We can be pretty sure that the first farmers took up farming reluctantly, because living standards seem to have declined in early agrarian villages. The skeletons found in early farming villages in the Fertile Crescent are usually shorter than those of neighboring foragers, which suggests that their diets were less varied. Though farmers could produce more food, they were also more likely to starve, because, unlike foragers, they relied on a small number of staple crops, and if those crops failed, they were in serious trouble. The bones of early farmers show evidence of vitamin deficiencies,
...more
