Lecture 5 - The Effects Of The Agricultural Revolution On Human Psychology

Question 1

How genetically similar do we now know humans are?

How genetically similar are we to chimps?

Answer 1

99. 5%

98. 5%

Question 2

How many people were in the population 60000 years ago compared to 3000 years ago?

Answer 2

60,000 years ago = 250,000

3000 years ago = 60 million

Question 3

In a larger population what happens with rare beneficial mutations ?

Answer 3

They become more frequent in the population. The mutation spreads quickly through the population because it does it exponentially.

Question 4

Sometimes it can be said beneficial mutations spread the same way as a disease epidemic. What do we mean by this?

Answer 4

2 people have it, those two last it on to 2 more therefore 4 etc.
2 - 4 - 8 - 16
The larger the population, the faster the beneficial mutation will spread.

Question 5

What was the single biggest change in human history?

Answer 5

Moving from hunter gatherer society to agriculture

Question 6

Where did agriculture start?

Answer 6

Middle East in the “Fertile Crescent”

Question 7

Which aspect of farming did we start with 8000-12000 years ago?

Answer 7

Domestication of animals, we started with hosts, then moved onto sheep then cattle. This was all in the Middle East.

Question 8

Which food products did we begin farming with first? Approx 11,500 years ago
Which came around 9,000 years ago?

Answer 8

Wheat and barley

Rice and millet

Question 9

When, approximately, did farming spread to Africa and the US? What did they farm?

Answer 9

Around 4,000 years ago
Africa - sorghum and yams
US - maize and potatoes

Question 10

List 3 areas not suitable for agriculture? What do we call these areas?

Answer 10

Arctic
Amazon jungle
Desert
Marginalised areas

Question 11

In marginalised areas, what kind of society do they live in?

Answer 11

You live in a hunter gatherer society still, e.g. Kalahari bushmen or Inuits

Question 12

What is the relationship between population density and number of calories per acre?

Answer 12

The more calories per acre possible the more densely packed the population. This means for countries that grow rice, which is very good for calories per acre have very large populations e.g. India and China

Question 13

In hunter gatherer society you share everything and therefore everyone is equal. In agriculture, there is a hierarchy. What does this mean?

Answer 13

Means there is specialisation, so some people are farmers, some people are craftsman some are in the army.

Question 14

If we have specialisation what do we then need to organise everyone?

Answer 14

Someone at the top of the pyramid/politics

Question 15

How do farmers differ from hunter gatherers?
I) life longevity, frailty
II) intelligence
III) personality

Answer 15

I) farmers lead shorter, weaker and more diseased lives
II) but have more intelligence in terms of “g”
III) different kind of personality, more conscientious because you have to plan ahead, understand seasons, plan for bad weather etc.

Question 16

Over many generations of farming, what has happened to the aggressive hunter gatherer personality type?

Answer 16

It’s been tamed, and replaced for the conscientious, more intelligent and more hardworking farmer temperament.

Question 17

So name 5 reasons how natural selection worked on the human race over the hunter gatherer to agricultural era?

Answer 17

1) lower mortality rates of those who are intelligent. So they have longer to reproduce
2) lower mortality of children with intelligent parents because they were protected from hazards and diseases
3) in agricultural systems there’s a hierarchy so those who were more intelligent had mo resources like food and resistance to food
4) sexual selection: arranged marriages are done by parents so if they’re intelligent they’ll pick a suitor for the right reasons and because they’ll choose someone of similar economic background.

Question 18

How genetically different did we think humans were originally?

Answer 18

99.9% similar in terms of what genes they have