Before you go flipping the channel, Dagwood, this is based on actual science.
During the times of the Romans, there was the massive empire fighting to subjugate the tribes of Europe, all of which were meat-eating hunter/gatherers. This continued for centuries but the Romans never did manage to defeat the Germanic tribes. How much the Romans were able to convert hunter/gatherer tribes into pastoral farmers is unknown but the general environment was one filled with meat eaters.
The research mentioned at the top was that which discovered the migration of farmers from Greece and Turkey into Europe, presumably around the 3rd or 4th Century, and the remarkable thing about them is they brought genetic markers with them which made them identifiable as a population. This showed researchers that population remained tight with itself and did not interbreed much with the hunter/gatherer tribes for several centuries after they arrived.
Likely the original hunter/gatherers would have regarded the 'invading farmers' as grasseaters because manly men only eat meat. Roar!
There must have been deep suspicion between the relatively-passive stereotype of the humble farmers relative to the relatively-aggressive carnivores of the hunter / gatherers. The lack of interbreeding between the tribes is especially remarkable since one of the few things available in limitless abundance on the planet is human fecundity.
Scientists observed human migrations by studying linguistics and I studied with Professor Foster in Cincinnati who had great passion for this study but almost no ability to teach it. That's not a huge criticism of him since this is one of the driest subjects one could ever choose so the frustration in making it real for students must have been endless for him.
The study of migrations with linguistics has been a traditional way but the study of genetics has lately been amplifying that tremendously and that's what revealed the migration of the farmers. The shift to agricultural societies was one of the most profound evolutions in human culture so the scientist intrigue for discovering how it happened is understandable even if I don't want to get too deep into the mechanics of it.
During the times of the Romans, there was the massive empire fighting to subjugate the tribes of Europe, all of which were meat-eating hunter/gatherers. This continued for centuries but the Romans never did manage to defeat the Germanic tribes. How much the Romans were able to convert hunter/gatherer tribes into pastoral farmers is unknown but the general environment was one filled with meat eaters.
The research mentioned at the top was that which discovered the migration of farmers from Greece and Turkey into Europe, presumably around the 3rd or 4th Century, and the remarkable thing about them is they brought genetic markers with them which made them identifiable as a population. This showed researchers that population remained tight with itself and did not interbreed much with the hunter/gatherer tribes for several centuries after they arrived.
Likely the original hunter/gatherers would have regarded the 'invading farmers' as grasseaters because manly men only eat meat. Roar!
There must have been deep suspicion between the relatively-passive stereotype of the humble farmers relative to the relatively-aggressive carnivores of the hunter / gatherers. The lack of interbreeding between the tribes is especially remarkable since one of the few things available in limitless abundance on the planet is human fecundity.
Scientists observed human migrations by studying linguistics and I studied with Professor Foster in Cincinnati who had great passion for this study but almost no ability to teach it. That's not a huge criticism of him since this is one of the driest subjects one could ever choose so the frustration in making it real for students must have been endless for him.
The study of migrations with linguistics has been a traditional way but the study of genetics has lately been amplifying that tremendously and that's what revealed the migration of the farmers. The shift to agricultural societies was one of the most profound evolutions in human culture so the scientist intrigue for discovering how it happened is understandable even if I don't want to get too deep into the mechanics of it.
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