The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Discover Magazine, May 1987)

A set of practice flashcards covering key concepts from Jared Diamond's article on the impact of agriculture on human history, including health, nutrition, inequality, and population dynamics.

What is Jared Diamond's central claim about the adoption of agriculture in The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race?

Agriculture was a catastrophe that brought social and sexual inequality, disease, and tyranny, offering poorer overall health and quality of life compared to hunter-gatherer societies.

How did hunter-gatherers typically obtain food and how was their life described by some philosophers before the advent of agriculture?

They hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants; life was traditionally described as nasty, brutish, and short.

What methods do paleopathologists use to assess health in ancient populations?

They analyze skeletal remains for sex, weight, age, growth rates, enamel defects, signs of anemia, bone lesions, and disease-related changes to infer health and life expectancy.

What change in average height does the article report after the adoption of agriculture in ancient Greece and Turkey?

Average height declined: ~5'9" for men and ~5'5" for women before agriculture, dropping to ~5'3" for men and ~5'0" for women after adoption.

What health changes were observed at Dickson Mounds following a shift to intensive maize farming around AD 1150?

Enamel defects increased by about 50%, iron-deficiency anemia rose fourfold, bone lesions from infectious disease rose threefold, spine degeneration increased, and life expectancy at birth dropped from ~26 to ~19 years.

List three reasons Diamond gives for why agriculture negatively affected health compared to hunting and gathering.

1) Diet became less varied and more carbohydrate-heavy; 2) Reliance on a few crops increased famine risk if one failed; 3) Crowded settlements promoted parasites and infectious diseases.

How did agriculture contribute to social inequality, according to the article?

Agriculture allowed a non-producing elite to accumulate food and wealth, creating better-off elites and poorer, disease-ridden masses.

What does Diamond say about the impact of farming on women?

Farming often burdened women with heavy loads and higher fertility, leading to health drains and greater health disparities between sexes.

Why did some hunter-gatherer bands switch to farming despite health costs, according to Diamond?

Because farming supported a much larger population density, enabling more people to be fed even though average health declined; it outcompeted hunter-gatherers in numbers.

What misconception about leisure time and art does Diamond challenge with regard to agriculture?

He argues that leisure time and art did exist among hunter-gatherers before agriculture, so farming did not uniquely enable art or leisure.

Explain the 24-hour clock analogy used in the essay.

If human history were a 24-hour day, hunter-gatherers occupied nearly the entire day and agriculture arrived at about 11:54 p.m., illustrating how recent farming is.

What is the 'Might makes right' explanation for population growth in the shift to farming?

Farming supports far more people per area, increasing population density; hunter-gatherers had to limit births or risk being outbred and displaced by farming bands.

Which diseases are associated with the rise of large urban populations due to agriculture, according to the article?

Measles and bubonic plague appeared with the growth of large cities; earlier crowding allowed tuberculosis and diarrheal diseases to emerge later with farming.

What crops supplied the bulk of calories for early agricultural societies, and what nutritional problem did this create?

Wheat, rice, and corn provided most calories; each is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.

What evidence from Dickson Mounds supports the claim that elites had better health than commoners in ancient societies?

Royal and elite individuals showed taller stature and better teeth (Mycenae), and Chilean elites around AD 1000 had fewer bone lesions and wealth-related ornaments, indicating better health and nutrition.