As farmers spread, they transformed their surroundings. Everywhere, farmers cut back forests, built villages, plowed up the land, drove off pests, and dug up weeds. By its very nature, farming required a manipulative attitude to the environment. While foragers normally thought of themselves as embedded within the biosphere, farmers saw the environment as something to be managed, cultivated, exploited, improved, and even conquered. And while collective learning gave farmers the knowledge they needed to manipulate their environments, farming gave them the food and energy flows they needed to
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