But when the Paleolithic era came to an end with the waning of the last major ice age, humanity freed itself of the need—which limits and circumscribes the lives of all other animals—to be perpetually engaged in the search for something to eat. When the technology of agriculture made it possible for humanity to produce its own food and store it for the future, our species cast off a burden that it had borne, along with all other animals, since its beginning. Unbound from the daily search for food, our ancestors settled down in permanent settlements composed of hundreds and even thousands of
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