POLS 196 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Anatomically Modern Human, Aurochs, Resource Depletion
6 Feb 2020
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Long-standing debate over structure versus agency: do our individual choices determine or actions or do the structures within society control and influence our choices. Agents can influence structure since it is reproduced through them and thus able to be shifted by them. One cannot be reduced to itself; interplay cannot be ignored. Neolithic revolution: transition from hunter gathering society to an agrarian one: switch enhanced the hierarchy and stratification in society because landowners profited and controlled resources, dependency on a small number of crops/ nutrient source is greatly increased. Early domesticated crops lack many of the nutrients that hunter gatherers consumed: women have more children because they moved last and didn"t have to worry about transporting them, and more kids met more workers. Anatomically modern humans emerged 30-0 to 800 thousand years ago: agriculture has been around for about 12,000 years. Emerged independently in several places at different times.
