Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Agriculture as a major evolutionary transition to human ultrasociality

  • Published:
Journal of Bioeconomics Aims and scope

Abstract

The adoption of agriculture was one of the most momentous transformations in human history. It set into motion forces that changed our species from living in small numbers within the confines of local ecosystems into one that is now changing the biophysical characteristics of the entire planet. We argue that this transformation can be understood as a leap to ultrasociality—a type of social organization rare in nature but wildly successful when it occurs. Several species of ants and termites made a similar leap in social organization and the broad characteristics of their societies are remarkably similar to post hunter-gatherer human societies. Ultrasocial species dominate the ecosystems they occupy in terms of sheer numbers and the scale of ecosystem exploitation. We argue that the drivers for the ultrasocial transition to agriculture are economic. These societies operate as superorganisms exhibiting an unparalleled degree of division of labor and an economic organization centered around surplus production. We suggest that the origin of human and insect agriculture is an example of parallel evolution driven by similar forces of multi-level selection. Only with the evolution of expansionist agriculturalist societies did humans join ants and termites in the social domination of Earth. Viewing agriculture as an ultrasocial transition offers insights not only about the origins of agriculture and its consequences, but also about the forces shaping the current demographic transition and the modern global socio-economic system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. There is clear evidence for complex symbolic culture from a site in South Africa dating 70,000 years ago (Henshilwood et al. 2004). Another site in South Africa (Pinnacle Point) contained red ochre pigments dating back to 164,000 years ago (Marean et al. 2007). Whether the development of human symbolic culture was gradual or a sudden revolution is still a matter of dispute but opinion is turning against the idea that human culture arrived in a sudden burst some 40,000 years ago. See the discussion in Knight (2010) and Pringle (2013).

  2. The 1968 conference “Man the Hunter” (Lee and DeVore 1968) overturned the conventional wisdom of the time that hunter-gather existence was “nasty, brutish and short.” Richard Lee, Marshall Sahlins and others made a convincing case that hunter-gatherers had ample leisure time and lifestyles that were “affluent” in the sense of having everything they needed for a satisfying life. In a predicable counter-reaction Kelly (1995) and others argued that hunting and gathering was a spectrum of lifestyles and questioned Lee’s calculations of working hours among the Ju/ ‘hoansi of the Kalahari and his description of their peaceful lifestyle. For a response and a discussion of the current state of hunter-gatherer studies see Lee and Daly (1999).

  3. This is not to deny that hunter-gatherers had dramatic impacts on local environments through hunting big game animals and by the use of fire to modify ecosystems (Murray 2003; Rule et al. 2012). The extent to which humans were responsible for megafaunal extinctions is still unclear. Current opinion leads toward the explanation that megafaunal extinction after the last ice age was a case of “coevolutionary disequilibrium” triggered by climate change and hunting pressure.

  4. The parallel evolution of human societies after agriculture is nothing short of astonishing. Wright (2004, pp. 50–51) describes the results of parallel evolution from hunter-gatherers to civilization in Europe and the Americas: “What took place in the early 1500s was truly exceptional, something that had never happened before and never will again. Two cultural experiments, running in isolation for 15,000 years or more, at last came face to face. Amazingly, after all that time, each could recognize the other’s institutions. When Cortés landed in Mexico he found roads, canals, cities, palaces, schools, law courts, markets, irrigation works, kings, priests, temples, peasants, artisans, armies, astronomers, merchants, sports, theatre, art, music, and books. High civilization, differing in detail but alike in essentials, had evolved independently on both sides of the earth.” As we argue throughout this paper, such results cannot be explained by chance. There must exist basic evolutionary forces driving human ultrasociality.

  5. For an illuminating discussion of the current state of the group selection controversy in biology see D.S. Wilson’s “Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection” available at http://evolution.binghamton.edu/dswilson/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Truth-and-Reconciliation.pdf.

  6. For example, more surplus supports larger groups in warfare. Those groups with institutions that led to cohesiveness (religion for example) could out compete others (Wilson 2002; Turchin 2003).

  7. For a humorous account of leveling mechanisms in hunter-gatherer cultures see “Christmas in the Kalihari” in Lee (1993).

  8. The features of the social brain and other unique biological characteristics of humans may indicate that we developing phenotypical characteristics of eusociality (Shanley and Kirkwood 2001; Foster and Ratnieks 2005).

  9. Ant ultrasociality may have also begun with cooperative hunting and ended in an unbreakable symbiotic relationship with a fungus (Mueller et al. 1998; Schultz and Brady 2008).

  10. As conscious beings with long term memory and the capacity for planning and forethought, humans can disaggregate the conception of work from its execution and further rationalize the process of production and organize economic life based on the accumulated knowledge of the past.

  11. A loss of intelligence associated with the increasing division of labor may also be present in eusocial insects. Riveros et al. (2012) tested the association between brain size and sociality across 18 species of fungus growing ants and found that increased colony size was associated with decreased relative brain size. In a study of human brain size, Geary and Bailey (2009) found that between 1.9 million and 10,000 years ago, when population density was low human cranium increased in size, but when population density increased beyond a certain point cranium size decreased. Average human brain size has decreased significantly, about 10 %, since the Upper Paleolithic.

  12. An extensive discussion of this is found in Paul Shepard’s Nature and Madness (Shepard 1982).

References

  • Abbot, P., Abe, J., Alcock, J., Alizon, S., Alpedrinha, J. A. C., Andersson, M., et al. (2011). Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality. Nature, 471, E1–E4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allman, J., McLaughlin, T., & Hakeem, A. (2005). Intuition and autism: A possible role for Von Economo neurons. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 367–373.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnosky, A. D., Hadly, E. A., Bascompte, J., Berlow, E. L., Brown, J. H., Fortelius, M., et al. (2012). Approaching a state shift in earth’s biosphere. Nature, 486, 52–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beerling, D. J. (1999). New estimates of carbon transfer to terrestrial ecosystems between the last glacial maximum and the Holocene. Terra Nova, 11, 162–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beshers, S., & Fewell, J. (2001). Models of division of labor in social insects. Annual Review of Entomology, 46, 413–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R., Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (2009). Constraints on the development of agriculture. Current Anthropology, 50, 627–631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binford, L. (1968). Post Pleistocene adaptations. In L. Binford & S. Binford (Eds.), New perspectives in Archaeology. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird-David, N. (1992). Beyond “the original affluent society”: A culturalist reformulation. with CA comment. Current Anthropology, 33, 25–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biraben, J.-N. (2003). The rising numbers of humankind. Population and Societies, 394, 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bocquet-Appel, J.-P. (2011). When the world’s population took off: The springboard of the Neolithic demographic transition. Science, 333, 560–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (1993). Egalitarian behavior and reverse dominance hierarchy. Current Anthropology, 34, 227–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (1997). Impact of the human egalitarian syndrome on Darwinian selection mechanisms. American Naturalist, 150, 100–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (2011). Moral origins: The evolution of virtue, altruism, and shame. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, S. (2011). Cultivation of cereals by the first farmers was not more productive than foraging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 108(12), 4760–4765.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, S. (2012). Darwin, Marx and Pagano: A comment on “Love, War, and Cultures”. Journal of Bioeconomics. doi:10.1007/s10818-012-9147-z.

  • Bowles, S., & Choi, J.-K. (2012). Holocene revolution: The co-evolution of agricultural technology and private property institutions. Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. (1980). Sociobiology, culture and economic theory. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1, 97–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. (1974). Downward causation in hierarchically organized biological systems. In F. Ayala & T. Dobzhansky (Eds.), Studies in the philosophy of biology: Reduction and related problems (pp. 179–186). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. (1982). Legal and primary-group social controls. In M. Gruter & P. Bohannan (Eds.), Law, biology and culture: The evolution of law (pp. 59–171). Berkeley: Bepress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. (1983). The two distinct routes beyond kin selection to ultrasociality: Implications for the humanities and social sciences. In D. L. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Theories and strategies (pp. 11–41). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cech, T. R. (2011). The RNA worlds in context. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology,. doi:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21441585.

  • Childe, V. G. (1936). Man makes himself. London: Watts & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, M. (1977). The food crisis in prehistory: Overpopulation and the origins of agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, M., & Crane-Kramer, G. (2007). Ancient health: Skeletal indicators of agricultural and economic intensification. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corning, P. (2005). Holistic Darwinism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cox, M., Morales, D., Woerner, A., Sozanski, J., Wall, J. D., et al. (2009). Autosomal resequence data reveal late stone age signals of population expansion in sub-Saharan African foraging and farming populations. PLoS ONE, 4(7), e6366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, J. (1987). The worst mistake in the history of the human race (pp. 64–66). Discover.

  • Diamond, J. (1997). Guns. Norton, New York: Germs and Steel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, J. (1998). Ants, crops, and history. Science, 281, 1974–1975.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Viking.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannery, K. (1968). Archaeological systems theory and early mesoamerica. In B. Meggers (Ed.), Anthropological archaeology in the Americas (pp. 67–87). Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, K., & Ratnieks, F. (2005). A new social vertebrate? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 20(7), 363–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frank, R. (2011). The Darwin economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. (1980). Free to choose. New York: Harcourt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geary, D., & Bailey, D. (2009). Hominid brain evolution: Testing climatic, ecological, and social competition models. Human Nature, 20, 265–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1977). Inequality, limits, and growth from a bioeconomic viewpoint. Review of Social Economy, 35, 61–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gignouxa, C., Henn, B., & Mountain, J. (2011). Rapid, global demographic expansions after the origins of agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 108(15), 6044–6049.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gould, S. J. (1990). Darwin and Paley meet the invisible hand. Natural History, 99(11), 8–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gowdy, J. (Ed.). (1998). Limited wants, unlimited means: A reader on Hunter-Gatherer economics and the environment. Washington, D.C: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gowdy, J., Dollimore, D., Wilson, D., & Witt, U. (2013). Economic cosmology and the evolutionary challenge. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.009.

  • Gowdy, J., Iorgulescu, R., & Onyeiwu, S. (2003). Fairness and retaliation in a rural Nigerian village. The Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 5, 469–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gowdy, J., & McDaniel, C. (1995). One world, one experiment: addressing the biology-economics conflict. Ecological Economics, 15, 181–192.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behavior I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–16 and 17–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henshilwood, C., d’Errico, F., Vanhaeren, M., van Niekerk, K., & Jacobs, Z. (2004). Middle stone age beads from South Africa. Science, 304, 404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, K., Barton, M., & Hurtado, M. (2009). The emergence of human uniqueness: characters underlying behavioral modernity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 18, 187–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirshleifer, J. (1977). Economics from a biological viewpoint. The Journal of Law and Economics, 20, 1–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hölldobler, B., & Wilson, E. O. (2009). The superorganism. New York: W.W Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hölldobler, B., & Wilson, E. O. (2011). The leafcutter ants. New York: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jablonski, E., & Lamb, M. (2006). Evolution in four dimensions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, N. (2011). Human influence comes of age. Nature, 473, 133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, R. (1995). The foraging spectrum. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knight, C. (2010). In U. Frey, C. Störmer, & K. Willführ (Eds.), Homo novus - a human without illusions. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

  • Krall, L., & Gowdy, J. (2012). An institutional and evolutionary critique of natural capital. In R. Steppacher & J.-F. Gerber (Eds.), Toward an integrated paradigm in heterodox economics - alternative approaches to the current eco-social crises (pp. 127–146). London: Palgrave-Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambert, P. (2009). Health versus fitness. Current Anthropology, 50(5), 603–608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, C. S. (2006). The agricultural revolution as environmental catastrophe: Implications for health and lifestyles in the Holocene. Quaternary International, 150, 12–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, R. (1968). What hunters do for a living, or, how to make out on scarce resources. Reprinted in Gowdy, 1998, 43–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, R. (1993). The Dobe Ju/’hoansi. New York: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, R., & Daly, R. (1999). Foragers and others. In R. Lee & R. Daly (Eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers (pp. 1–19). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, R., & DeVore, I. (1968). Man the hunter. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lumsden, J., & Wilson, E. O. (1981). Genes, mind, and culture: The coevolutionary process. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Margulis, L. (1970). Origin of eukaryotic cells. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Margulis, L. (1998). Symbiotic planet. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marean, C., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J., Fisher, E., Goldberg, P., Herries, A., Jacobs, Z., Jerardino, A., Karkanas, P., Minichillo, T., Nilssen, P., Thompson, E., Watts, I., & Williams, H. (2007). Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature, 449, 905–908.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maynard, Smith J., & Szathmáry, E. (1995). The major transitions in evolution. Oxford: W.H. Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, U., & Gerardo, N. (2002). Fungus-farming insects: Multiple origins and diverse evolutionary histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99(24), 15247–15249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, U., Gererdo, N., Aanen, D., Six, D., & Schultz, T. (1998). The evolution of agriculture in insects. Annual Review of Ecology and Evolutionary Systems, 36, 563–595.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, U., Rehner, A., & Schultz, T. (1998). The evolution of agriculture in ants. Science, 218, 2034–2038.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, U., Schultz, T., Currie, C., Adams, R., & Malloch, D. (2001). The origin of the attine ant-fungus mutualism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 76:169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, M. (2003). Overkill and sustainable use. Science, 299, 1851–1853.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M., & Hightower, R. (2011). Super cooperators. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M., Tarnita, C., & Wilson, E. O. (2010). The evolution of eusociality. Nature, 466, 1057–1062.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell, S., Kaspari, M., & Lattke, J. (2005). Extraordinary predation by the neotropical army ant Cheliomyrmex andicola: Implications for the evolution of the army any syndrome. Biotropica, 37, 706–709.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pagel, M. (2012). Wired for culture. New York: Norton/Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ponting, C. (2009). A new green history of the world. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, D., & Bar-Yosef, O. (2011). The origins of agriculture: New data, new ideas. Current Anthropology, 52, S163-S174.

  • Pringle, H. (2013). The origins of creativity. Scientific American, 308(3), 37–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (1998). The evolution of human ultrasociality. In I. Eibl-Eibisfeldt & F. Salter (Eds.), Ideology, warfare, and indoctrinability. London: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (1999). The evolutionary dynamics of a crude superorganism. Human Nature, 10, 253–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P., Boyd, R., & Bettinger, R. (2001). Was agriculture impossible during the pleistocene but mandatory during the holocene? A climate change hypothesis. American Antiquity, 66, 387–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rindos, D. (1984). The origins of agriculture: An evolutionary perspective. San Diego: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riveros, A., Seid, M., & Wcislo, W. (2012). Evolution of brain size in class-based societies of fungus-growing ants (Attini). Animal Behavior, 83, 1043–1049.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rule, S., Brook, B., Haberle, S., Turney, C., Kershaw, P., & Johnson, C. (2012). The aftermath of megafaunal extinction: Ecosystem transformation in Pleistocene Australia. Science, 335, 1483–1486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahlins, M. (1968). The original affluent society. Reprinted in Gowdy, 1998, 5–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schultz, T., & Brady, S. (2008). Major evolutionary transitions in ant agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 105, 5435–5440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shanley, D., & Kirkwood, T. (2001). Evolution of the human menopause. BioEssays, 23, 282–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepard, P. (1982). Nature and madness. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherwood, C., Subiaul, F., & Zadiszki, T. (2008). A natural history of the human mind: Tracing evolutionary changes in brain and cognition. Journal of Anatomy, 212, 426–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. (1776) [1965]. The wealth of nations. New Rochelle: Arlington House.

  • Steffen, W., Crutzen, P., & McNeill, J. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio, 36, 614–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tainter, J. (1988). The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turchin, P. (2003). Historical dynamics: Why states rise and fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turchin, P. (2006). War and peace and war: The life cycles of imperial nations. Upper Saddle River: Pi Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turchin, P. (2010). Warfare and the evolution of social complexity: A multilevel-selection approach. Structure and Dynamics, 4, available at: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7j11945r.

  • van den Bergh, J., & Gowdy, J. (2009). A group selection perspective on economic behavior, institutions and organizations. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 72, 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wexler, B. E. (2006). Brain and culture. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S. (1997). Human groups as units of selection. Science, 276, 1816–1817.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S. (2002). Darwin’s cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S. (2007). Evolution for everyone: How Darwin’s theory can change the way we think about our lives. New York: Delacorte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S. (2010). Truth and reconciliation for group selection. available at http://evolution.binghamton.edu/dswilson/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Truth-and-Reconciliation.pdf.

  • Wilson, D. S., & Gowdy, J. (2013). Evolution as a general theoretical framework for economics and public policy. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.008.

  • Wilson, D. S., & Gowdy, J. Under review. Ultrasociality and the invisible hand.

  • Wilson, D. S., Ostrom, E., & Cox, M. (2013). Generalizing the core design principles for the efficacy of groups. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. In press.

  • Wilson, D. S., & Wilson, E. O. (2007). Rethinking the theoretical foundation of sociobiology. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 82, 327–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of earth. New York: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, E. O. (2013). The riddle of the human species. The New York Times Opinionator, February 14. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/the-riddle-of-the-human-species/.

  • Wilson, E. O., & Hölldobler, B. (2005). Eusociality: Origin and consequences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(38), 13367–13371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Witt, U. (2005). Production in nature and production in the economy: Second thoughts about some basic economic concepts. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 16, 165–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Witt, U., & Schwesinger, G. (2013). Phylogenetic footprints in organizational behavior. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.011.

  • Woodburn, J. (1982). Egalitarian societies. Man, 17, 431–451 (reprinted in Gowdy 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, R. (2004). A short history of progress. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zvelebil, M., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (1986). Foragers and farmers in Atlantic Europe. In M. Zvelebil (Ed.), Hunters in transition (pp. 67–93). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following for comments on an earlier draft: Jennifer Fewell, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Dan Franks, Michael Ghiselin, Mason Inman, Clark Spencer Larsen, Doug Price, Peter Richerson, Simron Singh, Arild Vatn, David Sloan Wilson and Ulrich Witt. The comments of four anonymous reviewers were particularly useful. They are not, of course, responsible for the opinions expressed in this paper. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of discussions with the participants in a series of workshops funded by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) at Duke University and a workshop “Evolution and Bioeconomics” at Ringberg Castle, Germany sponsored by the Max Planck Institute at Jena.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Gowdy.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gowdy, J., Krall, L. Agriculture as a major evolutionary transition to human ultrasociality. J Bioecon 16, 179–202 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-013-9156-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-013-9156-6

Keywords

JEL Classification

Navigation