IIRC the current theory is that it started gradually over millennia. At first it’s just a way of having more of your favourite treats when you follow the herds back next year. Then, you start being kind of reliant on calories from your now non-shattering cereal crops. You can feed like ten people on enough hunting ground for one, after all. Finally, you become fully dependant on it. With little room for hunting your culture changes to center around agricultural activities, and a hierarchy grows up around you to send you to war and insist on ever higher taxes. Cue the historical record!
That also helps explain why it started when it did. There was arable land in the ice age, but the climate got a hard reset every 1500 years or so, which would disrupt any budding civilisation. At least in the northern hemisphere.
IIRC the current theory is that it started gradually over millennia. At first it’s just a way of having more of your favourite treats when you follow the herds back next year. Then, you start being kind of reliant on calories from your now non-shattering cereal crops. You can feed like ten people on enough hunting ground for one, after all. Finally, you become fully dependant on it. With little room for hunting your culture changes to center around agricultural activities, and a hierarchy grows up around you to send you to war and insist on ever higher taxes. Cue the historical record!
That also helps explain why it started when it did. There was arable land in the ice age, but the climate got a hard reset every 1500 years or so, which would disrupt any budding civilisation. At least in the northern hemisphere.