The Secrets of the Neolithic Revolution

by Gearoid Carey

Looking at the human species we may observe many harmful and unhealthy things occurring. For example war, crime, murder, dysfunction, suicide, mental illness, pollution and many more. Here I show a single period in our evolution when these began. I explain what occurred at this point in our evolution that caused this huge impact on our species. I also describe how our evolution has been developing since this period.

From four and a half million BC to the Neolithic revolution our evolution was driven by natural selection. The Neolithic revolution occurring around 8,000 BC with the invention of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Since the Neolithic revolution we may also observe evolution continuing to occur. However the manner in which this evolution is occurring does not correlate to the manner in which natural selection generates evolution. For example, if a nomadic tribe, as they existed prior to the Neolithic revolution, suffered from the pathologies we may observe in society today it would have had a distinct evolutionary disadvantage to a tribe that was performing healthily. Thus only tribes performing healthily would survive. Actually natural selection goes further than this. Only the fitter of the healthy tribes would survive the pruning which is a part of the workings of natural selection. So why did natural selection stop being effective?

If we look at the Neolithic revolution we see a population explosion occurring. This occurred because certain pruning mechanisms, which were a vital part of the workings of natural selection, were no longer effective. They stopped being effective because of the rich supply of food which animal domestication and agriculture created. Thus natural selection was no longer an effective evolutionary drive. However human evolution did not stop at this point. The evolution of the human species continued to occur genetically, physiologically, culturally, socially, technologically, psychologically etc. So what has been driving evolution since 8,000 BC? Prior to the Neolithic revolution the intelligent and organisational ability of the human species had been evolving and becoming more capable through natural selection. With the invention of agriculture natural selection was pushed aside. Thus putting human intelligence and organisational ability into the driving seat.

However the story has a few more twists in it yet. Prior to the Neolithic revolution there were many harmful things occurring like disease, starvation and deadly accidents in the hunt for food. All of these harmful occurrences were the workings of natural selection as it evolved the genes of the human species. The kind of harmful occurrences we see after the Neolithic revolution are not the workings of natural selection. For example because of the invention of agriculture people began living in villages and were no longer nomadic. However with the increasing population a degree of poor hygiene occurred in the villages. This poor hygiene caused diseases to occur. Also farmers would have had to fight to protect their crops against theft.

So what is causing these new types of harmful occurrences that started with the Neolithic revolution? First of all it is important to understand that natural selection generates healthy systems, simply because unhealthy systems would have an evolutionary disadvantage. When natural selection became ineffective with the invention of agriculture the human species did not invent a replacement for it. With the Neolithic revolution the human should have taken on this new role of assuring that healthy systems continued to be generated. However, it didn’t. Because the human species does not generate an appropriate replacement drive it becomes unstable and self-destructive. The human species responds to the presence of all this hostility by creatively trying to limit it. These two drives, i.e. the tendency to generate lots of harmful forces and the endeavour to limit them, have been responsible for human evolution since around 8,000 BC.

To summarise, natural selection evolved a healthy human species until the Neolithic revolution. When the human species invented agriculture natural selection became ineffective on them. However the human species did not invent a replacement for natural selection. Since this time the human species has been evolving through two forces, namely the tendency to destabilise and the endeavour to limit this instability.

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A breakdown of these ideas into simple points:

The 4 points from which I draw conclusions:

Point 1>> Natural selection evolved the human species from 4.5 million BC to the Neolithic revolution.

Point 2>> Natural selection evolved a fit human species. Fitness implying health. Health being a state where no destructive forces exist in the system which are detrimental to the system.

Point 3>> Natural selection has been ineffective on the human species since the Neolithic revolution.

Point 4>> Since the Neolithic revolution the human species has been unhealthy. That is to say it has been experiencing harmful forces which are damageing to itself.

The 2 points of conclusion:

Conclusion 1>> The human species is designed to perform healthily and at present is not (form points 2 and 4).

Conclusion 2>> With the Neolithic revolution the force that was developing and maintaining the health of the human species, i.e. natural selection, became ineffective thus resulting in unhealthiness occuring in the form of the human species (from points 1,2,3 and 4).