THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION and The

EARLY AGRARIAN ERA

What is agriculture?Why is it so

important in human history?

How did early

farmers live?

Middle School WorkshopsSession 3Craig Benjamin

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 – W1.2.1 Transition 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 season6 – W1.2.3 Explain the impact of the Agricultural Revolution- stable food supply- surplus- population growth- trade- division of labor- development of settlements

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

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

Three main ‘World Zones’ in the last 10,000 years

= Early agriculture, dense settlement= Early agriculture, dense settlement

History took a different trajectory in each zone

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

Pt. 2: What is Agriculture? From ‘Extensification’ to ‘Intensification’

• 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’

WHAT DISTINGUISHES FARMING FROM FORAGING? YOUR ANSWER?

Contrasting Foragers and Farmers

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

Foragers ‘harvest’ a wide variety of different animals and plants that are provided by natural selection

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’

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?

Honey Pot Ants

Aphids

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

Human societies changed culturally

From small groups of foragers

From the tomb of Nefer Sakkara

To much larger groups of farmers

Domesticates changed genetically

Teosinte, the ancestor of maize, is small, weedy and not too nutritious, but it can survive in the wild

Modern varieties of maize are larger and much more nutritious; but they cannot reproduce without human help

Compare Wild and Domestic sheep

‘Dall’ sheep or ‘thinhorns’ from N.W. N. America

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.

When and Where?Early Agricultural Sites

S.W. Asia

Egypt& SudanW. Africa

Pakistan

S.E. AsiaS. China

N. China

Papua New Guinea

Mississippi valley

Mesoamerica

Andes

Some early dates for farming

Region Key Domesticates

Earliest evidence

Dog 13-12,000 BP

S.W. Asia Wheats, cattle 11-9,000 BP

China Rice, Millet 9,000 BP

Africa/Americas Millet, sorghum, maize

6-4,000 BP

TIME-CHECK: Timeline: 12 thousand years

End of last ice age

Earliest evidence of farming in S.W. Asia

Farming in E. Asia

Farming in Americas

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

Agriculture! A Brilliant

Idea!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

‘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]

Eel Trap

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

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

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!

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

Subsistence farming in Papua New

Guinea, today

Is this what an early neolithic farm may have looked like?

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

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

The Three Great ‘World Zones’ of the Agrarian Era

The AmericasAfro-Eurasia

Australasia

A Fourth Zone: Oceaniafrom c. 4,000 years ago

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?)

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

Major Technologies

• Early technologies reflect these limitations

1. Horticulture

2. Swidden or ‘Slash and Burn’

3. Mesoamerican ‘Chinampas’

www.hadlow.ac.uk/gallery/ view www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/ research/earth/tfe.html

: www.ancientworlds.net

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

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

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

As populations grew, younger families built new houses

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 acceleratedwww.beyondtouring.com/ Maya/maya.htm

• 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

How did people live in the early agrarian era?

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.

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

‘Beehive houses’ from Syria made from sun-dried mud

Are these similar to houses in ancient Mesopotamia during the Early Agrarian Era?

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

goodsAncient town of Hoi in Vietnam

www.thesalmons.org/ lynn/wh-vietnam

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.

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.

Catal Huyuk, almost 9,000 years agoCatal Huyuk, in modern Turkey, had 5-6,000 inhabitants; houses

were entered from the roofs

Catal Huyuk prospered through trading in obsidian, the ancient equivalent of steel

The Fertile Crescent

Jericho

Catal Huyuk

A relatively egalitarian world?• No states, no jails, no police, no armies• Most people lived at about the same level

– We can tell because the size of houses and the wealth in them does not vary much

• It is possible that men and women had roughly the same amount of power– Women appear to have owned as much wealth as men

• There was no organized war– Conflict, yes, but the lack of fortifications suggest that warfare was very limited

This was NOT the position of women in the early ag. era!

Can you tell who’s rich and who’s poor in this cliff-side village in Mali?

Men and women did different jobs:

does that mean they were unequal?

A Hopi woman making ‘piki’ bread, c. 1906

Farming required teamwork: Vietnamese farmers

Conclusion: Living

Standards?

May have declined in early agrarian villages• Farmers relied on fewer food stuffs than foragers, so:

– Their diets were less varied (and farmers may have been less tall than neighboring foragers)

– Famine became a real possibility if staple crops failed• Farmers probably worked harder than foragers• Farmers probably suffered higher levels of stress (we can tell

from study of bones)

Lunch Time!