Historical Imports

The spread of agriculture among early civilizations has been one of the most significant events in human history. It enabled unprecedented population growth, which eventually led to the formation of population centers and ultimately to the emergence of modern societies.

Despite this, the details of early agricultural conditions and practices remain quite unclear. Therefore, the findings reported in a recent study conducted at La Draga in Spain have provided intriguing insights into early agriculture. The study revealed that societies from around 7,000 years ago developed in relatively humid — and thus favorable — climatic conditions.

Based on the carbon and nitrogen isotopes and the weight of the wheat and barley grains once cultivated by the inhabitants of La Draga, it appeared that the farmers in the area were already practicing large-scale agriculture rather than tending small garden-like plots. These findings were also compared to observations made from sixteen other early agricultural communities.

From the size of the grains and the structure of the ears, it could also be inferred that the characteristics of the crops cultivated at the dawn of European agriculture were likely quite similar to those of modern crops. This indicates that agriculture had developed, and its key features had been established elsewhere. Thus, it arrived in Western Europe as a ready-made lifestyle — in other words, as an imported practice — whose spread was facilitated by the favorable conditions of the time.

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The study I briefly summarized above reinforces the idea that one of the most important developmental steps in human history took place outside of Western Europe. And of course, we know that perhaps as a result of this, the first advanced civilizations — namely the empires of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians — arose in the areas that are now Iraq and Egypt instead of Europe.

And Europe only rose alongside and eventually surpassed those regions much later, first thanks to the Greeks and then the Romans. The clear dominance of Europeans in the competition between cultures had to wait until the dawn of the modern era.

However, the world is currently transitioning into a new phase of development, in which southern and northern population groups are rapidly mixing as southern peoples migrate into child-poor Europe and the United States. It remains to be seen what kind of changes this will bring.

Will humanity take new leaps forward as happened 7,000 years ago when agricultural peoples arrived in Western Europe? Or will something similar occur to what happened in Western Europe when the Western Roman Empire collapsed under the pressure of the migrations that took place around the middle of the first century of our era?

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
A thousand years of unintegrated immigration
Cousin is a cultural delicacy
Finnish women have enjoyed a privileged position since medieval times