For roughly 200,000 years, Homo sapiens lived as hunter-gatherers. They moved with the seasons, ate a varied diet of meat, fish, fruits, nuts, and tubers, and worked maybe 15-20 hours a week to feed themselves. Skeletal evidence from this era shows tall, robust, well-nourished people. Average male height: about 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm). Few signs of infectious disease. Few cavities.

Then around 10,000 BCE, in the Fertile Crescent, humans started farming. They settled. They began cultivating wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas, and domesticating goats, sheep, and cattle. Within a few thousand years, agriculture had spread across the world.

The skeletal record around this transition is brutal. Average male height dropped to about 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm). Tooth decay exploded as carbohydrates dominated diets. Iron deficiency became common. Joint damage from repetitive grain-grinding labor appeared in nearly every adult skeleton. Infectious diseases — measles, smallpox, influenza — emerged because humans now lived in dense, sedentary populations near domesticated animals. Average lifespan dropped.

Why didn't agriculture get abandoned? Because farming, despite making the average person worse off, supported far more people per square kilometer. A hunter-gatherer band of 30 might cover thousands of square kilometers. A farming village of 500 might fit on a few hectares. A society that adopted agriculture quickly outnumbered the bands around it. The choice wasn't between farming and hunting; it was between farming and being displaced.

Agriculture also made elites possible. Surplus grain could be stored, taxed, and controlled. The first cities, kingdoms, and slaves all appeared within a few thousand years of the first farms.

The richest period in human history, by skeletal evidence, ended when farming began.