Read Online Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill - Free Book Online
Authors: William H. McNeill
Tags: 20th Century, Non-Fiction, European History, Plague, Medieval History, Biological History, Social History, Cultural History, v.5, disease, Medical History
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large-bodied game animals that began in Africa about 50,000 years ago, spread to Asia and Europe about 20,000 years ago and became especially pronounced in the Americas some 11,000 years ago must have been a severe blow to human hunters whose skills had concentrated on killing big animals. 1 Indeed, the disappearance of one species of large-bodied prey after another probably led to sharp local reductions in human numbers. It was one thing for a band to feed on a single mammoth for a week or more, and quite a different task to kill sufficient small game, day after day, to keep the same number of human beings alive. Simultaneously, climatic changes altered the balance of nature, both in northern regions along the fringes of the retreating glaciers, and in the subtropics where a northward shift of the trade winds spread desiccation across what had earlier been good hunting territory in the African Sahara and adjacent parts of western Asia.
Everywhere, therefore, ancient hunters had to readjust their habits to make fuller use of whatever they could find in changinglandscapes. When large-bodied animals disappeared, other foods had to be searched out. Under these pressures, our ancestors became omnivorous again like their distant primate forebears, feeding on an expanded number of plant and animal species. In particular, the food resources of shore and sea were for the first time systematically exploited, as numerous middens of discarded mollusk shells and far less conspicuous fishbones attest. Not only that; new ways of preparing food were developed. Certain groups learned, for instance, that by prolonged soaking, they could remove poisonous chemicals from olives and cassava, thus making them edible. Other vegetable matter could also be rendered more palatable or digestible by grinding, cooking, fermenting. 2
All these palliatives were, however, soon eclipsed by the development of food production, through domestication of animals and plants. Many communities in different parts of the earth moved in this direction, with results that varied in accordance with what was available in a wild state to start from. Generally speaking, although the New World was remarkably impoverished in domesticable animals, it did have a number of useful plants, whereas the Old World offered human ingenuity both a wide range of domesticable animals and an impressive array of potential food plants.
Details of early domestications remain unclear. One must assume a process of mutual accommodation between humanity and the various domesticable species. This involved rapid and sometimes far-reaching changes in the biological character of domesticated plants and animals as a result of both accidental and deliberate selection for particular traits. Conversely, one can assume that a radical, if rarely deliberate, selection among human beings occurred as well. Individuals who refused to submit to the laborious routines of farming, for instance, must often have failed to survive, and those who could not or would not save seed for next year’s planting, and instead ate all they had, were quickly eliminated from communities that became dependent on annual crops.
Herdsmen and farmers, together with their varying array ofdomesticated animals and plants, fitted into the wild background of plant and animal life in different ways, depending on climate, soils and human skills (or lack thereof). Results varied markedly from village to village, field to field, and even, for that matter, within a single field.
Nevertheless, there are some general phenomena worth noting. First of all, as men made over natural landscapes by causing some animals and plants to multiply, others were displaced. The general effect was to reduce biological variety and to make local plant and animal populations more uniform. Simultaneously, food chains shortened as human action reduced the roles of rival predators and reserved an increased amount of food for the consumption of a single
Everywhere, therefore, ancient hunters had to readjust their habits to make fuller use of whatever they could find in changinglandscapes. When large-bodied animals disappeared, other foods had to be searched out. Under these pressures, our ancestors became omnivorous again like their distant primate forebears, feeding on an expanded number of plant and animal species. In particular, the food resources of shore and sea were for the first time systematically exploited, as numerous middens of discarded mollusk shells and far less conspicuous fishbones attest. Not only that; new ways of preparing food were developed. Certain groups learned, for instance, that by prolonged soaking, they could remove poisonous chemicals from olives and cassava, thus making them edible. Other vegetable matter could also be rendered more palatable or digestible by grinding, cooking, fermenting. 2
All these palliatives were, however, soon eclipsed by the development of food production, through domestication of animals and plants. Many communities in different parts of the earth moved in this direction, with results that varied in accordance with what was available in a wild state to start from. Generally speaking, although the New World was remarkably impoverished in domesticable animals, it did have a number of useful plants, whereas the Old World offered human ingenuity both a wide range of domesticable animals and an impressive array of potential food plants.
Details of early domestications remain unclear. One must assume a process of mutual accommodation between humanity and the various domesticable species. This involved rapid and sometimes far-reaching changes in the biological character of domesticated plants and animals as a result of both accidental and deliberate selection for particular traits. Conversely, one can assume that a radical, if rarely deliberate, selection among human beings occurred as well. Individuals who refused to submit to the laborious routines of farming, for instance, must often have failed to survive, and those who could not or would not save seed for next year’s planting, and instead ate all they had, were quickly eliminated from communities that became dependent on annual crops.
Herdsmen and farmers, together with their varying array ofdomesticated animals and plants, fitted into the wild background of plant and animal life in different ways, depending on climate, soils and human skills (or lack thereof). Results varied markedly from village to village, field to field, and even, for that matter, within a single field.
Nevertheless, there are some general phenomena worth noting. First of all, as men made over natural landscapes by causing some animals and plants to multiply, others were displaced. The general effect was to reduce biological variety and to make local plant and animal populations more uniform. Simultaneously, food chains shortened as human action reduced the roles of rival predators and reserved an increased amount of food for the consumption of a single
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