James C Scott
Chapter 1 Oldest part of cave. No carbon. Whole larger cat skeletons with lots of other animal partial and chewed bones including hominids. Then carbon and whole hominid Skelton’s with chewed animal bones including large cats.
At least 400,000 hace. Human fire are landscape architecture. Momentous affects over time. Deliberate disturbance environment. Beavers with fire. Adapted ourselves to fire. Little ice age 1500-1850 might been caused by vast reduction in native America fire farming caused by the massive annihilation of people due to small pox and other European animal Born diseases.
Cooking. Externalization of digestion. Eat less and gain nutrients with less cause. Gut half size and smaller teeth. May let us grow brain. brain and small guy due to cooking. Less energy to eating and digesting.
Chapter 2. Fire6,000 years ago. Thousands years after sedenism and agriculture.
Long duree French annals school. Look for long currents. This is species view. 200,000 sapiens. 12,000 agriculture. 6,000 walled, taxing states. 3100 BCE
Mythology of framing set in religion. Gods weather and grain. Domus and ideology this is progress. Yet lots of evidence of people fighting against it. Mobile subsistence healthier much much more free.
Most people live outside states. 1/3 of globe still free up to 400 years ago. Many move in and out of state. 1600 CE is time of states. Outside of maya most new worlds free for long time.
Dark ages – collapse – very common. We know little about theM. Buildings not built. No writing. But little evidence that it was bad for anyone except elites. People just go back to smaller groups.
Flight from the state was very common. Slavery, bondage and forced resettlement extend not easy to tell. States need grain crop that can be measured and taxed. With people to work it. Varied and rich area not good for state. People can fend for themselves. Unfree labor very important to that state in all regions. Walls built to keep taxpayers in more than invaders out. Early states fragile labor environment epidemic.
Disease affects from crops people livestock
Ecology deforestation and resulting siltation of waterways. Salinization of fields from irrigation. Chapter 3 fire 400,000 at least. Transform landscape. Farming method by changing Fire to drive herd animals off cliffs. Forest cover in us was result of due off of indigenous fire farmers. Disturbance agriculture.
Cooking. Externalizations digestion. Gather and eat manny more food. 23,000 in Rift Valley 4 food webs. Easy weaning and keep old alive. Efficiency of eating gave juic for brain to grow. We fire adapted. Dependent on it.
10,000 BCE lake agacie into ocean. 9600 cold broke and nature bust out. 8000-6000 all cereals domesticated. And most animals. 3000 first state.
Mesothelioma was wetland flood plain crisscrossed streams. Turtle backs people lived on.
Sedentism at seams of numerous ecological zones. Fresh and salt water. Stay in same place while seasonal food came to them. Common property resources. That all had access to. No single important food that could be controlled from the center. A complex substance environment is not good for state.
Chapter 4 People reshaped the world long before Neolithic. We practiced all those skills in different ways and diff times
Back to the wall – farming hard work people did it only cause they had to get more calories out if ground. But stated where food abundance. Game present. No evidence of droughts.
We have no idea why people started doing it. But farm domus comenciles all critters including us changed radically living on farm. Silver foxes 10 gen 18% waging tail. Body change. Adult early. Retain junvinile form. Smaller jaw. Smaller brain. Limbic system. Nervous system. Emotional reactivity. Less alert. More kids and early.
Did this change happen to us? New diseases. Smaller than wild. Iron deficiency. Tooth size reduction. Jaw reduction. Loss of bone mass. See in archeological. Living in protected environment of the domus. Did our emotional reactivity diminish?240 gen / 160 since sed wide spread. Contraction of diet, knowledge of world, space and maybe ritual life.
Chapter 5 Broad spectrum rev wet warmer after 9600 people had to forage harder and lead to agriculture. Not much good effort.
First 1000 years of ag not much pop growth. Disease the reason v
800-900 of 1400 pathogens zoonotic. Most we are dead end host. We don’t pas.
Trade spread disease. Created second round of disease pools. 1bce new swelling of infection. Kill enough people in city so people flew, no workers. State fails. Even just fear of disease, cause people to run. Nutritional distress arises with agriculture Sedentary not in delta. Yellow nile or meso. Resist state
Chapter 6 Only ceral grain for state. As they can be taxed. Grow above ground, divisible counted by weight and volume, mature at same time. Harvested at once. Legumes could work but ripen continuously
People leave. Not until state monopolies pro fiction do workers stayUsed to all own resources in common.
Chapter 7 States very fragile. We see this as going back or dark age. But populations not always change much. People go back to other forms of org, smaller villages. or even foraging. No big buildings, no elites, no writing. Might be better for health and nutrition, more free. Less tax. Less work.
States modular. May not mean much of Center splits. Ends might be fine. 1800-700 bce settlements down by 75% region wide. Could be climate, trade, environment.
Environment causes harder to see but might be substantial. Deforestation- more silt into water and slowly clog canals and rivers. Over time, shit themselves off from trade.
Salination – using irrigation, water had salt not taken up by plants. Overtime salt builds up and ruins fields. Barely more tolerant. 2400bce big problem. In a salty place, in brackish water.
Amphibious peasemtry. Able to move tween modes. 2ndary primitive leaving the state. Many reasons. And over time % who had time in a state and time free. Political refugees