Human Race Past and Future in Anthropology - Essay Example

Q1 Food is man’s foremost biological need and accessing it has top priority, in addition, studies show that transition from hunting and gathering to food production was a process as opposed to it being a sudden event. Man in all circumstances tries to adapt to the environment thus he has managed to procure food from surrounding resources, which makes high gain adequate knowledge regarding resources and technical means of exploiting the resources for survival. Often man competed with wild animals for food but he learned how to live with the competitors in a symbiotic relationship in various environments. In pre-food production Mesopotamia, man was conditioned to seasonal collection in the wild and in both old and new worlds show a long history of man’s plant collection before initiating the agricultural production. Man has always followed the course of nature; however, the stage lasted a short period of time in many part of the world, which made man to move from food collection. Therefore, man moved to the next stage by throwing himself at the mercy of the environmental system by cultivating certain crops in certain climate zones (Khatry 19). Agriculture means man’s interference in animal and plant reproduction as well as the distribution system-reaching peak in ecologically simplified and genetically susceptible monoculture. Dependency on few cultivated and domesticated plants decrease dependability on wild resources. The dependency makes it necessary for the society to maintain food producing economy and transformation of conventional base of society or even change of the physical environment. Change in dependency of cultivated food makes increases impossibility of returning to the gathering economy; thus, village farming communities resulted in cities and eventually countries hence attributes of civilization are firmly established and with uninterrupted material progress (Khatry 20). Therefore, agriculture was never an idea of an individual or group of individuals it developed in various ways in different parts of the world. Some of the consequences are far-reaching and similar to all people everywhere. The various consequences of food production include increased carrying capacity of land, growth of sedentary society, transformation of social structure, specialization in craft and rise of civilization. Thus, whatever is visible in the modern civilization is a product of man’s shift to agriculture; moreover, not all consequences are favorable to human society. Agriculture brought a lot of pressure, chain of problems and deficiencies for man to handle particularly when the production of food moved beyond the incipient level. The significant consequences resulting from food production include increase of numbers and density of human population, the rise of political organization, conflicts and exchange, human health and biology and impact on physical environment (Haviland 300). The shift to food production though not a planned event, it has not been able to handle some of the problems it creates. While gatherers still live above starvation with less effort to procure food, agriculture struggles to feed the population despite utilization of technology. Agriculture cause damage to natural vegetation since it kills plants by use of biochemical elements. Therefore, civilization together with technology, state government increased problems in man’s life. Since narrowing of food resources to few plants and animals man’s healthy condition deteriorated (Khatry 22-23). Q2 The future of human race has been a point of concern to writers for centuries with some arguing the human race is destined to evolve into super-beings, while other writers argue that human beings are changing into goblins incapable of nothing more demanding. Nevertheless, leading geneticists believe that these observations are wrong since human evolution has halted. According to Jones, a professor at University College London believes that the forces driving evolution like natural selection and gene mutation have minimal significant role in people’s lives. This means that even people living a million years later will resemble the current man, because currently there is enough knowledge on evolution, which enables predictions regarding the way the future may be. Normally, evolution is controlled by natural selection together with gene mutation. Gene mutation develops traits that offer individuals competitive advantage over rivals. Most of human past history was hard-hitting characterized by many children dying before reaching adolescence (Derbyshire). In the past, children died before the age of 20 years; however, in the west, 98% of children survive to the age of 21 years. Harsh environments promote evolution since they encourage natural selection, which is a potent force in evolution. For instance, during the ice age, mutation gave babies resilience against cold or famine giving them strong competitive edge; thus, increasing the likelihood of survival and passing genes to others. Nevertheless, in the modern world that has central heating systems and availability of more food, helps downgrade the significance of mutation on children to give them any advantage. Moreover, mutation is slowing down since there is a drop in old fathers, who possess deteriorated sperms that contain genetic mistakes (Derbyshire). Randomness is an essential factor in evolution with small populations isolated that cause random change with accidental loss of genes. However, with the world being increasingly connected, the chance of random change is dwindling. In breeding almost everywhere is less common; for instance, marriage in Britain marriage for couples in their 50s is among members of different ethnic groups, in addition, the country is among the most sexually open across the globe. Agriculture has enhanced human population across the globe, which would otherwise be about half a million, which is around the population of Glasgow (Derbyshire; “The Human Spark”). Human species has attained its biological pinnacle; thus, it is not possible to evolve; even though, there is a controversial view within certain biologists who believe that western lifestyles protect humanity from forces that shaped Homo sapiens. Therefore, things have stopped getting better or worse within the human species. In the past there were differences between people’s life span; for instance, death rate in London outstripped birthrate for the better part of the city’s history. The sign of the end of human evolution does not suggest that humans have attained perfection; however, it suggests that human population tends to be uniform since evolution relies on random genetics changes in order for natural selection to occur. Moreover, mutations nowadays do not offer anybody competitive advantage since humans no longer live in tough conditions experienced by ancestors. Works cited “The Human Spark”. In The News: The End of Evolution? 12 December 2008. Web. 1 May 2013. Derbyshire David. Evolution stops here: Future Man will look the same, says scientist. 7 October 2008. Web. 1 May 2013. Haviland, William A. The Essence of Anthropology. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print. Khatry Prem. From Hunting-gathering to Food production: A brief look on Impact of Early Man’s Shift to Farming. n.d. 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