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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

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ORIGINAL: Alecta

A profession in this anthropological context is thought of as something that people did in exchange for other things done or obtained for them, so if you grew food for just yourself and your family to eat it's not a profession, but if you grew food to sell, it is. (That said, Farming only arose after Hunter-Gathering although we can't yet agree when exactly).

eta typo

Ok, so if you go prior to hunter/gatherer, there weren't prostitutes either. To say that there was, one would have to assume that women bartered sex for food and during that time evidence tends to point to men pretty much just taking what they wanted, no barters/bribes necessary.

If a farmer bartered some of his crops for livestock, that would have put it as a "profession" according to your definition. The earliest references to prostitutes come after the hunter/gatherer portion of history as well as farming.

In any case, it was a joke. Although I'm relatively sure that while they might not have been called "tax collectors," one could find references to a similar type person as far back as they can prostitutes.