They weren’t idiots, it’s not hard to figure out if you grew the same crop in the same place it worked out worse than before.
Not to mention this isn’t a hypothetical, archeology exists bro
Don’t think people thousands of years ago were dumber than us, humans have been unchanged for over 300k years.
300,000 years ago ancient humans were born just as intelligent as any of us born today. And they dealt a lot more with plants, anyone that grew the same crop on the same land for multiple seasons would (and did) figure this out.
What would you observe? You plant the wheat where you always plant it, because it is the piece of land that you cleared from trees with hard work. You notice that the plants get worse from year to year.
The first thing was that people started not to plant anything and used the field as meadow to put sheep, goats, or cows on it. Maybe just chicken, if push comes to shove. They do know that plants grow better in places where the animals fertilize the ground.
This just lead to crop alternation: one year corn, one year grass.
The relatively modern idea of rotating three different kinds of crops in a specific order came thousands(!) of years later.
Crop rotation is absolutely not obvious. It needs observation and experimentations with the very basic food production ones lives depends on.
Buddy…
They weren’t idiots, it’s not hard to figure out if you grew the same crop in the same place it worked out worse than before.
Not to mention this isn’t a hypothetical, archeology exists bro
Don’t think people thousands of years ago were dumber than us, humans have been unchanged for over 300k years.
300,000 years ago ancient humans were born just as intelligent as any of us born today. And they dealt a lot more with plants, anyone that grew the same crop on the same land for multiple seasons would (and did) figure this out.
So… people that work the land know it’s obvious?
Definitely not.
What would you observe? You plant the wheat where you always plant it, because it is the piece of land that you cleared from trees with hard work. You notice that the plants get worse from year to year.
The first thing was that people started not to plant anything and used the field as meadow to put sheep, goats, or cows on it. Maybe just chicken, if push comes to shove. They do know that plants grow better in places where the animals fertilize the ground.
This just lead to crop alternation: one year corn, one year grass.
The relatively modern idea of rotating three different kinds of crops in a specific order came thousands(!) of years later.
You know, like the agrarian peoples worldwide who all independently figured this out almost immediately after starting agriculture…
They’re saying no farmers could have figured this out, because only farmers could…