> it's clear that agriculture and husbandry were historically more desirable over pure hunting and gathering, even in warmer regions like Egypt.

It's clear that agricultural societies were more fit than hunter-gatherer societies.

Agricultural societies could breed more people and use them to kill the hunter-gatherers and take their land.

Even if the meat/vegetable eaters were bigger and stronger than the grain eaters, there were simply a lot more grain eaters.

Classic Greek myths are full of references to "golden age" men who were displaced by more degenerate modern, civilized men. I can't help read those myths as a story of the rise of agriculture.

These "golden age" men of the Greek myths also lived in palaces (palace of agamemnon) and practiced agriculture. In these myths some typical topoi are also cattle raids, palace intrigues and territorial disputes. These are not the hallmarks of hunter-gatherer societies. These myths should be treated as such, myths. Maybe they have a little historical truth in it, since the mycenean people (precursor to the archaic greek civilisation) definitly had palaces and an elaborate trade network spanning the eastern mediterranean. These are more advanced feats than pre-archaic greek civilisation, wich developed into smaller tribal and rural communities at the time before homer wrote his epics.

sounds like those would be the "degenerate modern, civilized men" or do you think the GP means the doric invaders?

Well, yes I did think that GP meant distinctly greek peoples. The demigod-like figures in the Illias are Achilles, Ajax, Hector and others wich are exceptionally strong compared to other humans. These characters fought alongside the Achaeans or Troy, so definitly on the side of civilised folk.

This is old but to be clear the Greek heroes were not golden age men. The golden age occurred before the heroic age and it was explicitly pre-agriculture:

> [Men] lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all devils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace.

> In the 5th century BCE, the philosopher Empedocles, like Hesiod before him, emphasized the idea of primordial innocence and harmony in all of nature, including human society, from which he maintained there had been a steady deterioration until the present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age

Indeed, many of the Vikings who gave up on raiding often settled in what's now England, Ireland, and Normandy, whereas their discovery of Iceland was an accident and its settlement was only partly intentional.

That Icelandic diet sounds pretty similar to how I eat today. What's unhealthy about it?

I assume your response is coming from a low-carb/paleo perspective? No leafy greens or vitamin-rich vegetables. The vegetables that are there (root vegetables) are carby and not especially nutritious. Huge vitamin deficiency across the board.

Not when you eat the entire animal including organ meat as these folks undoubtedly did.

That is simply incorrect. For example, beef liver is about twenty times more nutritious than fruit by mass.

My original question was a bit cheeky as I already knew the answer.

Yes, but don't forget that for a relatively small amount of a beef liver you need to kill a whole cow. And when you kill the animal you couldn't cherry-pick the parts of the meat you use, everything was used while it lasted. The parts that could be preserved would last for a while and things like a liver would be eaten right away or used to make sausages. In the middle age common folks didn't eat meat as often as we do today, it was a luxury. They primarily used a lot of buttermilk, cheese and eggs instead.

You get your diet from a warm supermarket. Or heck, delivered to your door.

The Icelandic ancestors didn't have that luxury in their country's bitter cold

It's not the same cooking you've come to expect. There is a whole wikipedia entry on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_cuisine#Medieval_Ice...

As bad as Iceland might have been, Greenland was worse.