A major new study is changing how we understand one of the biggest turning points in human history: the shift from hunting and gathering to farming.
For years, experts believed that this transition happened mainly because of changes in the environment, like a warmer climate or more fertile land.
But researchers from the University of Bath, the Max Planck Institute, the University of Cambridge, UCL, and other institutions have now shown that human relationships and choices played a much bigger role than previously thought.
About 12,000 years ago, humans began giving up their long-held way of life as nomadic hunter-gatherers to settle down and grow crops.
Books like Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari have popularized the idea that farming was a natural response to external conditions such as better weather or rich river valleys. However, this new research offers a different explanation.
The team created a mathematical model that looks at how people, not just nature, influenced this change.
Instead of assuming farming simply spread because of the environment, they focused on how early farmers and hunter-gatherers interacted—with each other and within their own communities. These interactions included migration, competition for resources, and cultural exchange.
To study this, the researchers adapted a model usually used for predator-prey relationships in nature.
In this case, farmers and foragers “competed” in a similar way to animals that compete for food.
By applying this model to real population data drawn from radiocarbon-dated archaeological sites, they uncovered surprising patterns.
For example, they found that the spread of farming depended heavily on how fast populations grew or shrank, and how people moved from one area to another—by land or sea.
Dr. Javier Rivas from the University of Bath explained that the model showed how farming didn’t just emerge in isolated areas because of climate—it spread through human actions, like migration and sharing knowledge.
Cultural mixing played a key role in how farming took over, reshaping communities in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
The researchers now plan to refine their model to look at larger regions and other historical transitions.
Dr. Rivas said he hopes this new approach will become a standard tool for studying how human populations interacted and shaped history—not just in farming, but in many other major moments from our past.
