mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Emergence of Civilizations / Anthro 341: Class 4 _ The origins of agriculture _ ã Copyright Bruce Owen 2003 * Archaeologists think agriculture is a big deal. Why? * It is a recent change in the way humans have lived for most of their existence * As we saw before, even if you include only anatomically modern _Homo sapiens_, over 90% of our history was as foragers. so: farming and civilization are both very recent aberrations for the human race. This recent shift to agriculture is interesting not only for its own sake, but also because it seems to be connected to the development of civilization * Both farming and civilization came about very recently; it seems unlikely that this timing would just be coincidental * Civilization never appeared in that immensely long span of time _before_ people started practicing agriculture * so it looks like agriculture was a necessary condition for civilization All the "pristine civilizations" we know of got their subsistence through agriculture * "pristine civilization" means one that arose all by itself, without the influence of some other existing civilization * as opposed to "_secondary _civilization" or "secondary state", which is one that arose in a world that was already altered by the presence of a civilization or state * in this class, we will focus on what should be the simplest, clearest cases: "pristine" civilizations Some states and near-states have been based on pastoralism * but this seems to happen only in situations in which there are already agricultural states in neighboring areas * pastoral "civilizations" don't seem to arise on their own Some key ideas about agriculture * Agriculture = Activities to artificially increase plant food yields (sowing seeds, clearing forest, weeding, diverting water, fertilizing, etc.) * Agriculture provides more food per unit area of land than does foraging * That is, you get more food per acre by farming it than by collecting the wild foods on it * This allows more people to live in a given area * That is, it allows a higher density of people Of course, it takes more labor to farm an acre of land than to collect the wild foods that are naturally there This process of putting more labor per acre _in_ to get more product per acre _out_ is called _intensification_ * agriculture is more "intensive" than foraging * in that it produces food more per acre, but requires more labor per acre to do so agricultural practices themselves can be more or less "intensive" * a "low intensity" form of agriculture might involve just scattering seeds or diverting floodwaters to wet some land * fertilizing, irrigating with canals, etc. are "more intensive" forms of agriculture * because they get more crops per acre * at the cost of collecting, hauling, and applying the fertilizer, building and cleaning the canals, etc. Is farming a good deal, compared to foraging? * that is, if you double the labor input, do you at least double the food output? * the surprising, empirical answer is, in most cases: no! * In fact, agriculture usually requires more labor per unit of food produced than does foraging * That is, a farming family has to work more hours per year to provide its own food than a foraging family does The !Kung recognize this as a matter of common sense * That is why when Lee (author of the reading on the !Kung) asked the !Kung why they don't farm, one famous reply was "Why should we farm when there are so many mongongo nuts?" * They know that they can get the food they need with less work by foraging The tradeoff of agriculture is clear if we consider the difference between the yield of food _per acre_ and the yield of food _per hour worked_ * agriculture produces more food per acre * but agriculture produces less food per hour worked * In a given area, agriculture can produce more food than foraging can, so agriculture can feed more people * But each one has to work harder than before to survive Foraging is a good deal if there is a lot of land per person, that is, a very low density of people * But if there are too many people for the available land, foraging just can't provide enough food * so if population gets too high, farming or herding become the only alternatives to hunger You often hear the idea that when people switched from foraging to farming, they escaped the pressures of a precarious existence and suddenly had the time to develop "civilized" practices like art, literature, science, and technology * but in fact it was the reverse * farmers have _less_ free time than foragers * so we need some more sophisticated explanation for the development of civilization Agriculture allows people settle in one place (become _sedentary_), and creates reasons for them to do so * It _allows_ them to settle because * agriculture can provide enough food in a limited area that the food is not exhausted before the next season replenishes it * so people don't have to move in order to get food It _encourages_ them to settle because * fields must be tilled, weeded, irrigated, harvested, etc., which requires people to be there at many different times during the year * harvests produce a lot of food at once, which has to be stored for eating later * staying near the stored food is easier than carrying it around stored food, fields, canals, etc. may need to be defended In some particularly good environments, foragers can be sedentary or semi-sedentary, too * but this is not common * sedentary foragers are usually highly specialized on one or a few very productive wild resources in specially favored places * like acorns in some parts of California, or salmon on the Pacific northwest coast * as we will see, sedentary specialized foragers in unusually favored environments may have been the first to develop agriculture agriculture, on the other hand, allows people to become sedentary in less ideal, more common, environments and to support larger populations in a given area Agriculture and sedentism tend to lead to population growth * Both tend to increase fertility for biological reasons * Increased carbohydrate consumption from agricultural crops may keep women's body fat levels high enough year-round that they do not go through periods of infertility * foragers often get very lean during the season of scarcity (it varies in different regions), which reduces female fertility * this is an effect familiar to female runners and dancers Less mobile mothers may have fewer spontaneous abortions Less mobile mothers don't have to carry their small children constantly, encouraging them to stop breast feeding sooner * Fertility is reduced while nursing * So shortening the period of breast feeding shortens the period of reduced fertility * Making the mother more likely to get pregnant again sooner and have more children over the course of her lifetime Since the mother does not have to carry her infant around while foraging, farming makes it practical for a woman to have more than one infant at a time, allowing larger families * mothers are not forced to take measures to prevent having another infant while a previous one is still small * such as abstinence rules, contraceptive measures, induced abortions, or infanticide, all of which were practiced by at least some foragers Agriculture also provides economic incentives to have more children * Farming creates a greater demand for labor, that is, kids to help with the work * So farmers generally want to have large families, and the population tends to grow Soon they are locked in: population rises, and people can't give up farming without causing hardship or starvation * because there are more people than the available land could support by foraging * So the shift to farming is to some extent a one-way change * there is no going back without unacceptable disaster Agriculture and sedentism have surprising effects on nutrition and health * early agriculture often focuses on one or a few of the most productive crops * so most early farmers had less varied diets than foragers * and often poorer nutrition overall more carbohydrates lead to more dental caries (cavities), abscesses, etc. - serious matters before modern dentistry more labor leads to more arthritis and other wear-and-tear ailments living in permanent villages creates new problems of sanitation (waste disposal, insect infestation, etc.) that encourage disease living in larger, denser groups aids the spread of epidemic diseases overall, settled agricultural lifestyles typically increased biological stress on people * and often decreased lifespan * more children were produced, but they have more ailments and tend to die younger * in theory, these two trends could cancel each other out * but the observed pattern is that in most cases, the increased birth rate outweighs the reduced survivorship, and the net effect is a population increase Agriculture and sedentism have cultural effects, too: * Agriculture requires investment of labor to make a plot of land productive * land that has been cleared, tilled, etc. is more valuable than the rest of the countryside * so people will tend to claim ownership of improved land, and become tied to it Sedentism allows accumulation of material goods: storage of goods and food * thus the origins of rich and poor people and classes * so sedentism makes economic stratification possible * accumulation is not limited to a single generation, either; land and goods can be inherited * mobile foragers also inherit, but the goods involved are minimal and mobility limits accumulation * more fortunate families may accumulate wealth over generations * allowing greater economic stratification * and the formation of economic classes and aristocratic families Agriculture and sedentism allow the production and storage of _surplus_: food or other goods beyond the needs of the producer * surplus production is possible for at least some foragers, but since foragers generally cannot store or transport much surplus or other goods, they don't generally produce it * surplus production makes it possible to support craftspeople and other specialists who do not produce all (or any) of their own food * Harvey Weiss called this "the beginning of the big rip-off" the existence of surplus and people who don't produce all their own food creates a whole new arena for social arrangements that may become very complex. Consider: * Successful farmers might use their surplus to support servants * Farming families might want to pool some of their surplus as insurance for bad times or to support work on community projects, defense, etc. * There will have to be ways to keep track, distribute, decide who gets what, etc. If some people trade surplus for goods or services, how will the inevitable disagreements, debts, etc. be handled? Some people might try to encourage or coerce others to produce surplus to support them, like chiefs, priests, warriors... Agriculture allows larger groups to live together (hamlets and towns, vs. mobile bands) * people have to interact with a larger number of others * the kinship system becomes inadequate to structure interactions * since you can't keep track of so many relationships so people start using other criteria to determine how to interact with the people they encounter * such as social status, class, rank * this is the beginning of more complex social organization greater likelihood of conflicts * because more people are interacting with each other * and because people can't defuse problems by simply moving away easily * encourages the development of institutions for conflict resolution (chiefs, religious authorities, courts, etc.) Settled people with goods are easier to raid, threaten, conquer, control, tax * unlike foragers, settled agriculturalists have land and goods that people may want to take by force * so raids or warfare become possible * and farmers may need to defend themselves settled farmers are easier to coerce and extract production from, because they are stuck in one place and have goods that can be taken from them agricultural surplus makes it possible to support some people to carry out such coercion (a chief's thugs, armies, the IRS, etc.) * and also to defend against it this vulnerability, surplus, and accumulation of wealth help make power hierarchies possible Agriculture and sedentism make these changes, many of which are steps towards "civilization", possible. But that does not mean agriculture and/or sedentism _cause_ civilization to arise; they just made civilization possible, while among mobile foragers it was not. * Some foragers specializing in unusually rich resources (like salmon on the northwest coast of the US, or acorns in California) were sedentary and lived in relatively large villages, even without agriculture * Yet none of these developed states or "civilizations" settled farmers were around for thousands of years before "civilizations" emerged So sedentism, and even agriculture, are apparently necessary steps, but not sufficient ones, for the appearance of civilization Something else must be needed, too What we want to know about the origins of agriculture * Basic facts * Where and when agriculture began * With what crops Explanation: How and why did people start farming? * Why did agriculture seem like a good deal at the time? * That is, what processes, pressures, etc. led people to start farming and eventually to depend on it in any given case? This means we will be looking at the beginning and spread of the _Neolithic_ * Neolithic: two meanings * 1. A stone tool technology that emphasizes grinding, rather than flaking * This results in a more durable cutting edge (although not as sharp) * good for axes needed to cut trees to clear farmland in forested places like Europe 2. More importantly for us, the period in which agriculture came into use and was the main source of food * so called because in many places, ground-stone tools came into use at about the same time as agriculture became important * so they serve as a convenient marker and term for early agricultural periods There are several ways we can recognize the advent of agriculture in the archaeological record * Domestication = genetic modification of a wild plant or animal due to human involvement with its reproduction * Not necessarily intentional - but a plant or animal is not domesticated unless it has evolved under human influence * If we can identify remains of domesticated plants or animals (ones that differ from wild forms), we have direct evidence of agriculture or pastoralism Fields (indicated by furrows, ditches, regularly placed small mounds, etc) * Rarely preserved, but occasionally we get lucky Lots of tools used for agricultural tasks (smaller quantities might just have been used for specialized foraging) * Hoes or digging tools * Sickles used for harvesting grain * Grinding stones used for grinding grain Large, permanent settlements are a strong hint that people were supported by agriculture, but not proof in themselves Storage structures for crops * again, specialized foragers might have these to a lesser extent Canals (usually only once agriculture is well established and intensified) So, what actually happened? * People invented agriculture independently in many places, at different times, with different crops * (these are current estimates; a lot of research is going on to better define these cases) * 9,000 - 8,000 BC: the Levant (Palestine, Israel, etc.) * wheat, barley, lentils, peas, etc. * sheep, goats, pigs, cattle 8,500 - 7,700 BC: the rest of southwest Asia (Anatolia, Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, reaching out towards India) * wheat, barley, lentils, peas, etc. * sheep, goats, pigs, cattle 10,000? - 6,500 BC: southern China, southeast Asia * yams maybe earliest; rice * water buffalo, pigs 6,500 - 5,000 BC: north-central China * millet, etc. * pigs 9,000 - 3,000 BC: Peru * beans, peppers, squash, quinoa, potatoes, gourds (very gradual adoption) * guinea pigs, llamas 7,000 - 4,000 BC: Papua New Guinea * tubers such as yams or taro 5,000 - 3000 BC BC: Mexico * maize, beans, squash, peppers, gourds * turkeys, dogs after 2000 BC: Sub-saharan Africa * rice, sorghum, millet by 1000 BC: Midwest North America * marsh elder, sunflower, goosefoot Farming started at various different times in different places, with different crops, probably through somewhat different processes * The transition was often a very gradual increase in dependence on plants that were encouraged by sowing, simple irrigation, burning off competing grasses, etc., so it is hard to pick a specific date when farming "started" or became important * Depending on where you draw the lines, most of the world's major independent agricultural traditions began between about 10,000 BC and 3,000 BC * many people continued to forage during this time, and on almost to the present * others developed hybrid arrangements where they herded animals, traded, etc. but depended in part on food they got through relationships with farmers near them * others adopted agriculture later, using crops, animals, and practices that had originated in these earlier traditions Relatively speaking, all of these independent inventions of agriculture happened at about the same time in human existence. * that is, humans existed for a hundred thousand years, then independently developed agriculture in many different places around the world in "just" a few thousand years What was special about this time that many different cultures began farming then? * Homo sapiens evolved mostly during the Pleistocene (ice ages) * The Pleistocene tapered off and the climate warmed, ice retreated, sea level rose, wild plant and animal communities changed... * within a few thousand years, humans were farming in many places around the world * in the broad scheme of things, these independent inventions of agriculture all happened in the same post-Pleistocene setting and time frame, reflecting the same general processes * they presumably had something to do with the climate changes * and possibly with the gradually rising populations of humans around the world at a more detailed level, thousands of years separated the adoption of agriculture in different regions * and each case happened in ways specific to the environment and cultures of the area Some cases and scenarios * One suggested process of domestication of wheat (other grains may have been similar) * wild wheat * seeds have brittle rachis [RAY-kis] (attachment to the stem), so they fall off easily * seeds are narrow and have a rounded point that lets them penetrate cracks in the ground people started collecting wild wheat, probably by pushing a basket up to the heads of wheat and giving them a tap to make the ripe seeds fall into the basket * those seeds that happened to have a more brittle rachis were more easily collected, because they fell off the stems more easily. * Plants that happened to have a slightly tougher rachis lost fewer seeds to the harvesters. * These seeds that were NOT harvested were the ones that remained to naturally sow the next generation of plants this process selected for plants with a tough rachis, gradually producing a kind of wheat more like the domesticated form, in which the seeds stay on the head and have to be removed by threshing * this evolution of the plants was caused unintentionally by people an increasing fraction of the seeds did not fall off easily when ripe, and were less successful at working their way into the soil because they were less pointed * so the wheat became less effective at sowing itself naturally as the seeds stuck more tightly to the head, people shifted their harvesting method * to one in which they used sickles to cut off and collect the whole head, and then later threshed (beat) the heads to knock the seeds off * this allowed more effective harvesting of most of the wheat between the reduced effectiveness of the wheat at sowing itself, and the efficient harvesting of most of the seeds using the sickle method, the wild stands could not replenish themselves well people started "helping" the wheat by sowing part of the harvest * so the seeds that were planted were the tough ones that stuck onto the head during harvesting, further encouraging the evolution of the wheat eventually people started intentionally selecting seeds to sow that had the desired qualities: fat, large grains * now the evolution of the plants was intentionally guided by people the result was domesticated wheat, with large grains that tend to stay on the head similar processes are thought to have happened with other crops, especially cereals The classic "western" agricultural complex * crops and animals: * Wheat and barley * plus lentils, peas, and other minor crops * Sheep and goats * plus cattle and pigs Spread throughout Southwest Asia (Mesopotamia, the Levant, Anatolia [modern Turkey]); Egypt; Europe; and the Indus region * By the way, Wenke's chart on p. 273 is mislabeled (in addition to being confusing, anyway). The darkest gray should be "Reaping of large-seeded grasses", and the white should be "Cultivation of domesticated forms of cereals"; the scale on the left should be "BP", not "BC". * Also, the term "pulses" in the reading refers to legume seeds (beans, peas, lentils, etc.) The earliest well-documented transition to a significant dependence on agriculture was in the Levant, lapping into the upper Euphrates valley * When: at the beginning of the Neolithic period * The Levant was occupied by people of the Natufian culture * Foragers who specialized in intensively harvesting wild grains and hunting herds of gazelles that migrated through the region seasonally * The region was so favorable that they could be semi-sedentary c. 8500 BC at Abu Hureyra, cereals quickly became important (in just a few centuries?), although wild foods remained important too for 2500 years c. 7000 BC at Abu Hureyra, there was another quick (100 years?) switch from hunted gazelles to domesticated sheep and goats, in addition to the cereals, lentils, peas these are probably not the very first cases, just the earliest that we have found One proposed explanation of the process * Summary: Climate change-> high seasonality-> storage-> sedentism, concentration on cereals, domestication * i.e. driven by need for storage climate dried wild plants became more diverse, especially cereal grasses seasons became more pronounced, with a long, dry, resource-poor summer foragers learned to cope with high seasonality by storing and grinding cereal seeds, as well as dried meat * they already used these seeds; they just began to concentrate on them more and store them this storage required (or made possible) a sedentary lifestyle the increasing use of cereals domesticated them through unintentional and/or intentional selection the population grew and became dependent on cereals Comments: * In this model, sedentism and storage come _before_ agriculture and domestication * this agrees with the archaeological evidence this process could only happen in a place that was so rich in wild cereals that sedentary life with significant storage could develop without agriculture but once the cereals were domesticated and agricultural practices were developed, agriculture could spread to other areas and have the effects discussed earlier Another proposed explanation * Summary: Specialization on seasonal foods requiring rounds + drying climate-> staying closer to springs-> encouraging wild crops to grow near springs, increased storage-> domestication, population rise, etc. * i.e. driven by need to stay close to water people started as complex foragers they specialized in a few seasonal foods: * cereals in spring * nut-bearing trees (i.e. pistachio, almond, acorn) in fall * also gazelle when they migrated past harvest times varied with elevation, so by moving up and down the mountains, foragers could stretch out food availability to cover the whole year drying climate reduced the availability of water, increasingly confining them to a limited choice of settlements near springs, making it difficult to move around to follow the wild harvest so they started encouraging cereals to grow in convenient areas near the springs, and storing the harvest for the off-season this domesticated the cereals allowed population to rise, they became dependent on agriculture, etc.... Comments: * In this model, too, sedentism and storage come first, and agriculture and domestication follow * as the archaeological evidence indicates and this scenario, too, would initially happen in a limited region, then agriculture would spread from there These two models are not mutually exclusive; both processes may have contributed to the shift to agriculture we will look at other places where agriculture was adopted throughout the rest of the course This transition to farming made it possible for people to live in villages not only in the most favored places, but also in many other regions, and eventually to grow into larger towns. * The adoption and spread of agriculture marked the beginning of the Neolithic period * A long period in which some parts of the world were dotted with small, permanent villages of farming families * We will move quickly on to more complex societies, but don't forget that this relatively simple Neolithic village lifestyle lasted in most regions for several thousand years before cities and "civilizations" began to appear In the next session, we will look at some examples of the earliest large towns on earth, especially the famous and controversial Neolithic site of Çatal Hüyük. Do the reading (and visit the Çatal Hüyük web sites on the course web page if you can); this is very cool stuff.