If most of the social and technological changes typically viewed as the outcome of food production and domestication really began earlier in Mesolithic or complex hunter-gatherer contexts, then what were the real consequences of food production and domestication? It could be argued that for the first millen-ium or two after the appearance of domestication, there are not any fundamental changes. At most, there may be some intensification of production (with initial domesticated forms) and elaboration of social, ritual, political, and technological trends begun in Mesolithic types of societies as well as shifts in settlement patterns to take advantage of the best food-producing areas.
However, over the long term, it was possible to gradually modify and increase the productivity of plants and animals through genetic manipulation and labor investment (weeding, tilling, watering, fertilizing, mulching). In this fashion, food production using domesticates eventually provided the potential of expanding the resource base in an elastic fashion (almost without ultimate upper limits) that other forms of intensified collection of wild foods did not. Certainly, fishing and the production of nonfood prestige items could not be modified in this fashion.
Thus, the immediate social consequences of food production (using domesticates, especially for occasional feasts) may not have changed the basic way of life from that of complex hunter-gatherers to any significant extent. However, ultimately, with refinements in the genetic productivity of crops, food production made it possible to support denser populations, larger communities, greater surpluses, and more complex sociopolitical systems.
World History
