Evolution gradually produced ever more intelligent people. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power. Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity. If our minds are those of hunter-gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers. No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2,000 years. Part Two - The Agricultural Revolution 5 - HistoryвЂ™s Biggest FraudД®ven today, with all our advanced technologies, more than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants that our ancestors domesticated between 95 BC вЂ“ wheat, rice, maize (called вЂcornвЂ™ in the US), potatoes, millet and barley. If things continue at the present pace, it is likely that whales, sharks, tuna and dolphins will follow the diprotodons, ground sloths and mammoths to oblivion. But many of them are on the brink of extinction now as a result of industrial pollution and human overuse of oceanic resources. Unlike their terrestrial counterparts, the large sea animals suffered relatively little from the Cognitive and Agricultural Revolutions. This is especially relevant to the large animals of the oceans. If we knew how many species weвЂ™ve already eradicated, we might be more motivated to protect those that still survive. Perhaps if more people were aware of the First Wave and Second Wave extinctions, theyвЂ™d be less nonchalant about the Third Wave they are part of. If we combine the mass extinctions in Australia and America, and add the smaller-scale extinctions that took place as Homo sapiens spread over Afro-Asia вЂ“ such as the extinction of all other human species вЂ“ and the extinctions that occurred when ancient foragers settled remote islands such as Cuba, the inevitable conclusion is that the first wave of Sapiens colonisation was one of the biggest and swiftest ecological disasters to befall the animal kingdom. Farmers tend to eat a very limited and unbalanced diet. The foragersвЂ™ secret of success, which protected them from starvation and malnutrition, was their varied diet. While people in todayвЂ™s affluent societies work an average of forty to forty-five hours a week, and people in the developing world work sixty and even eighty hours a week, hunter-gatherers living today in the most inhospitable of habitats вЂ“ such as the Kalahari Desert work on average for just thirty-five to forty-five hours a week. There are only cultural choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities. 3 - A Day in the Life of Adam and EveД®ver since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasnвЂ™t been a single natural way of life for Sapiens. The immense diversity of imagined realities that Sapiens invented, and the resulting diversity of behaviour patterns, are the main components of what we call вЂculturesвЂ™. In other words, while the behaviour patterns of archaic humans remained fixed for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a host of other behaviours within a decade or two. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world.Д®ver since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens has thus been living in a dual reality. The idea behind such companies is among humanityвЂ™s most ingenious inventions. Peugeot belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called вЂlimited liability companiesвЂ™. It can open a bank account and own property. Just like you or me, it is bound by the laws of the countries in which it operates. It canвЂ™t be pointed at it is not a physical object. Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. There is no need for formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order.

Below this threshold, communities, businesses, social networks and military units can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate acquaintance and rumour-mongering. Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number.

Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. According to this theory Homo sapiens is primarily a social animal. Our language evolved as a way of gossiping. This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. Notes Part One - The Cognitive Revolution 1 - An Animal of No Significance

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