The economic superorganism in the complexity of evolution

The transition to grain agriculture restructured human societies, creating a new whole, an economic superorganism. Homo sapiens became expansionary, structurally interdependent in material life, and a duality between them and Earth was created that had not previously existed. Yet H. sapiens are not the only species to make the transition to agriculture. Cross-species comparisons create an opening for a movement toward a focus on the universal and powerful agricultural system as a unique expression of the evolution of species cooperation. This shifts the focus around human social evolution away from culture and toward the formation and power of the economic system that took hold with the cultivation of annual grains. The basic structure and dynamic to economic life that began with grain agriculture has endured for 10 000 years and the duality between humans and Earth established therein is now reaching an apogee with the spectre of climate change and the mass extinction of other species on Earth. In this light, the questions emerge: Is the agricultural revolution an evolutionary transition adequately captured in existing frameworks of human social evolution? Is the human capacity for culture sufficient to override the power and dynamic of the economic superorganism? This article is part of the theme issue ‘Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions’.