We need to understand this 3,000-year period as an important phase of human history in its own right. It’s a phase marked by foragers moving in and out of cultivation – and as we’ve seen, there’s nothing unusual or anomalous about this flirting and tinkering with the possibilities of farming, in just the ways Plato would have despised – but in no way enslaving themselves to the needs of their crops or herds. So long as it didn’t become too onerous, cultivation was just one of many ways in which early settled communities managed their environments. Separating wild and domestic plant populations
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