Farming Made Us Shorter, Sicker and Hungrier. So Why Did Everyone Do It?

Nobody invented farming. Nobody chose it. And for most of the people who lived through it, it made life worse. So how did it take over the world? From a burnt camp on the Sea of Galilee 23,000 years ago to the first city, the first writing and the first war, this is the story of how the walking stopped — and what it cost. Chapters 0:00 A camp catches fire 1:19 The people who stayed 2:28 The cold 3:35 The strange thing about wild wheat 5:27 The animals followed 6:50 A tower at Jericho 8:00 The price — what the bones say 9:54 Çatalhöyük, a town with no streets 11:14 The rivers and the canals 12:39 Uruk, the first city 14:13 The birth of writing 15:42 Gilgamesh, Enkidu, bread and beer 19:08 Who won? Sources include: Ohalo II (Nadel et al.), Abu Hureyra (Moore, Hillman, Legge; Molleson), Ain Mallaha (Davis & Valla), Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt), Jericho (Kenyon; Barkai & Liran 2011), Çatalhöyük (Hodder), the aurochs founder study (Bollongino et al. 2012), Uruk (Algaze; Nissen), proto-cuneiform (Englund), Gilgamesh (George), the 2003 Uruk survey (DAI). Narration and pictures were made with AI tools and checked by hand.