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Are you referring to people who came across the pacific from Asia?
Yes
It would be an incredibly new concept for hunter-gatherers.
8,000 BCE or 4,000 BCE ... Had to start sometime.
I haven't heard that one before but it sounds like you're saying agriculture is the cause for the loss of fertility
Over use of the soils. Yes.
So how did Fertile Crescent peoples lose that big lead? The short answer is ecological suicide: They inadvertently destroyed the environmental resources on which their society depended. Just as the region's rise wasn't due to any special virtue of its people, its fall wasn't due to any special blindness on their part. Instead, they had the misfortune to be living in an extremely fragile environment, which, because of its low rainfall, was particularly susceptible to deforestation.
The Erosion of Civilization - Los Angeles Times
do you have any links for that? I would be interested in reading about it. AFAIK, the changes in the region were caused by climate and possibly aggravated by agricultural practices which used up the fertility. I have never heard of a theory that left climate changes out of it.
PS - I also wonder if part of the reason for so little domestication of animals in the New World might be due to a shortage of domesticable animals on the continent.
Agriculture fueled a population explosion, and also generated food surpluses that could be used to feed full-time professional specialists, who no longer had to devote time to procuring their own food.
These specialists fed by agriculture included smiths and metal workers, who developed the world's first copper tools around 5000 BC, bronze tools around 3000 BC and iron tools around 1500 BC. The specialists also included accountants and scribes, who developed the world's first writing system around 3400 BC. That was a huge head start: Writing didn't reach what is now the United States until 5,000 years later. It makes Iraq's current rate of illiteracy an especially cruel irony.
Agriculture also fed politicians, bureaucrats and judges. That's why the world's first states arose in Iraq around 3500 BC, and the first multiethnic empire arose there around 3000 BC.
The Erosion of Civilization - Los Angeles Times