The Three Epochs of Human Development
“Since our emergence as a species, humankind has gone through three great cultural epochs, each with its prototypical lifestyle forms and folkways. The first epoch was that of the pre agricultural tribe of hunter gatherers and primitive cultivators. Hunter gatherer societies sustained themselves by having an intimate and intuitive knowledge of their surroundings. They acted as “gardeners” in the natural world and walked the earth quietly leaving as little trace of their presence as possible.
The simultaneous development of agriculture ten thousand years ago in various regions of the world gave birth to the second cultural epoch. The ability to grow food year after year from seeds and cultivated plants selected for vigor and reliability gave the former hunter gatherer the opportunity to remain in one place and cultivate extensive food crops for sustenance for family, relatives and friends.
The third cultural epoch gave rise to an explosion of intellectual, artistic and scientific learning. The technological discoveries and inventions of this era (which is still with us) helped to disassemble nature into pieces and then reassemble them into mechanical entities.
We now stand at a time when the best of these three great epochs must come together to help create an ecologically sound environment for all. The ecological epoch will see a resacralization of the living world in which life forms are more than resources they are also our relatives. The new epoch will not reject science or technology but bring them into a context where phenomena are understood as parts of a systemic whole that includes the spirit of the whole.”
As stated by Bill Mollison in Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, in order for the long-term consequences of our actions to promote sustainability for future generations, we need to use “species that are native to our area or those naturalized species known to be beneficial; plan for small scale, energy efficient intensive systems rather than large scale, energy consuming extensive systems; be diverse, poly-cultural; increase the sum of yields: look at the total yield of the system provided by annuals, perennials, crops, trees and animals, also regard energy saved as a yield; use low energy environmental (solar, wind and water) and biological (plant and animal) systems to conserve and generate energy; bring food growing back into the towns and cities; assist people to become self reliant and promote community responsibility; re-afforest the earth and restore fertility to the soil; use everything at its optimum level and recycle so called wastes of any kind; see solutions, not problem .”
From households to bioregional planning, Permaculture design is not limited by scale.