Coming to Be, Coming to Farm

Big Geography, the Peopling of the Earth, Neolithic Revolution and Early Agriculture

Mr. Prindiville

Humans: recent, but

slow to grow.

• Within last 14,000 years, developed greatly into the modern human:• More erect stature• Tamed fire• Increase in average

size• Tool use (small

stones)• Speech• Belief

The Great Migration: from Africa to the Ends of the Earth

Social & Economic Organization of the Roaming Paleolithic Peoples

• Economic structures were focused on small kinship groups of hunting foraging bands • could make what they needed to survive• Not all groups were self-sufficient; they

exchanged people, ideas, and goods.• Remember the arrow

The Great Innovation: Agriculture (Neolithic Rev.)

Developed in Seven General Areas

1. Fertile Crescent2. several areas in Sub-Saharan Africa3. China4. New Guinea5. Mesoamerica6. The Andes7. Eastern North America

When, and why?

• In all of these cases it happened around the same time: 12,000-4,000 years ago• Scholars struggle with

the question:• Why did ag. develop

so late in human history?

Diprotodon ~6k lbs

Extinction coincides with early human arrival. ~46000ya

Mammoth tusk spear thrower

Frozen cub with food in stomach

The Great Innovation: Agriculture (Neolithic Rev.)

Agriculture Impacts Society

• Women were probably the agricultural innovators• Pastoralism developed at various sites in the grasslands of Afro-Eurasia.• Different crops in different regions depending

on local flora and fauna

• Disease

Human-Environment Interaction• Agricultural

communities had to work cooperatively to clear land and create water control systems. • These agricultural

practices drastically impacted environmental diversity. – Pastoralists affected

the grasslands by overgrazing.

Kora-Khokhoi preparing to move - 1805

Improvements in Ag. production

• Pottery• Plows• Woven textiles• Metallurgy • Wheels and wheeled

vehicles. a

Nefertiti in sheer linen

Political Life of Pastoral and Agricultural Societies

•Elite groups accumulated wealth and power.•Creating hierarchal social structures•Promoted patriarchy

Results

• Harder work• Disease (animal interaction)• Epidemics (large communities)

• Vulnerable to famine• Constraints on movement• Explosion of innovation• Textiles, metallurgy

• Alteration of natural ecosystem - deliberate

Following animals, Paleolithic peoples

leave Africa

Develop use of fire and more elaborate tools as they move

into colder environments

Interacted with each other as they

roamed; language developed and

knowledge spreads.

End of Ice Age sparks agricultural

development; independently in different places;

pastoralism develops in grasslands

Agriculture impacts environmental

diversity

With more reliable food, population

increases

More food allows people to do art, be full time warriors,

and also be leaders.

These people make technical

breakthroughs that make agriculture and transportation more

efficient

Hierarchical societies emerge.