Final answer:
Early agriculture during the Neolithic age meant a less diverse diet, focusing on staple crops with lower meat consumption, but allowed for larger human populations, food surpluses, and complex societal structures.
Step-by-step explanation:
From the information provided about the Neolithic age, we can infer that early agriculture led to a shift from a varied diet to one that was less diverse but more consistent. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a diet rich in variety due to their lifestyle of moving from place to place and consuming various available resources. In contrast, Neolithic agriculture revolved around one or two staple crops, which were usually starchy carbohydrates like grains, and as a result, early farmers had a more monotonous diet. Though they had domesticated animals, their meat consumption was also lower compared to their hunter-gatherer predecessors. While this shift to agriculture and domestication might have led to potential deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals, the advantages included the ability of these new farming communities to support much larger populations, create food surpluses, and develop more complex societal structures.
Moreover, it's important to recognize the significant cultural shift that occurred during the Neolithic Revolution. Communities transitioned from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one, fostering the development of settlements and eventually the rise of civilization. Despite the reduction of leisure time and the restructuring of egalitarian societies into hierarchical ones, agriculture enabled human populations to settle in one place, benefitting from a stable, though less varied, food supply.