOV

"The Neolithic Revolution ultimately gave the Europeans the upper hand in colonialization. As they reached continents that had experienced little or no domestication, the Europeans easily conquered these groups. Many of the natives in the Americas were killed by diseases brought from the Old World, simply because they had never developed an immunity to diseases caused by domesticated animals, in turn caused by the fact that they had never domesticated animals. Thus the hundred-thousand year gap in technological and social development played a part in leading to the demise of many native peoples."

This is just WRONG. Clearly, the author does not know of the many llama species, guinea pigs or other animal species domesticated in the Andean highlands thousands of years before Columbus, and these societies fared no better in fending off Old World diseases. Moreover, humans need not have prolonged contact with ONLY domesticated animals to develop immunity to their diseases. I've cut this excerpt out, PLEASE, someone with more qualifications should work on this article. Kemet 31 May 2006.

Then why don't you fix it? That is how I learned it. You don't need to be near animals to contract diseases and whatnot, but many of the severe diseases the Europeans brought over, like smallpox, did come from these animals. And the natives of the Andes did not have as much contact with llamas as Europeans did with their domesticated animals. Last time I checked, the people of the Andes did not butcher llamas for food like the Europeans did with animals. The interaction was not as intimate. Also, societies in North America did not have the chance to build extensive civilizations with advanced technology because they never finished the first step of creating a hierarchial domesticated society, or if they did, they were not in any extensive comptetition for resources with another huge civilization. Perhaps some of it was wrong, or worded badly, but the whole section should not be completely cut out. Repair it, be bold, if you are more qualified than I am.-- The ikiroid  20:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
That discourse reminds me of turn-of-the-20th century cultural evolutionists, whose paradigms have been largely rejected in anthropology and the social sciences since the 1950s and 1960s. The last time you checked, what were the sources of your assertions? By what criteria do you define "advanced technology?" Do you seriously want to make the statement "never finished the first step of creating a hierarchial domesticated society?" Even if that were true (and the prescriptive evolutionist "formula" were not problematic), what does that have to do with resistence to livestock-borne diseases as you suggest? I cannot "repair" the section, because its founded upon flawed assumptions, the entire needs to include more cited sources (other than the opinions of the author). Kemet 31 May 2006.
I think you've taken what I've said out of context. I am not racist, I don't believe that Europeans are better than Native Americans, and for what it's worth, I think it's completely unfair that many Native American cultures have been destroyed. You can still see the damage today.
Where did I get my information from? I recieved my information from "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Information from that resource has already been added before, and the book is fairly recent, having been written in the last 20 years. I define "advanced technology" as a relative measurement of power through human development, in other words, the use of gunpowder weapons and swords against bows, arrows, et cetera. The reason why the first step of domestication is so relevant to livestock-borne diseases is because a society will not raise livestock unless they have the time and security to do so, something most hunter-gatherer societies don't have.-- The ikiroid  00:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
No one suggested that you were racist. I think the text should very clearly indicate the source(s) for every step of the way, so that you can clearly show where you're extrapolating the arguments of others, or inserting your own. I have read works similar to those of Jared Diamond before, and although their intentions (to argue against the inherent intellectual and cultural "supremacy" of certain groups over others--in the case Western Europeans over everyone else) are noble, the strict determinism tends to restrict the role of agency and the ability of people to transform the objective conditions of their physical environments (and might actually hurt their cause because of this). Since such determinism has by no means stood the test of time and academic rigors, then it has to be taken as educated conjecture, not fact. You should strongly make this point if you use Jared Diamond as a source for your assertions. By the way, Europeans were hardly alone in colonizing the New World---free-born and enslaved Africans were at the vangaurd at every step of the "conquest," especially in Spanish and Portuguese exploits (this is well-known in the historiography of the conquests). Kemet 2 June 2006.
So what should we change in the paragraph other than adding citations and notes? We should probably change the introduction of the section into

"Some historians, such as Jared Diamond believe......."

But I'm not sure how encyclopedic that would look. You have explained that this section needs to be carefully written, and I fully agree with that. You have demonstrated that your handle on the subject is at a much higher level than mine, and I agree with that too, so you need to help me edit the paragraph here before adding it back in. How about that? We'll edit it on this talkpage. Here, I'll create a new section for it.-- The ikiroid  14:00, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that Diamond's work should be presented, and then balanced with a critique of the determinism. As it stands right now, the article still presents Diamond's work as fact. It would be a good idea to cite published critiques of Diamond's work (and/or others like it) to balance the article in a more neutral way. Kemet 3 June 2006.
I don't see why there has to be so much debate about Jared Diamond's book when the subject of the article is the Neolithic (or agricultural) revolution. Diamond was answering the question why Europeans became dominant in world history, and neither the guns, the germs nor steel of his answer have much to do with how people first turned to farming in southwest Asia or anywhere else. As I read his book, he first set out to show why parts of southwest Asia were the scene of the earliest known adoption of farming and herding; and then, secondarily, he went on to discuss how and when the centre of gravity later moved from southwest Asia to Europe. Trevorwatkins 10:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Section

Some historians, such as Jared Diamond, believe that the Neolithic Revolution ultimately gave the Europeans the upper hand in colonialization. As they reached continents that had experienced little or no domestication, the entering groups (such as Spanish conquistadors) killed the native population with advanced weaponry and by diseases brought from the Old World, as these groups had never developed an immunity to diseases caused by the European domesticated animals, or developed weaponry as powerful as those used by the Europeans.

Condensing his book into one paragraph seems inadequate. Here's my suggestion.

"In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond argues that Europeans' advantageous geographical location, near a number of easily domesticable plant and animal species, afforded them a head start in the Neolithic Revolution. Being among the first to adopt agriculture and sedentary lifestyles, and neighboring other early agricultural societies with whom they could compete and trade, Europeans were also among the first to benefit from advanced technologies such as firearms and steel swords. In addition, Europeans developed resistances to infectious diseases, such as smallpox, due to their close relationship with domesticated animals. Groups of people who had not lived in proximity with other large mammals, such as the Australian Aborigines, were more vulnerable to infection."

I have problems with the term "advanced technology" and the assertion that Europeans were the first to develop them. Are steel swords and firearms sufficient elements to regard a technology as "advanced?" According to whom are these necessary elements? Also, from what I read in this article and discussion, there is too strong a tendency to treat European technological advancements as innovative, native developments, not as local adaptations and evolution of technologies and ideas that originated outside of Western Europe by the time of the Age of Discovery. I believe that Diamond would aruge that Europe's favorable geograhical position that facilitated the flow of ideas, not Europe's special inventiveness, would explain the initial technological advantages it experienced by Age of Exploration. Kemet 3 June 2006.
I think you're right, Diamond would also make that argument -- he would certainly agree that it was not Europeans' special inventiveness. (And I don't think my suggestion gives that impression.) This is an article on the Neolithic Revolution, not more generally the rise of Europe, so I didn't mention the flow of ideas. But it is one of the proximate causes, although not the ultimate, so it deserves mention. As for "advanced technologies", we can take out the word "advanced" if you like. "Advanced" is relative, and European weapons were always the best of their time, so I think it's fitting, but it's not crucial. I've changed the paragraph above; tell me what you think. -- bcasterline • talk 15:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

"During and after the Age of Discovery, European explorers, such as the Spanish conquistadors, encountered other groups of people which had never or only recently adopted agriculture. Due in part to their head start in the Neolithic Revolution, the Europeans were able to use their advanded technology and endemic diseases, to which indigenous populations had never been exposed, to colonize most of the globe."

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of species of maize and potatos had been domesticated in Central and Andean South America thousands of years before Columbus arrived. Again, I think that the author overplays the initial headstart in the Neolithic Revolution, and contradicts himself---since this revolution did take place more or less simultaneously and independently in many parts of the globe. The vast majority of colonized societies had been agrarian for thousands of years before Europeans arrived, and the firearms of the latter were no match against endemic diseases in many tropical areas, against which which Europeans had no immunity. The primary initial reason for the use of African slaves in the Americans was that Africans had developed immunity to the diseases the author describes (and admitedly their having been agrarian societies thousands of years before the Age of Exploration does seem to support part of the hypothesis). The racist rationalization of the slave trade would come later. At the same time, Europeans made no headway into the interior of the African continent for several centuries, held back by a variety of endemic tropical diseases, and the uselessness of "advanced" technology to subdue the population (the slave trade would not have been possible without African raiders capturing and selling the people they conquered to European and Arab slave traders, and "divide and conquer" strategies were far more potent than any rifles or cannons). This is just an example of why its too simplistic to describe the scope of European colonization as essentially a consequence of an early headstart. There are just too many factors. 3 June 2006.
Have you read Guns, Germs, and Steel? There are very many factors, but Diamond accounts for all of them. Maize and potatoes are much less domesticable than wheat, barley, and other grasses, and were probably not domesticated until thousands of years after the Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent. Agriculture was not adopted across the world simultaneously, and this is supported by hard evidence. (This is all information which should be included in the article somewhere, but not under this heading.) You're right about endemic diseases of the tropics and neotropics, which impeded European expansion. The Europeans colonized most of the globe, but not the whole thing. The enslavement of Africans to further their conquest also had everything to do with Europeans' head start, if not always directly. Typically Europeans acquired their slaves by trading firearms. -- bcasterline • talk 15:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
When I say "simultaneously," I mean that in span of our species' existence, roughly 150-200 thousand years, the agricultural revolution WAS rather sudden and spontaneous, with between 2500 and 5000 years separating earliest Old World and latest New World revolutions. The fact that conservative estimates that 20 million Native Americans lived in civilizations of Central and South America (with comparable population densities to those in Western Europe at the start of the Age of Exploration), strongly suggests that their agricultural practices were sufficiently efficient to support dense, urban populations. Population densities in western African civilizations were even greater. There is no doubt that diseases such as smallpox contributed to the demographic catastrophe in the New World, but so did malnutrition, overwork, and shock from unimaginable disruptions of social, political and economic networks. Concerning the African slave trade, with or without firearms, Europeans would not have gained slaves without Africans using those firewarms to capture slaves; the determing factor was human agency, not continuing resonances from early agricultural advantages. I want to make one thing clear: I DO believe that favorable geography and ecology, not any special innate mental prowess, gave Europeans very early advantages in the agricultural revolution, whose effects snowballed through thousands of years. That said, even you admit that the link between early Neolithic advantages and, in this case, the African slave trade, is indirect. The fundamental argument for direct, one-way cause-and-effect relationships between the latter and former (or so forth) is undermined, which is why I suggest that critiques of this determinism be included in the article. If Diamond accounts for all of the factors, then the article should reflect this. At this point, I think its helpful to remember that WESTERN Europe eventually colonized most of the globe, as eastern Europe lay in the periphery and under the domination of Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire (later the Russian Empire and Soviet Union) during all of the period in question---there was never a "Pan European" hegemony of the world. As I maintain, present Diamond and the like as educated conjecture, not as fact. Kemet 17:32, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Diamond's thesis is presented as one explanation of the facts. It shouldn't be presented any other way. This is an article on the Neolithic Revolution, not geographic determinism, and not the rise of Europe -- so I don't think extended criticism (especially of the WP:OR variety) is really appropriate, either. At this point, it seems that you personally disagree with Diamond's hypothesis, and that's not reason enough to withhold it. If there are any facts you dispute, or any sourced criticisms you'd like to include, feel free. Otherwise I'm going to add this section to the article. -- bcasterline • talk 17:58, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you read the original passage I deleted, but the tone was one that presented Diamond's thesis as fact, not as an conjecture on the ultimate effects of initial advantages that some societies had in the agricultural revolution. In any event, any work whose purpose is to inform is only as strong as its weakest sections, so the extended criticism on a "minor" point is completely appropriate. Pandora's box was opened with insufficiently-defined terms of discussion and rigid extrapolations. Moreover, I never suggested that Diamond's perspective be witheld--I suggested that it be balanced with dissenting views, which is reasonable if a particular line of reasoning has not stood the test of time and self-correction. Futhermore, as I said, I do not dispute the thesis fundamentally, I dispute the deterministic interpretation of it. Finally, in all sincerity, please do add that section, as I'm sure that you will keep in mind the suggestions I had (and which you and the author agreed were valid). If not, I'll contribute in that particular section with cited sources.Kemet 21:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I've added the section as agreed here. And again, if you want to add cited criticisms -- or expansions of some sort -- please feel free. -- bcasterline • talk 23:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I've backed out of this—it's very apparent that you two know a lot more about the Neolithic Revolution and the theory of geographic luck than I do. :P-- The ikiroid  01:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Diamond's 1987 essay "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" is also an interesting counterpoint that deserves mention. That the Neolithic Revolution was benficial is almost always taken for granted, as it is here. This article mentions one of the downsides (disease) briefly, but Diamond argues that there are others. -- bcasterline • talk 16:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it could go under a new subsection called "Effects on the Age of Discovery." Another section could be created called "Disadvantages of the transition to an agrarian society."-- The ikiroid  18:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interpretive topics not suitable for methods and principle category?

what ever the merits there are in neolithic revolution IMO it is not a principle or method in archaeology and i have removed it from that cat. good article BTW Boris 14:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Someone sugested that we should merge the article First agricultural revolution into this one. Since that article is short, contains some wierd facts that Im not sure about, and hasnt got anything that this article lacks, I think the best way to do it would be to simply substitute the article with a redirect to this one. The two terms mean the same thing, so there shouldnt be any problem with that. Comments? --Screensaver 00:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] major missing information

There is no coverage of Amazonian crops/nuts/ etc. These were quite significant and supported a considerable population prior to the arrival of Europenas and Old World diseases. In addition, there is a lack of coverage of North American plants, again prior to Europeans. A serious omission in both cases. See 1491 by Mann and Guns Germs and Steel by Diamond. ww 07:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expert Attention

An admin has marked this article as in need of expert attention. It seems quite authoritive to me. I am curious to know what the admin had in mind. SmokeyTheCat 14:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for the admin, but for the nature of the claims involved, this article has nowhere near enough citations and references. I know from my own reading that this is a contentious field, and while this article in its present state provides a fairly smooth and cogent overview, it's far too self-confident relative to the tendentious nature of the material presented. An expert in this context is not someone with a fancy education, it's a person who has a fairly broad perspective on the scholarship within the field and is willing to write careful and precise sentences, with each sentence firmly supported by properly construed references. Anyone can be an expert in the right state of mind. The problem is, articles in Wikipedia are not supposed to be authoritative, it's the sources referenced that are supposed to be authoritative. MaxEnt 13:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
For the orthodox perspective on this matter, review Wikipedia:Verifiability. MaxEnt 13:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

The assertions in the introduction about the impact of the revolution are overbroad and uncited. We really need evidence that marriage, private property, inheritance, and slavery are the result of it. Eluchil404 01:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Answer to POV

I agree with Smokey the Cat in the previous message that extra expert evidence is not needed. Sure the article can be improved, like anything. The evidence is widely agreed amongst historians and anthropologists about official marriage, inheritance, slavery, etc. But please think about it. Since the social revolution that brought us humans into existence, this agricultural revolution was, by far, bigger that the industrial, Russian and information revolutions all put together. From a life of gatherer-hunters in small (15-30) communal nomadic life style, where property had to be carried from camp to camp - accumulation could not happen. With the skills being developed (largely by women btw) of domesticating crops and animals, which led to security of food - a piece of land could now sustain 60-100 times the population - just imagine. It was a dramatic whole new way of life. With personal ownership of land and other items came inheritance, the nuclear (and extended) blood-related family was born - real communal life ended. This succesful revolution was also expansionist (you could say colonialist), and in almost every continent it spread by pushing back or integrating gatherer-hunters - or enslaving them.

Historian and anthropologist Jared Diamond's 1987 essay "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" (discussed above) I have also read, and he makes these correct points as to how this revolution had its positive and very big negative impacts on humanity, on our humaness - which we suffer to this day. Indeed, systemic inhumanity was first introduced into human evolution during the period of this revolution - religious people would refer to good vs evil - but me, just the temporary 10k years battle between humanity vs inhumanity. But in Jared's essay, he gets it wrong, it wasn't a 'mistake', it was/is a necessary inhuman phase in our evolution, which we humans must transcend if we are to develop a truly human society, overcome systemic inhumanity and return to a natural way of life - but on an altogether new and higher plane. Steve Masterson - 27 July 2007

[edit] The Age of Discovery and NPOV

Why is this section very Eurocentric and East Asian-centric? The Neolithic Revolution occurred in India and the Middle East way before it did in Europe and East Asia........gunpowder and steel technology were also extensively used by the people of Middle East (Persia, Ottomans, Arabs, ect.) and India. India made superior sword and gun steel to the West for most of history and domesticated far more animals (like the elephant). It is foolish to say that people of hotter or tropical climates never developed civilization and this bias is very inaccurate. I thought Guns, Germs, and Steel was considered Eurasiancentric, not euro/eastasian centric. No matter, this is inaccurate information regardless and needs to be changed. Zachorious 16:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] reference for "the move from overwhelming matriarchal life to patriarchal life"??

somebody please find a strong reference for that or i'll remove it. in reviews of hunter-gatherer societies, it's been noted (e.g. John Gowdy (1999)) that inequality based on gender is not a historical necessity. but that's not (by far) the same as saying that the neolithic revolution was a transition from matriarchal to patriarchal. asserting that is more about making a (modern) political argument, rather than citing a fact from archaeology. --Psm 00:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

no refs yet; removing it. --Psm 05:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] source for "The walled town of Jericho was established almost 12,000 years ago, in which captured hunter-gatherers were enslaved."

That sounds cool, but it's the first I've heard of it. Source please, or it's out. --Psm 00:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

A map would be really nice and useful. Something like this: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/images/figure17_09.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.127.186.205 (talk) 12:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Causes of the Neolithic Revolution

"Food gatherers (not the hunters) caring for children, keeping the fires alive, foraging near the base camp; led the way in developing language and culture, in knowledge of plants and increasingly semi-domesticated animals who travelled with the nomads from camp to camp. It is ironic that these women laid the foundation for a new type of society that replaced the rough egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer communal life - with systemic patriarchal forms of rule."

Can we please have some references or citations here? Is this the citation of a notable observer? The whole paragraph seems entirely speculative. And the last sentence sounds like a personal opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.86.197 (talk) 08:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I took it upon myself to remove the sentence:

It is ironic that these women laid the foundation for a new type of society that replaced the rough egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer communal life - with systemic patriarchal forms of rule.

which is unsourced, confusing, and probably POV. "Laid the foundation" is far too vague for an article of this nature. MaxEnt 13:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence with no main verb

Once agriculture started gaining momentum, selective breeding cereal grasses (beginning with emmer, einkorn and barley), and not simply those that would favour greater caloric returns through larger seeds.

Not sure what the author meant. MaxEnt 13:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opposition to Jared Diamond OR and unsourced

Removed the following paragraphs:

However, Jared Diamond seems to ignore that civilizations living in hotter and even tropical climates did develop steel and firearm technologies, such as the Middle East during the more arid Middle Ages and India's tropical climate. This coupled with the fact that the Middle East, India, and eventually Southeast Asia prospered with many of the same technologies sheds doubt in some of his theory of temperamental climate dominance.[citation needed]

Furthermore Diamond seems to place too much importance on western domination coming about through the use of steel weapons, when in fact the obsidian swords used by such Mexican civilizations as the Aztec and Maya were far sharper than steel. The only superior military technology that Europeans had was firearms, crossbows, and metal armor, which were by no means deciding factors in the conquest of Mexico.[citation needed]

For the first paragraph, why does this shed doubt? Diamond is likely suggesting that the Europeans held, on the whole, a distinct advantage.

The second paragraph is too much. Sharper is not the only quality of a sword: weight, length, durability, and cost of production would also be critical.

GG&S p.74, Diamond asks why did Pizarro capture Atahuallpa when Pizarro had 62 soldiers mounted on horses and 106 foot soldiers, to an army of 80,000 commanded by A. "Pizarro's military advantage lay in the Spaniards' steel swords and other weapons ...". Diamond provides extensive sources for these claims, including Conquest of the Incas (1970) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) and ten others.

These claims can not stand in the article without a solid source to back them up, in opposition to Diamond's careful scholarship. What makes Mexico different? Diamond does not list Mexico in his index, and I don't presently have time to wade through the whole of his material on the Americas, but I suspect he would not agree. MaxEnt 14:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it gets worse. Yes, obsidian is very sharp, but does not make for a great weapon.
Why didn't the Aztecs fare better against the Spanish with such effective swords? Probably because the swords didn't have tips and were not meant to pierce; they were designed only for lashing. An adept swordsman could fend off an Indian simply by ducking a swing of a sword and then running the enemy through.
MaxEnt 14:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, are you telling me that Europe only developed steel and firearm technology? You know this is utter bull......check the steel and musket article. In fact the Middle East was one of the first regions to use firearms in a major war (eg. Ottoman Turks against the Byzantines, the Moors in Spain when firearms were first introduced to Europe, Mughals in Dehli when firearms were introduced to India, ect.). Steel was used of course in the Middle East and India far before it was used widely for weapons in Europe.......ever heard of damascus steel or wootz steel? Firearms were of course used all over Eurasia including hotter tropical climates.......how does that not shed doubt on his theory of temperamental dominance? Also not all of China is temperamental either.....South China in particular has had a subtropical climate even during advanced eras like the Song dynasty. This should be common knowledge, but I guess people who believe everything Jared Diamond says haven't read much outside Guns, Germs, and Steel. I don't see why such common knowledge needs to be cited......but I'll provide some sources anyways.

Secondly.......many historians will say that disease (which wiped out 90+%) played a huge role in conquest. Remember Cortez's crew, including his thousands of native allies were nearly annihilated in the La Noche Triste. Of course by the time Cortez left disease started to spread like wildfire consuming of course the warrior class as well. This plus the amount of native allies Cortez had at their disposal made a huge difference. What main military advantage did the Spanish have? Aside from metal armor, not much. Not being able to or having a poor thrusting capability doesn't make these obsidian swords useless......your telling me that the Medieval Saracens driving back crusaders with their slashing scimitars doesn't show anything? The Spanish had firearms of course.....but these were crude arquebuses that had a very slow firing rate wouldn't have made so much of a difference (other than scaring the Aztec with the sound). Zachorious 02:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the title of the section from Age of Discovery to Technology as there is already a section on disease and the information is repeated here. If anyone has a copy of the book it would be useful to move the Jared's theory about disease to the disease section (or cite the information already there), if page numbers could be used this would be very useful. --Kaly99 20:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to remove that irrelevant idiocy about obsidian again. If glass is so damned good for blades, why is it only used in very specialized cases such as fine surgery? Mahuitls were crap compared to steel weapons. Also, later cultures in Afroeurasia did develop guns and blades, yes, but the precedent was already there. Also consider that the Celts were far better swordsmen than the Romans. The Romans were better SOLDIERS. Diamond, in fact, covered all this. The Europeans had a significant number of cultural advantages. /rant, and /obsidian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mzmadmike (talk • contribs) 21:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article rated

Far bolder than normal, I decided to rate this article start class, high importance. Note that History of agriculture (which is the parent to this article) is similarly rated; though no other anthro article is yet rated high importance. There is far to much good material here to rate this as stub class, but there are also too many obvious problems to choose any rating higher than start. MaxEnt (talk)

[edit] Request for images

I've added some images that seem to be relevant to the article, if they don't seem appropriate please feel free to remove them. If there are any specific images required please can the request for images be updated or if there are no more needed removed. --Kaly99 (talk) 23:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text from article moved here

Bellow is text added by 68.237.97.254 on Jan 31, 2008 [1] (the only contribution on WP). I moved it here since it is not integrated with the rest of the article, is contradicting with the rest of the text and is most likely copy-pasted from somewhere.

Neolithic culture appeared in the Levant (Jericho, modern-day West Bank) about 8500 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered wild cereal use, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufians can thus be called "proto-Neolithic" (11,000–8500 BC). As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas forced people to develop farming. By 8500–8000 BC farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Anatolia, North Africa and North Mesopotamia.
Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of crops, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt and the keeping of dogs, sheep and goats. By about 7000 BC it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery.[2] Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery, and, in Britain, it remains unclear to what extent plants were domesticated in the earliest Neolithic, or even whether permanently settled communities existed. In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own regionally-distinctive Neolithic cultures which arose completely independent of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies used pottery before developing agriculture,[citation needed] for example.

Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)