Dünyada bu kadar Mongongo cevizi varken neden ekelim?

Son otuz yılda avcı-toplayıcı yaşam biçimine dair algının, Hobbes’un izinden gidercesine “münzevi, fakir, nahoş, hayvansı ve kısa” olarak betimlendiği bir resimden “ilk refah” toplumu” olarak ifade edilen bir imgeye dönüşmesi tarıma geçişin ardındaki saik ve dürtülerin araştırılma ve anlaşılmasını antropolog, arkeolog ve evrim bilimciler arasındaki hararetli tartışmaları yatıştırmanın Kutsal Kâsesi haline getirmiştir. Bu yazı, bir Kung kabilesi erkeğinin şaşkınlıkla sorduğu ve bir anlamda bu tartışmanın hoş bir ifadesi olarak düşünülebilecek olan “Bu kadar Mongongo cevizi varken onları neden ekelim ki?” sualinin cevabını yansıtan hipotezlerin değerlendirilmesini amaçlamaktadır. Kelimelendirilmeleri tartışmaya verilen cevabın ana temasını oluşturduğu söylenebilecek olan ve aşağıda ele alınan bu yedi hipotez, sırayla: kültürel ilerleme, çevre değişikliği, nüfus baskısı, müşterek / karşılıklı verimleşme, sosyoekonomik rekabet, bağımlılık ve davranışsal ekoloji (optimal toplama) hipotezleridir

WHY SHOULD WE PLANT WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY MONGONGO NUTS IN THE WORLD?

Due to the shift in the perception of the hunter gatherer life style from an image which was portrayed in a Hobbesian manner as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” to a society described as “the first affluent” in the last three decades, the quest for motives or the reasons behind the transition to agriculture has been the Holy Grail to soothe the heated debate among anthropologists, archeologists and evolutionary scientists. This paper is aimed at reviewing the hypotheses, which in a way attempt to answer one of Kung tribesmen’s question: “Why should we plant when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?” Given that the wording might give a clue about the crux of the argument the seven hypotheses taken up below can be named as cultural progression, environmental change, population pressure, mutual evolution, socioeconomic competition, dependency and behavioral ecology (or optimal foraging)

Keywords:

origin, transition, domestication, agriculture hypotheses,

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