ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope
As everyone knows, the transition between hunter/gatheror to agriculturalism is one of the biggest leaps for intelligence on this planet. Everyone knows instinctualy that this is an unsolved problem. I've had radical ideas; i'm not sure if I pointed them out. Now saying it's wrong or my new ideas are right, but I thought I'd post them.
When Homo Sapiens were hunter/gatherors, they had all provided for them by mother nature, and the idea of stopping the run around is too large of a change. Everyone notes(for instance James Burke episode one of his "Connections") that to do agriculturalism, you need to know a lot; you need to be indoctrinated and born to it; today's industrial populations couldn't turn to agriculturalism readily as well as hunter/gatheror. The question is always, what could have led them to concieve of agriculturalism?
My recent new answer is fighting with other tribes or maybe even split factions within a community. People inevitably have difference of opinion. Populations rise. Agriculturalism came after Neanderthal was made extinct by Homo Sapiens(yep), so, conflicts had to have been between Homo Sapien factions.
When different tribes went to war with one another, maybe some built walls and fortifications. Now, some may have built grand enough fortifications to be pretty well protected. Now, they're only safe within the walls; eventually, they have to come out to do their hunting/gathering. Maybe the other tribe eventually gets bored and leaves on their own. Another thought is that a population could be large enough that they could set up a watch rotation while a few others could sneak out back to collect shrubs and meat or some kind. Do this enough, and maybe some people play around with plants enough through the seasons to notice some plants growing within the walls. They eventually think of the brilliant idea of farming within the walls. The rest as they say is history.
------------------------------------there's of course been some pretty exciting new developments in science/technology!
I've pointed out maybe a year ago now some thinking of making atomically precise molecular structures by means of electron tweezers in electron microscopes; this is the latest; they're making promising progress!
electron beam manipulation of nanoparticles
I pointed out a printing press method for assembling precise atomically precise molecular structures a month or so ago. One could imagine assembling layer by layer any kind of molecular device. Havn't heard anything on that since, but a similar type of ability has been reported about graphene nanotechnology.
Making a graphene layer cake with atomic precision