Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Ancient people were planters

Ancient Peoples were planters
One element, which we consider misinterpreted in the studies of the so-called "prehistory" is the supposed ignorance of agriculture by ancient peoples. By ancient peoples we understand human societies that lived in small communities in the varied terrestrial ecosystems for several tens of thousands of years and still exist in some parts of the planet.
It is often said that these people did not know (do not know) how to plant or to harvest their crops.
Is not correct. In places where these activities were possible for geographical reasons most of the ancient peoples planted numerous species and plant varieties since time immemorial.
What changed when the so-called "agricultural revolution" occurred was the extension and specific composition of the plantations, as well as the storage of the products.
From that moment on cultures became more and more monospecific.
 As a consequence of these changes there was a quantitative (though not qualitative) increase in production and the social processes of accumulation began to intensify, which would culminate in the agro-urban economic power systems first and more recently the agro-industrial systems capitalists.
Traditional cultures, including those improperly called "Paleolithic", cultivated numerous plant species, but the extension and configuration of their cultivation areas were very different from those that would have developed in the agricultural "civilizations" themselves.
This statement could be demonstrated archaeologically if the searches were directed in that direction. The traditional peoples of South America, who widely used the carved stone (and therefore would be labeled as Paleolithic by the aforementioned experts), planted numerous plant species within the framework of highly elaborate production systems
The agricultural world of ancient peoples was very sophisticated, surely more complex than most contemporary farming systems.
In other words, traditional-ancient peoples not only knew agriculture, but had developed a set of selective cultivation and harvesting practices that were the result of their deep knowledge of the plant world. In this way they used a great diversity of plants, reducing the impact on ecosystems to a minimum.
Reproduced from "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", D.Anton, Piriguazú Ediciones

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