The Origins of Agriculture
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I. African Genesis
A. Interpreting the Evidence
1. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, in which he suggested that species evolve
over long periods of time through the process of natural selection. With regard
to human beings, Darwin Africa .
2. Discoveries of hominid skeletal remains in Java (1891) and Beijing Africa beginning in 1950.
3. Archaeological evidence and understanding of the evolution of
other species has helped scientists to trace the evolution of human beings over
a period of 4 million years.
B. Human Evolution
1. The australopithecines and modern humans are hominids, which are
members of the primate family. Hominids such as australopithecines were
distinguished from other primates by three characteristics: bipedalism, a very
large brain, and a larynx located low in the neck.
2. Scientists theorize that these characteristics gave hominids
advantages in the struggle for survival during the climatic changes of the
Great Ice Age (Pleistocene period). Further climate changes 2 to 3 million
years ago are thought to be the cause of the evolution of Homo habilis, whose brain was 50% larger than that of the
australopithecines.
3. By 1 million years ago Homo
habilis and all of the australopithecines were extinct. They were replaced
first by Homo erectus (1.8 million
years ago) and then by Homo sapiens (400,000
to 100,000 years ago).
C. Migrations from Africa
1. Both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to various parts of Europe
and Asia , their migration facilitated by the
low sea levels associated with the Ice Age.
Homo sapiens migrated from Africa during a wet period (40,000 years ago) and crossed
the land bridge to the Americas Japan
2. These migrations were accompanied by very minor physical
evolutionary changes such as changes in skin pigmentation. For the most part,
however, humans adapted to their new environments not through biological
evolution, but through a process of cultural adaptation.
II. History and Culture in the Ice Age
A. Food Gathering and Stone Tools
1. The period known as the Stone Age lasted from 2 million years
ago to 4 thousand years ago. It is subdivided into the Paleolithic (Old Stone
Age—to 10,000 years ago) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
2. The Paleolithic age is characterized by the production of stone
tools that were used in scavenging meat from dead animals and later in hunting.
Homo sapiens proved to be
particularly good hunters and may have caused or helped to cause the extinction
of mastodons and mammoths about 11,000 years ago.
3. The diet of Stone Age people probably consisted more of foraged
vegetable foods than of meat. Human use of fire can be traced back to 1 to 1.5 million years ago, but
conclusive evidence of cooking (in the form of clay pots) can only be found as
far back as 12,500 years ago.
B. Gender Roles and Social Life
1. The slow maturation rate of human infants and the ability of
adult humans to mate at any time of the year are thought to be causes of the
development of the two-parent family that is one of the characteristics of the
hominids.
2. Researchers believe that in Ice Age society women would have
been responsible for gathering, cooking, and child-care, while men would have
been responsible for hunting. The hunter-gatherers probably lived in fairly
small groups and migrated regularly in order to follow game animals and to take
advantage of seasonal variations in the ripening of foraged foods.
C. Hearths and Cultural Expressions
1. Migrating hunter-gatherer groups lived in camps, using natural
shelter when available and building temporary shelters when the climate
required it; permanently established fishing communities made more solid
structures. Clothing was made of animal skins sewn together with vegetable
fiber and rawhide cords.
2. Hunter-gatherers probably had to spend no more than three to
five hours a day on getting food, clothing, and shelter. This left them a
certain amount of time for cultural activities: gathering, organizing and
passing on information, art, and religion.
3. Cave art suggests that Ice Age people had a complex religion.
Their burial sites indicate that they may have believed in an afterlife.
III. The Agricultural Revolutions
A. The Transition to Plant Cultivation
1. Agricultural revolutions—the domestication of plants and
animals—were a series of changes in food production that occurred independently
in various parts of the world. Changes in global climate were probably the
cause of these transformations.
2. The first stage of the long process of domestication of plants
was semicultivation, in which people would scatter the seeds of desirable
food-producing plants in places where they would be likely to grow. The next
stage was the use of fire to clear fields and specialized tools to plant and
harvest grain.
3. The transition to agriculture took place first and is best
documented in the Middle East , but the same
sort of transition took place independently in other parts of the world,
including the eastern Sahara , the Nile Valley,
Greece, and Central Europe . Early farmers
practiced swidden agriculture, changing fields periodically as the fertility of
the soil became depleted.
4. The environments in which agriculture developed dictated the
choice of crops. Wheat and barley were suited to the Mediterranean area;
sorghum, millet, and teff to sub-Saharan Africa; yams to Equatorial West
Africa; rice to eastern and southern Asia, and maize, potatoes, quinoa, and
manioc to various parts of the Americas.
B. Domesticated Animals and Pastoralism
1. Domestication of animals proceeded at the same time as
domestication of plants. Human hunters first domesticated dogs; sheep and goats
were later domesticated for their meat, milk, and wool.
2. As with plants, domestication of animals occurred independently
in various parts of the world, and the animals domesticated were those that
suited the local environment. In most parts of the world the domestication of
plants went along with the domestication of animals as animals were used for
pulling plows and supplied manure for fertilizer.
3. There were two exceptions to the pattern of plant and animal
domestication accompanying one another. In the Americas Central Asia
and Africa , the environment was not
appropriate for settled agriculture, but it could support pastoralists who
herded cattle or other animals from one grazing area to another.
C. Agriculture and Ecological Crisis
1. Most researchers agree that humans made the transition from
hunter-gatherer to agricultural or pastoralist economies because the global
warming of the Holocene period (beginning 9000 b.c.e.)
brought with it environmental changes that reduced the supplies of game and
wild food plants. The agricultural revolutions brought about a significant
increase in the world’s human population—from 10 million in 5000 b.c.e. to between 50 and 100 million in
1000 b.c.e.
IV. Life in Neolithic Communities
A. Cultural Expressions
1. The early food producers appear to have worshiped ancestral and
nature spirits. Their religions centered on sacred groves, springs, and wild
animals and included deities such as the Earth Mother and the Sky God. Some of
these beliefs may be reflected in ancient Hindu texts.
2. Early food-producing societies used megaliths (big stones) to
construct burial chambers and calendar circles and to aid in astronomical
observations.
3. The expansion of food-producing societies may be reflected in
the patterns in which the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Afro-Asiatic
language groups are dispersed around the Eastern
Hemisphere .
B. Early Towns and Specialists
1. Most people in early food-producing societies lived in villages,
but in some places, the environment supported the growth of towns in which one
finds more elaborate dwellings, facilities for surplus food storage, and
communities of specialized craftsmen. The two best-known examples of the
remains of Neolithic towns are at Jericho Jericho Jordan River , was a
walled town with mud-brick structures and dates back to 8000 B.C.E.
2. Çatal Hüyük, in central Anatolia ,
dates to 7000–5000 b.c.e. Çatal
Hüyük was a center for the trade in obsidian. Its craftsmen produced pottery,
baskets, woolen cloth, beads, and leather and wood products. There is no
evidence of a dominant class or centralized political leadership.
3. The art of Çatal Hüyük reflects a continued fascination with
hunting, but the remains indicate that agriculture was the mainstay of the
economy. The remains also indicate that the people of Çatal Hüyük had a
flourishing religion that involved offerings of food. Evidence indicates that
the religion may have centered on the worship of a goddess and have been
administered by priestesses.
4. The remains at Çatal Hüyük include decorative or ceremonial
objects made of copper, lead, silver, and gold. These metals are naturally
occurring, soft, and easy to work, but not suitable for tools or weapons, which
continued to be made from stone.
5. The presence of towns like Jericho
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If you have any test reviews, homeworks, guides, anything school related that you think can be posted on this website, reach out to me at makingschooleasier@gmail.com