Why agriculture?

Razib Khan is discussing the factors that gave rise to agriculture in humankind. Several years ago I have made very extensive studies about the first agrarian societies in the Levant (12.000 to 8.000 years before present) also, so I have to say something about that:

Tuareg people and other nomads are gathering seeds of (wild) plants only, if they're VERY, VERY hungry. It is a very hard work, much more hard work to live by harvesting and (later) growing corn, than to eat fruits of trees or game without much work. This is, what archaeologists have brought out in the last years.

So agriculture must be the product of something like "Benedictine" or "protestant" work ethic like in industrial revolution in later times. There are some hints, that the first agrarian societies in the Levant ("pre-pottery neolithic" = PPNA and PPNB) have been societies with strong social control (city "despots" and other things).

Also it seems, that there has been a lot of "group selection" between the inhabitants of the first agricultural cities in the Levant. A lot of fluctuations, abandoning of old city places, founding new ones, conquering others and so on. See also the first "fortification" of humankind in PPNA-Jericho. See also the "Helwan point culture"-expansion from north to south at the beginning of PPNB with its rectangle grill-plan-houses.

Human groups with strong religious feelings AND a hard "work ethic" have often a lot of children also. Hard work ethic WITHOUT strong religious feelings often fails to prodcue very much children - as we all know.