Les conséquences écologiques de la néotithisation dans l'histoire humaine

Abstract

In this short article, the author proposes to redefine the identifying criteria for neolithicisation, no longer on the basis of sociocultural data traditionally accepted by the authors concerned but by means of observations of a biological, i.e. ecological nature. Neolithic man gradually got rid of his original and animal status of predator, transforming himself into food-producing farmer, thus breaking adrift from the natural environment from which he came. This catastrophe - in the mathematical sense of the term - the first of the history of humanity, caused an immediate sanction: the occurrence of intensive epidemics affecting both animals and human beings, corresponding to the control of animals whose germs passed to humans, prefiguring all historical and modern epidemics. Other consequences of this Neolithic ecological catastrophe (deterioration of the climate, violence and war, deforestation, genetic diseases, etc.) are also analysed, insofar as they are the first steps of our current interference in a World increasingly devastated by mankind.