ANTH151 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Indus River, Patrilineality, Consolidated Laws Of New York
10 May 2018
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ANTH151 Lecture
XI: Food Domestication and Urbanization
The Neolithic Revolution: growing our own food
The Neolithic Revolution
• ‘Neolithic’ - ‘New Stone Age’
• Sedentary life, agriculture, irrigation, intensive work on the land
• Oldest evidence of agriculture is approximate 14,000 BP: barley cultivation in the highlands
of Mesopotamia (now in Iraq)
• Upper Nile has mortar and pestles dating to 15,000 BP, but later abandoned; some evidence
for changes in wild grains and legumes about 17,000 BP
• Some possible evidence of agriculture in Vietnam in 14,000 BP
• Transition is not abrupt or complete; people engaged in limited agricultural activities while
still gathering wild foods and hunting to supplement diet
• Agriculture not more efficient (labour to productivity) than hunting
• Once agriculture took hold, the increasing population meant that it was impossible to return to
hunting and foraging
The nature of agriculture
Three ways to think about domestication
• Humans dominate plants and other animals, using foresight, intelligence and conscious intent
• Animals and plants benefit in reproductive range and survival from finding human niche
(some anthropologists even see humans as manipulated in relationship)
• Human-domesticate link like other co-dependent species (like ants and aphids) - affect each
other’s survival
• First domesticates - dogs, bottle gourds, figs
Are humans the only agriculturalists?
What does it mean to domesticate a plant?
• Some theories, especially focusing on grains, concentrate on artificial selection and genetic
changes to domesticated plants
• But other animals and plants (like trees or root crops that reproduce by cloning) have more
subtle mechanisms of human intervention
• Some anthropologists set a high bar between ‘wild’ and ‘domesticated’: genetic isolation or
complete reproductive dependence on humans
• Domestication - a pattern of human behaviour with a range of biological consequences, both
for humans and environment
• Key criteria: although humans not aware of all the consequences, conscious intent and rapid
cultural learning mark domestication different from other inter-species mutualism
Evidence of early domestication
• Direct evidence of domestication difficult because same plants often exist wild
• Sometimes evidence of plants outside natural range
• Increasingly, indirect evidence from land: modification of drainage, shifts in pollen, or
intentional burning
• In animals, harvesting strategies might be detected in remains (e.g. Killing of surplus males)
Economic modes (production of food)
• Hunting
• Foraging
• Framing
• Herding
• In fact, there are middle grounds between these basic modes of producing food
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• For example, altering environment to produce more game animals or sowing trees
• Indigenous forms of ‘resource management’ (e.g. In Australia and Americas)
Prehistory of agriculture: Neolithic and ‘broad spectrum’ revolutions
The ‘Broad Spectrum Revolution’
• End of last ice age, approximately 12-8,000 years ago, humans were primarily big game
hunters and opportunistic gathers (began diversified activities)
• Ken Flannery propose the idea in 1968
• BSR theory: population growth in the best (optimal) areas led to population pressures in
nearby regions when ‘daughter’ groups out-migrated
• Looking for food in marginal areas led to wider range of game, plants and invertebrates
• People tried to move cereal grains and plant foods into new habitats, encouraging more
widespread growth
• The shift in foraging and gathering patterns led to population growth which laid the
foundation for Neolithic Revolution, the move to agriculture and settled life
• Sedentary life preceded the move to agriculture
The Fertile Crescent
• 11,000BP, Natufians in ‘fertile crescent’
• Four climate-geography zones: high plateau, hilly flanks, steppe and alluvial plains
• Agriculture did not begin where stands of gran were naturally abundant (hilly flanks), but
where people tried to artificially extend stands of grain
• First sedentary villages in hilly flank area (vertical economy)
• Drying of climate led to experimentation
‘Vertical economy’ and agriculture’s origins
• Mountainous or hilly terrain produces several vertically-separated ecological zones.
Geographically close, but ecologically distinct
• Humans may seek to move plants to adjacent, but different ecological cones. Goal is
preservation of natural resource is adjacent, unnatural area
• Vertical pattern followed in some zones of domestication: Middle East, Peru, Mexico
Why did agriculture arise?
• Environmental causes: a brief return to Ice Age conditions around 13,000-11,600BP made
environment more arid. Drove humans to agriculture
• Population dynamics: increasing population led to ‘food crisis.’ People abandoned easier,
more nutritious foraging and hunting to more labour intensive, low return and delayed
satisfaction of tending of grains because land could support larger population. Binford: more
than 9 people/100 km2 forces change in subsistence
• Social prestige or psychological explanations: agriculture arose in areas of plenty because of
desire for aggrandisement (e.g. Competitive feasting). Domestication allows ownership,
private property, and accumulation
• Conceptual change: humans started to see themselves as no longer natural
Wild to domestic in plants
• Many traits that are advantageous for domestication are contrary to wild survival of plant
• Decrease fertility (fewer, larger seeds)
• Decrease spread (‘shatter-proof’ grasses like wheat)
• Loss of flowering (some potatoes) or seeding (bananas, oranges, some figs) - dependent on
human cultivation
• Other changes: thin-shelled nuts, potatoes close to plant
Example: einkorn wheat
• Wild einkorn has traits that assist in reproduction
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Evidence of early domestication: direct evidence of domestication difficult because same plants often exist wild, sometimes evidence of plants outside natural range. Increasingly, indirect evidence from land: modification of drainage, shifts in pollen, or intentional burning. In animals, harvesting strategies might be detected in remains (e. g. killing of surplus males) Economic modes (production of food: hunting, foraging, framing, herding. In fact, there are middle grounds between these basic modes of producing food: for example, altering environment to produce more game animals or sowing trees. Indigenous forms of resource management" (e. g. in australia and americas) Prehistory of agriculture: neolithic and broad spectrum" revolutions. Vertical economy" and agriculture"s origins: mountainous or hilly terrain produces several vertically-separated ecological zones. Geographically close, but ecologically distinct: humans may seek to move plants to adjacent, but different ecological cones. Goal is preservation of natural resource is adjacent, unnatural area: vertical pattern followed in some zones of domestication: middle east, peru, mexico.
