misconception is that there is necessarily a sharp divide between nomadic hunter-gatherers and sedentary food producers. In reality, although we frequently draw such a contrast, hunter-gatherers in some productive areas, including North America’s Pacific Northwest coast and possibly southeastern Australia, became sedentary but never became food producers. Other hunter-gatherers, in Palestine, coastal Peru, and Japan, became sedentary first and adopted food production much later. Sedentary groups probably made up a much higher fraction of hunter-gatherers 15,000 years ago, when all inhabited
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