technology timeline

[Uruk]

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. If agriculture actually required more work than hunting and gathering, then it would have been quickly abandoned by our distant ancestors.

Just for the record the original poster was correct. Food production always goes this way:

hunting/gathering (mostly gathering by women while men provide something like 20% of food by hunting)

horticulture small gardens lots of malnutrition because of lack of variety

agriculture lets people do other stuff, but now food production time has basically doubled

 

[Buttercup]

Redwing, there was a very interesting TV documentary series back in the 1980s which addressed just this question. It was called Connections, and was narrated by James Burke. Produced by the BBC, Connections attempted to trace (and succeeded at, IMO) the line of technological change from the early middle ages to the present. It was fascinating viewing.

The videos are available for purchase here, or you could try going to your local public library, or possibly even a large video rental store, to get them. You won't be sorry.