Agriculture did not emerge earlier than roughly 11,000-12,000 years ago—despite humans worldwide having had the necessary cognitive and cultural toolkit for tens of thousands of years—because the pre-Holocene climate was far less stable, and only the unusual climate stability of the last 12,000 years, unique on a roughly two-million-year timescale, allowed multiple populations to independently develop farming.

Reich notes that genetically and cognitively, dispersed human populations had everything needed for farming tens of thousands of years earlier, yet agriculture only appeared globally after roughly 12,000 years ago — coinciding with the Holocene's unusual climate stability, which he says climatologists confirm is unique on a two-million-year timescale. ✦ AI generated

David Reich · Dwarkesh Podcast · 2026-05-08 · original ↗

12,000 years ago we switched into this period of not just warmth, but climate stability. It’s hard to believe that we’re living in such a special time. But if you look at data from the bottoms of ponds where you can measure the fluctuations of temperatures using isotopic signatures, apparently we’re in a period where it’s fluctuating a lot less year to year, 10 years to 10 years, and 100 years to 100 years.

verbatim transcript · starts at 69:02