The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race - Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards based on Jared Diamond's essay examining the cultural and biological impacts of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

Progressivist view

The perspective that human history over the past million years has been a tale of progress, holding that agriculture was adopted because it provided an efficient way to get more food for less work and enabled cultural developments.

Revisionist interpretation

The perspective that the adoption of agriculture was a catastrophe from which humans have never recovered, bringing gross social and sexual inequality, disease, and despotism.

Neolithic revolution

The historical transition from food foraging to farming that occurred approximately 10,000 years ago as human populations began domesticating plants and animals.

Hunter-gatherers

People who obtain food by hunting wild animals and foraging for wild plants rather than cultivating crops or raising livestock.

Paleopathology

The discipline focused on the study of signs of disease in the physical remains of ancient peoples.

Porotic hyperostosis

A bone condition found in ancient skeletons that serves as evidence of iron-deficiency anemia.

Dickson Mounds

An archaeological site near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois Rivers where study of excavated skeletons demonstrated severe health declines following the transition to intensive maize farming around A.D. 1150.

Social stratification

Deep class divisions made possible by farming, where a healthy, non-producing elite sets itself above the working masses.

Domestication of plants and animals

The process of selectively breeding and raising wild plant and animal species for human use and consumption, beginning around 10,000 years ago.

Agricultural development

The adoption and expansion of farming systems, which yielded higher crop production per acre but led to nutritional deficiencies, vulnerability to crop failure, and disease spread from population crowding.