Just one point that Earthstepper mentioned on the other thread (which is getting too huge for my temporary 1 GB PC):
"Terms like hunting, herding and farming need to be clear. All too often we read of the move from hunting/gathering to farming with "one mighty bound". What do we mean by "farming"? The term is often specifically used to mean agriculture "
It is good that you mention this, E.S. People tend to over-simplify and generalize things in order to comprehend the vast flimsy expanses of Prehistory.
You know how Japan's prehistory kicks the tight arses of European archaeologists. What stunned them once is that Japan had an incredibly long paleolithic (called Jomon), and yet they produced the first pottery in the world BEFORE becoming farmers. Some researchers even deny that they were not 'farmers' because they intentionally grew chest nut trees in their forests. What does one call that? Are they still...'hunter gatherers'?
I get tired of reading that the Paleolithics were hunters and spent their miserable lives in search of animals. The Paleolithics were not meat-eaters alone, in fact, research on the matter indicates the opposite - their diets are 65% plant and 35% meat. *Hunter gatherers* should be called *Gatherer Hunters* or even *Gatherer Fishermen*.
Undoubtedly conditions may have been bad, but not worse than if all of the tribe's survival depended on the crops - a bad harvest surely meant starvation and struggle. Especially if the community had lost the incredible specialization and knowledge of the natural world by becoming settlers.
In the summer gatherers can live on fruits, roots, herbs; in the autumn from mushrooms, nuts and berries. This can be complemented by small insects, birds and fish without the need to spend your days and energy "chasing rabbits".
Blame all of those popular TV programmes where dirty sweaty people in rags chase mammoths with clubs. In the same way that the early Japanese had no need to become farmers (like in China or Korea) until much later, indicates they probably saw it as stupid, unnecessary and 'foreign' (from beyond the sea). And it was later imposed on them by the Farmers (Yayoy) who dropped in from the Continent in very small numbers. Soon you had a small warlike population building huge mounds and dolmens everywhere around the south-west calling the northern Jomon natives - 'the savages'.
And farming was not always adopted totally. Some took pastoralism, some part time, some only a few elements depending the climate in your region or the fickle nature of your land.
You know in Sweden farming arrived around 4,000 BCE and was 'dropped' at some point by some regions when conditions became too bad. People returned to the 'paleolithic'! BUT they retained their domestized pigs!
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