How does stress theory explain the growth of agriculture? How does the abundance theory oppose these ideas? What are flaws or exceptions to both theories?
What will be an ideal response?
A. Stress Theory
1) Agriculture is a response to stress from population growth and overexploitation of wild foods
2) scarce resources should not lead to population growth but once a community commits to agriculture they have too much to lose if they abandon it
3) while population rises it is impossible to go back to more intensive food strategies
B. Theory of Abundance
1) agriculture not a response to stress but a by-product of leisure and abundance
2) several examples of abundance theory in opposition of stress theory
a) fishermen in Southeast Asia who devoted their spare time to experimenting with plants
b) hill dwellers in northern Iraq, whose habitat was peculiarly rich in easily domesticated grasses and grazing herds used abundance to begin agriculture in the region
c) cultivation began as a result of concentrations of pockets of abundance in Central Asia in the post–Ice-Age era of global warming
C. Both theories have flaws and exceptions
1) Stress theory as a result of population pressure does not match the timetable as an explanation for why agriculture arose in the first place
a) growth was probably more a consequence of agriculture than a cause
2) Abundance theory does not explain why, in good times, people would want to change how they got their food and take on extra work
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