Question

The authors of the textbook believe that the principal reason for the slow pace of deep history was:

a. Because collecting vegetal foods, fishing, and hunting are not safe or dependable ways of securing nourishment.
b. The fact that foragers had more leisure time than farmers.
c. The conscious effort of foragers to limit population growth and group size.
d. Because all humans retreated southward during the last Ice Age.

Answer 1

The primary reason for the slow pace of deep history was the precariousness of the hunting-gathering lifestyle, which did not support significant population growth due to the lack of a food surplus.

Step-by-step explanation:

The principal reason for the slow pace of deep history, according to the authors of the textbook, was largely due to the hunting-gathering lifestyle which did not produce a significant surplus of food. The hunter-gatherer existence was incredibly precarious, making it difficult to sustain significant population growth. Ancient humans were dependent on the natural resources in their immediate environment such as animals, fruits, vegetables, and cereals, and they had to move once these were depleted, as they had no means of preserving or transporting food in large quantities.

Further examination into the transition to agriculture reveals that hunter-gatherers actually had more leisure time compared to farmers and saw no advantage in adopting agriculture. In fact, for 95 percent of evolutionary history, humans and their ancestors relied on gathering and hunting, implying that it's closely aligned with human evolution and brain development. The eventual shift towards farming facilitated the development of cities and led to changes in social structures and cultural values, as agriculture allowed for surplus production, wealth accumulation, and social stratification.