First farmers had diverse origins, DNA shows

[jpak]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36788165

Researchers sequenced genomes from ancient Neolithic skeletons uncovered in Iran.

The results shed light on a debate over whether farming spread out from a single source in the region, or whether multiple farmer groups spread their technology across Eurasia.

<snip>

The switch from mobile hunting and gathering to the sedentary lifestyle of farming first occurred about 10,000 years ago in south-western Asia. After the last Ice Age, this new way of life spread rapidly across Eurasia, in one of the most important behavioural transitions in human history.

Analysis of DNA from ancient remains in Europe has established that farming spread via the mass migration of people, rather than adoption of new ideas by indigenous populations.

<more>

Human innovation and mass migration from the Asia Minor preceded Neanderthals like Trump and Boris Johnson.

yup

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Farming needs easy land. Successful farmers grow populations that move out to seek easy land. . . nt

[jpak]

2. reliable calories -> survival -> reproductive success -> global dominance

-> climate change -> unreliable agriculture -> unreliable calories ->

[Igel]

4. The initial change-over was probably harsh.

When you transfer to agriculture versus herding you're suddenly stuck in one place with others. Disease becomes a problem. You wind up being sedentary part of the year. Your body has to adjust to a lot of starch, so diabetes becomes a serious killer.

It's probably not an accident that the oldest town we know of is dates to short after the domestication of some founder crops in N. Syria. The town was already fortified and had been burned. In the ruins and the area around the town are a lot of fired clay balls--projectiles for slings to hurl. In other words, the town had agriculture and prospered. Another nearby town may have attacked it or, more probable (I think) herders and hunter-gatherers grouped together to take what they no doubt believed was rightfully theirs and had been stolen from them.

[HereSince1628]

3. Yes and eological zones including temperate grasslands run nicely east-west out of Asia

and into Europe, making a climate sensitive technology, like crop farming, developed at one latitude applicable over many hundreds of miles.

Not like in NAm where the high north south runnung mountain ranges really mess with rainfall and destroy that east-west pattern.