The Meme Machine

26 THE MEME MACHINE
Inventions as memes
Another example is the spread of inventions. Probably the most important of all
‘inventions’ in human history was that of farming. Although there are still many
arguments over the details, archaeologists generally agree that before about
10000 years ago all humans lived by hunting and gathering. Dating from around
that time, finds in the Middle East include grains that are larger, and sheep and
cattle that are smaller than their wild relatives and presumably domesticated.
Farming then spread in a great wave, reaching places like Ireland and
Scandinavia by about 4500 years ago. Just how many times food production
arose independently is not known for sure although probably at least five times
and possible many more (Diamond 1997).
Diamond has explored the whole vexed question of why some peoples in
some parts of the world ended up with all the goods – from food production to
guns, germs and steel – while some have ended up still hunting and foraging,
and others were completely wiped out. His answer has little to do with
geography and climate. Food production and skills that went along with it,
could spread easily across Europe with its East-West axis, but could not spread
easily in the Americas with their North-South axis, dramatic climate variations,
deserts and mountain ranges. Australia had no suitable domesticable animals,
after the first humans who arrived obliterated the tame creatures they found
there, and other islands, like New Guinea, are so mountainous and variable that
techniques suitable in one place are unsuitable a few miles away. With this kind
of analysis Diamond has explained how farming spread, bringing more complex
societies in its wake.
But why did farming spread at all? The answer might seem to be obvious –
for example, that farming makes life easier or happier, or that it provides a
genetic advantage to the people who practise it.
In fact, it seems that farming did not make life easier, nor did it improve
nutrition, or reduce disease. The British science writer Colin Tudge (1995)
describes farming as ‘the end of Eden’. Rather than being easier, the life of
early farmers was utter misery. Early Egyptian skeletons tell a story of a terrible
life. Their toes and backs are deformed by the way people had to grind corn to
make bread; they dhow signs of rickets and of terrible abscesses in their jaws.
Probably few lived beyond the age of thirty. Stories in the Old Testament
describe the arduous work of farmers and, after all, Adam was thrown out of
Eden and told ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt though eat bread’. By contrast,