Farming Created Civilization

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Date Line April 3, 2007
One of the curiosities of our study of R1a1 – Shreknangst – origins is the interaction with the emergence of various scriptures, and the origins of farming, or general agricultural societies.

Farming of wheat and barley first appeared in the Middle East; it than spread rapidly to western Asia, Egypt and Europe. This tells, or infers, the point of origin and farm population migration

The earliest civilizations all relied primarily on cereal agriculture. As a result, they can be typified as being primarily vegetarians – which is exactly what we see in the religious texts and practices associated with the spread of R1a Haplogroups.

It is important to note that the cultivation of fruit trees began three thousand years after cereal agricultural practices – but marks the essence of the Book of Genesis; or, the basis of creation being eating the fruits of all the trees except those of knowledge and life.

Today is the first actual day of Passover (which began at sundown last might). Which has no relevance except to underscore the place of cereals, fruits, vegetables and herbs in the base culture of Judo-Christian tradition – which places Fruit diets in 3761BCE.

Cultivation of rice began in Asia about 7000 years ago – which is to say, about 5000 BCE. This infers communication of the benefits of farming, if not an actual influx of farmers, at that time.

As we have previously discussed, the biblical story originates in the area of Ararat. It is in that region that the Garden of Eden – the initial reliance on fruits, and the means of their identification – is first said to have been provided by G-d.

By the very nature of the text, farming is taken for granted. The important element if the fruit of the tree – which appears to have entered human culture, as the scripture asserts, around 4000 BCE.

Hayden, B, "Nimrods, Piscators, Pluckers, and Planters: the emergence of food production", Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 1990, 9:31-69 – states:

"Few topics in prehistory have engendered as much discussion and resulted in so few satisfying answers as the attempt to explain why hunter/gatherers began to cultivate plants and raise animals. Climatic change, population pressure, sedentism, resource concentration from desertification, girls' hormones, and ownership, geniuses, rituals, scheduling conflicts, random genetic kicks, natural selection, broad spectrum adaptation and multicausal retreats from explanation have all been proffered to explain domestication. All have major flaws… the data do not accord well with any one of these models."

Obviously, there are many possible reasons for the emergence of our agrarian society. Equally obvious is the idea that I would rely on the “mythology” of scripture for an inferred explanation – those who ate fruits were healthier and smarter.

By now, by this stage in social history – with all the focus on diet and its relationship to obesity, heart disease and a wide range of vitamin related ailments – we should all take for granted that fruits and vegetables are the source of human improvement.

We cannot live without a proper diet; and while hunter-gathering is adequate for survival, it is not conducive to longevity. Moreover, it is obvious that intelligence follows sedentary behavior.

WHAT? I can hear the screams of those who have not thought, or considered, the nature of learning.

Learning occurs through the exchange of ideas. Students learn better when they utilize study groups to rehash, and re-evaluate, the lessons they are to master.

Oral tradition (a prime source of needed survival knowledge and ethnic or cultural identity) can be limited to an exchange from the parent to the child; but children learn more from their peers.

Peer learning, while it might cause a degree of misinformation, is the means by which family oral traditions and teachings are passed through a society. The parent teaches the child, the child teaches the friend; while, at the same time, the child learns what the friend’s parents taught.

Intensive oral tradition can only exist in sedentary populations.

Learning, the thing of abstract knowledge, can only emerge as a force among those who are constantly engaged in active exchanges of information – engaged in routine discussions.

Fruits – with their concentrations of B & C (etc) vitamins and their dietary roughage needed for health and clean internal organs – are, ultimately, the catalytic source of knowledge and true learning.

In it’s perverse, mythological imperative, manner, the Biblical can be said to affirm itself through the archaeological and physiological realities of human history.

On that premise, I would anticipate that the first fruits – the first human cultivated orchards – were in the volcanic regions to the east of Mount Ararat.

The flaming swords of scripture which both drove out the orchard tending families, and prevented their return, were the flaming balls of lava ejected by a series of volcanic eruptions – now we need locate the geological evidence of those eruptions..
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