Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The vast majority of farmers lived in permanent settlements; only a few were nomadic shepherds. Settling down caused most peoples turf to shrink dramatically. Ancient hunter-gatherers usually lived in territories covering many dozens and even hundreds of square kilometres. ‘Home’ was the entire territory, with its hills, streams, woods and open sky. Peasants, on the other hand, spent most of their days working a small field or orchard, and their domestic lives centred on a cramped structure of wood, stone or mud, measuring no more than a few dozen metres – the house. The typical peasant developed a very strong attachment to this structure. This was a far-reaching revolution, whose impact was psychological as much as architectural. Henceforth, attachment to ‘my house’ and separation from the neighbours became the psychological hallmark of a much more self-centred creature.

The new agricultural territories were not only far smaller than those of ancient foragers, but also far more artificial. Aside from the use of fire, hunter-gatherers made few deliberate changes to the lands in which they roamed. Farmers, on the other hand, lived in artificial human islands that they laboriously carved out of the surrounding wilds. They cut down forests, dug canals, cleared fields, built houses, ploughed furrows, and planted fruit trees in tidy rows. The resulting artificial habitat was meant only for humans and ‘their’ plants and animals, and was often fenced off by walls and hedges. Farmer families did all they could to keep out wayward weeds and wild animals. If such interlopers made their way in, they were driven out. If they persisted, their human antagonists sought ways to exterminate them. Particularly strong defences were erected around the home. From the dawn of agriculture until this very day, billions of humans armed with branches, swatters, shoes and poison sprays have waged relentless war against the diligent ants, furtive roaches, adventurous spiders and misguided beetles that constantly infiltrate the human domicile.

For most of history these man-made enclaves remained very small, surrounded by expanses of untamed nature. The earth’s surface measures about 510 million square kilometres, of which 155 million is land. As late as AD 1400, the vast majority of farmers, along with their plants and animals, clustered together in an area of just 11 million square kilometres – 2 per cent of the planet’s surface.² Everywhere else was too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, or otherwise unsuited for cultivation. This minuscule 2 per cent of the earth’s surface constituted the stage on which history unfolded.

People found it difficult to leave their artificial islands. They could not abandon their houses, fields and granaries without grave risk of loss. Furthermore, as time went on they accumulated more and more things – objects, not easily transportable, that tied them down. Ancient farmers might seem to us dirt poor, but a typical family possessed more artefacts than an entire forager tribe.

The Coming of the Future

While agricultural space shrank, agricultural time expanded. Foragers usually didn’t waste much time thinking about next week or next month. Farmers sailed in their imagination years and decades into the future.

Foragers discounted the future because they lived from hand to mouth and could only preserve food or accumulate possessions with difficulty. Of course, they clearly engaged in some advanced planning. The creators of the cave paintings of Chauvet, Lascaux and Altamira almost certainly intended them to last for generations. Social alliances and political rivalries were long-term affairs. It often took years to repay a favour or to avenge a wrong. Nevertheless, in the subsistence economy of hunting and gathering, there was an obvious limit to such long-term planning. Paradoxically, it saved foragers a lot of anxieties. There was no sense in worrying about things that they could not influence.

The Agricultural Revolution made the future far more important than it had ever been before. Farmers must always keep the future in mind and must work in its service. The agricultural economy was based on a seasonal cycle of production, comprising long months of cultivation followed by short peak periods of harvest. On the night following the end of a plentiful harvest the peasants might celebrate for all they were worth, but within a week or so they were again up at dawn for a long day in the field. Although there was enough food for today, next week, and even next month, they had to worry about next year and the year after that.