I keep thinking about a recent article in Nature by Talhelm and Dong that appears to confirm the theory that the staple crops (in this case wheat versus rice) can influence collectivistic cultural tendencies.

In particular, it makes me wonder how the #milpa impacted Indigenous North American cultures. A milpa is a #Native agroecological system largely centered around growing corn, beans and squash in the same field. It is intense, highly productive and also provides a complete and healthy diet in a very small amount of land.

I suspect that milpas lead to even more individualistic tendencies, which could explain the large linguistic and cultural diversity of North America and how it led to dense urban societies so quickly.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w

People quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice are more collectivistic than people assigned to farm wheat - Nature Communications

According to the rice theory, the demands of rice farming might make cultures more collectivistic. Here the authors provide evidence in support of this theory by showing that Chinese farmers who were quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice score higher …

^Nature