The Origins and Spread of Agriculture

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The Origins and Spread of Agriculture

• Key Terms
• Food Production
• Broad Spectrum Foraging
• Sedentism
• Domesticates (Domestication)
• Neolithic Revolution
• Pastoralism
• Holocene

• Outline
• Intro
• The Middle East Beyond
• Other Old World Farmers
• Food Production in the Americas
• Benefits and Costs of Food Production

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Announcement

• Cinema Politica documentary cinema series
  http//www.cinemapolitica.org/nipissing

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The Making of Mankind Settling Down

• The Making of Mankind Part 6 Settling Down. A
  BBC-TV production in association with Time Life
  Films, Inc. 1983. Videocassette.
• Why did people shift to agriculture as their
  subsistence system? Why might they not?
• How were grains domesticated?

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The Middle East and Beyond

• Neolithic Revolution
• FP first appears in ME 10,000 BP
• Wheat, barley, goats, sheep
• Broad Spectrum Foraging
• Sedentism

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Vegetation Zones in Middle East

• Plateau, Hilly Flanks, steppe, alluvial plain
• Early cultivation in marginal areas
• Irrigation cities 6,000-5,500 BP

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Spread of Middle Eastern Agriculture

• Spread by
• Trade
• Diffusion
• Migration
• Egypt, 7500 BP
• Greece, 8000 BP
• Europe, 6000 BP
• Indus Valley (Pakistan) before 4800 BP

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Other Old World Farmers

• 7 sites of independent transition to Agl
• Sahel (Africa)
• Pastoralism, 11,000 7900 BP
• Seasonal round
• Millet, sorghum, African rice
• China
• Northern China millet, 7500 BP
• Southern China rice, 8400 BP

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The Americas

• Three areas, c. 4500 BP
• Eastern U.S.
• South Central Andes
• Central Mexico (Mesoamerica)
• Paleo-Indians
• Extinction of Megafauna, 9,000 BP
• Peru, Andes
• potato, manioc (cassava)

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Mesoamerica

• Teocentli (teosinte)
• Maize, 7,000 BP-4,000 BP
• Mesoamerican triad (three sisters)
• Maize
• Beans
• Squash
• To North America by 700-1200 CE

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Benefits and Costs

• civilization
• Social specialization
• Cities
• More work
• Social stratification, poverty
• Poor health
• Environmental degradation

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Discussion

• The adoption of food production was rapid in
  places such as South East and Central Europe
  where the hunter/gatherer way of life was not
  always the most productive, yet what about places
  where people were making a sustainable living
  from the hunter/gatherer lifestyle? The changes
  in theses places, as noted by the articles, was
  slower, but why evolve practices at all if
  hunting and gathering was providing the food
  necessary for life? What were the influences for
  evolution and change in these areas?

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Class Discussion

• During the course of mans evolution from hunters
  and gatherers to farmers, there had to have been
  a kind of in between period where only few crops
  yielded edible food, and what little was yielded
  would not have been sustainable enough. Although
  historians in the articles note that this change
  from hunting to agriculture was by no means an
  overnight change, they also note that many
  different strategies of gathering food were tried
  but almost all failed. Why did the strategy of
  farming and crop cultivation not phase out,
  especially since crops were not always readily
  available due to the process of cultivating,
  re-seeding, and maturation?

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Selected Discussion Question

• Why did hunting gathering societies transition
  to food production?