Saturday, October 08, 2011

Agriculture and population: which came first?

We're used to thinking that human population (and human misery) boomed when we switched to agriculture. Now it appears that a post-glacial population boom may have inspired agriculture ...

Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Major population expansion in mtDNA of East Asians

... the further analysis showed that the population expansion in East Asia started at 13 kya and lasted until 4 kya. The results suggest that the population growth in East Asia constituted a need for the introduction of agriculture and might be one of the driving forces that led to the further development of agriculture...

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