The Innate Nature of Economics - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 40

often-contested boundaries based on a sense of personal ownership. The
Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped valley stretching from just south of
modern-day Jerusalem, northward along the Mediterranean coast to present-
day Syria, eastward through present-day Iraq, and then southward along the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf. Although sparsely inhabited
for centuries, it is thought that agriculture originated in this valley around
8000 bce. The region was not only greener in those days, but it was also home
to a great diversity of annual plants, including grasses with large seeds, such
as wild wheat and barley, which grew in abundance. In fact, the wild variet-
ies of wheat have higher nutritional values than domestic wheat. 5 This com-
bination of factors allowed tribes of nomadic hunters, gatherers, and herders
to settle along the lush banks of the rivers, where the fertile soil and plentiful
water made it possible for them to become the world's first farmers. The riv-
ers also provided fish that were used both as food and fertilizer, as well as
giant reeds and clay for building materials.
“One of the most important developments in the existence of human soci-
ety was the successful shift from a subsistence economy based on foraging
to one primarily based on food production derived from cultivated plants
and domesticated animals.” 2 Being able to grow one's own food was a sub-
stantial hedge against hunger and thus proved to be the impetus for settle-
ment that, in turn, became the foundation of civilization. Farming gave rise
to social planning as once-nomadic tribes settled down and joined coopera-
tive forces. Irrigation arose in response to the need of supporting growing
populations—and so the discipline of agriculture was born. 6
Around 5000 bce, the first cities were constructed in the southern part of
this long valley, near the Persian Gulf, by an intelligent, resourceful, and
energetic people who became known as the Sumerians. The Sumerians grad-
ually extended their civilization northward over the decades to becoming
the first great empire—Mesopotamia, the name given to this geographical
area by the ancient Greeks, meaning “land between two rivers.” 7
As the farming population grew, groups of people migrated northwest-
ward out of the Fertile Crescent and colonized much of what is Europe today.
As they did so, they replaced the indigenous hunter-gatherers, some of which
may have taken up farming rather than surrender their home territories to
the newcomers. Nevertheless, data indicate that the newly arrived farmers
bred at a rate sufficient to keep their population expanding northwestward. 8
The shift from a hunter-gatherer way of life to one of increased sedentism
(the term archaeologists use to describe the process of settling down) and its
concomitant social interaction and the maintenance of permanent agricul-
tural fields and irrigation canals occurred in just a few independent centers
around the world. One center was the circumscribed upper-middle Zaña
Valley of Peru (as opposed to a low, broad valley), where four canals, drawn
from hydraulically manageable small, lateral streams, were found on the
southern side of the river flowing through the valley. The canals, stacked on
top of one another, were dated from 1,190 years ago (the most recent) to about