Which, then, more resembled the original state of human affairs: the easy-going Hadza, or the industrious foragers of northwestern California? By now it will be clear to the reader that this is just the kind of question we shouldn’t be asking. There was no truly ‘original’ state of affairs. Anyone who insists that one exists is by definition trading in myths (Sahlins, at least, was fairly honest about this). Human beings had many tens of thousands of years to experiment with different ways of life, long before any of them turned their hands to agriculture. Instead we might do better to look at
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