THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION and The EARLY AGRARIAN ERA

1. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION and The EARLY AGRARIAN ERA Middle School Workshops Session 3 Craig Benjamin What is agriculture? Why is it so important in human history? How did early farmers live?

2. W1.2 Agricultural RevolutionDescribe the Agricultural Revolution and explain why it is a turning point in history. • Major turning point in history resulted in people using the land in a systematic manner to grow food crops, raise animals, produce food surpluses, and the development of sedentary settlement. 6 – W1.2.1Transition from hunter gatherers to sedentary agriculture (domestication of plants and animals). 6 – W1.2.2 Describe importance of the natural environment in the development of agricultural settlements in different locations. E.g. • available water for irrigation • adequate precipitation • and suitable growing season 6 – W1.2.3 Explain the impact of the Agricultural Revolution • stable food supply • surplus • population growth • trade • division of labor • development of settlements

3. Pt. 1: The Agricultural Revolution:Why is it so important? • From 12-10,000 years ago, new technologies appear in some regions • These gave humans access to more energy and resources • With more food and energy humans began to: • Multiply more rapidly • Live in larger and denser communities • Leading to A NEW LEVEL OF COMPLEXITY resurgence.gn.apc.org/ issues/pretty205.htm

4. The pace of change began to vary from region to region • Where dense populations appeared, change was generally faster • Where populations remained small and scattered, change was generally slower • So:Different parts of the world began to have very different histories : freewebhosting.hostdepartment.com : www.landenweb.com/bevolking

5. = Early agriculture, dense settlement Three main ‘World Zones’ in the last 10,000 years History took a different trajectory in each zone

6. Agriculture: A major turning point in human history • With larger communities and larger populations … • Collective learning began to accelerate • Human communities began to change in fundamental ways • A historical ‘gear shift’ to a faster pace • Since the appearance of agriculture, there have been fundamental changes in … • The nature of human societies • The nature of human history • The pace of change www.ddc2000.com

7. Pt. 2: What is Agriculture? From ‘Extensification’ to ‘Intensification’ WHAT DISTINGUISHES FARMING FROM FORAGING? YOUR ANSWER? • Foragers • found new energy sources by spreading into new niches and environments • This is ‘extensification’ • Farmers • found ways to extract more energy from a given area • This is ‘intensification’

8. Contrasting Foragers and Farmers Foragers ‘harvest’ a wide variety of different animals and plants that are provided by natural selection Farmers • ‘harvest’ a smaller number of animals and plants but • increase their output artificially • From • Relying on nature, to • Manipulating nature www.kidzpicz.com danny.oz.au/travel

9. Agriculture is a form of ‘symbiosis’ • Many organisms come to rely on each other • For food • Or protection • Over time, this relation affects how they evolve • Some species evolve so as to become more and more dependent on each other • Until they cannot survive alone • This is ‘Symbiosis’

10. Honey Pot Ants Aphids Honey pot ants: the first ‘farmers’? • Honey pot ants ‘domesticate’ aphids. They • protect them, • herd them, • help them reproduce, and • ‘milk’ them for honeydew. • Over many generations, both ants and aphids slowly ‘evolve’ to fit this particular ‘symbiotic’ niche • Sound familiar?

11. Agriculture as Symbiosis • Like honey pot ants, farmers: • Protect and look after useful species such as maize and cattle • Learn how to increase production of their ‘domesticates’ to support more of their own species (humans) • ‘Domesticated’ species benefit from the deal: • Humans protect them • And help them reproduce • Over time, humans and their domesticates begin to depend on the relationship • Humans change culturally new technologies and life ways • Domesticates change genetically new species

12. To much larger groups of farmers From small groups of foragers From the tomb of Nefer Sakkara Human societies changed culturally

13. Modern varieties of maize are larger and much more nutritious; but they cannot reproduce without human help Teosinte, the ancestor of maize, is small, weedy and not too nutritious, but it can survive in the wild Domesticates changed genetically

14. The domestic sheep is a close relative. It is stupider, more docile and more helpless. But, because of its symbiotic relationship with humans, it is biologically more successful and more numerous. ‘Dall’ sheep or ‘thinhorns’ from N.W. N. America Compare Wild and Domestic sheep

15. When and Where?Early Agricultural Sites Mississippi valley S.W. Asia N. China Pakistan S. China Mesoamerica Egypt & Sudan S.E. Asia W. Africa Andes Papua New Guinea

16. Some early dates for farming

17. End of last ice age Earliest evidence of farming in S.W. Asia Farming in E. Asia Farming in Americas TIME-CHECK: Timeline: 12 thousand years

18. Explaining the Origins of Agriculture • The obvious (but wrong) answer: • Someone invented it • Everyone else copied it • There’s a problem! • Agriculture appeared separately in different parts of the world, within a few millennia • Not everyone wanted to be a farmer, because • Living as a farmer was often • Harder and • Less healthy • than living as a forager

19. So why did some take up farming? A possible answer: Step by Step • Step 1: Precondition 1: Humans already had a lot of the necessary knowledge and skills • Step 2: Precondition 2: Some species were already ‘pre-adapted’ as ‘domesticates’ • Step 3: Becoming less nomadic: • Because of Climatic change (Gardens of Eden) • Over population (Local shortages) • Step 4: The ‘trap of Sedentism’: Sedentism makes further intensification necessary • Step 5: Voilà! Agriculture!

20. STEP 1: Humans already had many of the skills for farming • Foragers were ‘pre-adapted’ culturally • They knew an immense amount about • Plants • Animals • And how to increase their ‘production’ • And they were already transforming their environments: Examples • Fire-stick farming • Megafaunal extinctions www.uwo.ca/museum/virtual

21. STEP 2: Some species were ‘pre-adapted’ for domestication • Some species were more suitable for domestication • E.g.wheat, which has been changed very little by humans • In contrast to maize, which had to be ‘trained’ for a long time first • There were many promising species in S.W. Asia • This may be one reason why agriculture began there [according to Jared Diamond] Varieties of wheat

22. Maize was less ‘pre-adapted’ for domestication than wheat Teosinte: small, weedy and not too nutritious Perhaps that’s one reason why agriculture developed later in the Americas

23. STEP 3: Some humans became less ‘nomadic’, more ‘sedentary’ Sedentism increased in some parts of the world from c. 10,000 years ago Why? 2 main Reasons: • Climatic change: • As climates got warmer, in some areas there appeared regions of ‘abundance’ (‘Gardens of Eden’) where large groups settled • Population pressure: • By 10,000 years ago, global migrations meant that in some areas there was population pressure, which forced people to migrate in smaller areas

24. 1) Climatic Change and ‘Affluent foragers’ • ‘Affluent foragers’ are foragers who have such plentiful resources that they can settle down and become ‘sedentary’ • In Australia, some groups • built fish weirs • settled in villages nearby • In Mesopotamia, people of the ‘Natufian’ culture • harvested wild grain • hunted gazelles • lived in villages

25. Eel Trap ‘Affluent Foragers’ in Australia The Gunditjmara people of Victoria, Australia, are descendants of people who • ‘farmed’ eels for 8,000 years • were not nomadic • lived in large, permanent villages • had powerful chiefs Reconstruction of a Gunditjmara dwelling made using rocks, peat and reeds.[ABC TV]

26. 2) Population Pressure  Sedentism? • By 12,000 years ago, foragers had migrated to most parts of the world • In some areas, there may have been too little room • So each group had to live in a smaller territory and spend less time migrating Artists impression of Natufians ‘harvesting’ wild grains

27. STEP 4: the ‘Trap of Sedentism’ • When you migrate: • you have to keep populations small(How? Infanticide? Senilicide? Few births) • so populations of nomadic foragers grew very slowly • When you stay in one place and have lots of food, what changes? • you can support more children • you need more labor • So, populations grew amongst sedentary foragers

28. Over-population: what to do? • What can you do if there are suddenly too many people and not enough land? • A) Go back to a nomadic life • (but what if there is no longer any room, and you can’t remember how to hunt?) • B) Concentrate on increasing the productivity of the crops and animals in your area,by • Removing unwanted trees or plants (‘weeding’ and ‘deforestation’) • Looking after animals you want (‘herding’) • Option B = Farming!

29. STEP 5: Voilà: Farming! ‘Swidden Agriculture’: Yanomami farmers, Amazon basin: trees are ‘weeded’ to provide sunlight and nutrition for crops

30. Subsistence farming in Papua New Guinea, today Is this what an early neolithic farm may have looked like?

31. Part 4: Early Agrarian Societies:A world of villages • We often assume that agriculture quickly led to the appearance cities, states and ‘civilization’ • But for many thousands of years it did not • So what were the earliest agrarian societies like? • And what is their place in human history? This second part of the lecture is about the era of human history in which early agrarian societies were the most important type of community

32. A distinct era of human History:The Early Agrarian Era • Main features? A world with increasing numbers of farmers and villages, but no cities and states • Historiography? Largely ignored by historians • Dates? Vary from region to region • From 11,000 years ago in some part of the world • To the 1st appearance of cities and states • c. 5,000 years ago in some parts of the world • Today, in some parts of the world

33. Afro-Eurasia The Americas Australasia A Fourth Zone: Oceania from c. 4,000 years ago The Three Great ‘World Zones’ of the Agrarian Era

34. Different histories in the three World Zones • Afro-Eurasia: Earliest evidence • Largest populations, greatest ecological variety • Crops: wheats, millets, rice, peas, lentils • Wide range of potential animal domesticates • Americas: Agriculture appears later • Next largest populations, great ecological variety • Crops: Maize, potatoes, gourds, chili, beans • Few potential animal domesticates (why?) • Australasia: Agriculture early but v. limited • Very small populations, limited ecological variety • Agriculture only in PNG taro • Few potential animal domesticates (why?)

35. Technologies of the Early Agrarian Era • For farmers the main limitations on production are: • Shortage of energy and labor • Shortage of fertilizer and/or nutrients • Shortage of water • In the early agrarian era: • Most energy and labor came from humans • There was no animal fertilizer • And very little use of irrigation

36. Major Technologies • Early technologies reflect these limitations • Horticulture • Swidden or ‘Slash and Burn’ • Mesoamerican ‘Chinampas’ : www.ancientworlds.net www.hadlow.ac.uk/gallery/ view www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/ research/earth/tfe.html

37. Early agrarian technologies:Productivity • Early agrarian technologies were • much less productive than later technologies • but much more productive than those of the Paleolithic Era • and over time they slowly improved • So populations began to grow faster

38. The spread of agriculture • As populations grew, families had to move on and clear new land • Creating new farming communities by ‘budding off’ • So the number of farming communities increased • Until, by 5,000 years ago, most people on earth were probably farming for a living

39. How did agriculture spread? • As populations grew, villages expanded and ‘budded off’ to create new villages • To see how this works, imagine a village by a river Like this modern Sudanese village on the river Nile

40. As populations grew, younger families built new houses

41. As Populations Grew, A New Dynamism! • The early agrarian era introduced a new dynamism • Agrarian technologies spread and improved • Populations grew • The pace of collective learning accelerated www.beyondtouring.com/ Maya/maya.htm

42. How did people live in the early agrarian era? • A sedentary world • Farmers lived in permanent dwellings • Populations grew much faster • A world of villages • No cities, no states • Communities of a few tens of households to several thousands • The village was your world, but this experience varied greatly in the early agrarian era

43. An early agrarian ‘village’ Skara Brae in the Orkneys, buried for 5,000 years; Excavated by Gordon Childe • Neolithic village of Skara Brae on the shore of the Bay of Skaill (west coast of the Orkney's) • Structures contain stone furniture (dressers, beds, cupboards) dating back to 3200BCE.

44. A Zulu village, today Located on a broad plain of savanna grasslands, where the men still practice the hunting of their ancestors, while the women tended the crops

45. ‘Beehive houses’ from Syria made from sun-dried mud Are these similar to houses in ancient Mesopotamia during the Early Agrarian Era?

46. Even the ‘towns’ were really overgrown villages • Some villages grew especially large because: They were important ritual centers • They had valued resources such as reliable wells • They traded in valuable goods Ancient town of Hoi in Vietnam www.thesalmons.org/ lynn/wh-vietnam

47. The oldest town in the world? Jericho today, on the Palestinian ‘West Bank’. It was probably first settled by Natufian ‘affluent foragers’, 10,000 years ago. It is blessed with extremely reliable well in a region of desert.

48. The walls of ancient Jericho (built 9-10,000 years ago) • According to the Book of Joshua, the walls crumbled down without a blow after the Israelites walked round it seven times and blew the shofar • This would have happened around 1200 BCE, but Jericho existed long before that.

49. Catal Huyuk prospered through trading in obsidian, the ancient equivalent of steel Catal Huyuk, almost 9,000 years ago Catal Huyuk, in modern Turkey, had 5-6,000 inhabitants; houses were entered from the roofs

50. The Fertile Crescent Catal Huyuk Jericho