wonkblog

Bettinger’s research explores an ancient mystery: why people in pre-historic California mostly ate acorns instead of salmon. The fish was plentiful and easy to harvest, and the technology existed to dry and preserve the meat. But for some reason, societies for a long time focused on collecting acorns, which was more time consuming and less nutritious.

Bettinger argues that early societies avoided salmon because it is what he calls a “front-loaded” resource. It takes a lot of upfront work to hunt salmon and turn it into jerky; but after that, the dried salmon is easy to steal (or to freeload off your neighbor). Acorns, on the other hand, are “back-loaded.” A lot of work is needed to turn a cache of acorns into a meal. They are bothersome to steal.

Once the tribes in California became less nomadic, Bettinger and his co-author Beth Tushingham write, more and more of them turned to salmon hunting. Because they stayed in one place, they could better defend their salmon stores.

“It comes down to the ability to expropriate others’ labor,” Bettinger said. “Some resources have a lot more labor represented in them.”

In a way, agriculture is the ultimate front-loaded resource. It takes a large amount of work to till, plant and cultivate crops. So it makes sense that farming could only flourish among civilizations with a system of property rights (to prevent freeloading from neighbors) and a measure of protection against outside threats.