Abstract
Human beings evolved in hunter-gatherer bands, and tended to flee from or to fight with strangers. They have subsequently learned to live in cities among a multitude of such strangers, at levels of violence far lower than those that characterized prehistory. The key to this development was the adoption of agriculture, which obliged humans to become sedentary to and to develop institutions to manage their encounters with strangers. We describe the evolution of the psychological preconditions for the agricultural revolution, and its consequences for social life.
This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
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Seabright, P. (2008). Hunters, Gatherers, Cities and Evolution. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2063-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2063-1
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