The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber

Comprising well-watered soils, annually sifted by river action, and rich wetland and waterside habitats favoured by migratory game and waterfowl, such deltaic environments were major attractors for human populations. Neolithic farmers gravitated to them, along with their crops and livestock. Hardly surprising, considering these were effectively scaled-up versions of the kind of river, spring and lakeside environments in which Neolithic horticulture first began, but with one other major difference: just over the horizon lay the open sea, and before it expansive marshlands supplying aquatic resources to buffer the risks of farming, as well as a perennial source of organic materials (reeds, fibres, silt) to support construction and manufacturing.16 All this, combined with the fertility of alluvial soils further inland, promoted the growth of more specialized forms of farming in Eurasia, including the use of animal-drawn ploughs (also adopted in Egypt by 3000 BC), and the breeding of sheep for wool. Extensive agriculture may thus have been an outcome, not a cause, of urbanization.17