http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== < Main Page Chapter 6 The Approach to Farming Globally, agriculture, in its two forms, growing crops and raising animals, has several places of origin: we can identify areas of early cultivation in the Tehuacan Valley in Mesoamerica where domesticated maize was first grown some time after 5000BC, in the East Indies where rice was domesticated and there were probably other places of origin as well. As far as Europe is concerned it is the appearance of agriculture in south-western Asia that is the significant event for it is from there that the knowledge of farming skills spread across Europe. On the grassy hill slopes surrounding the great valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in a sweep of countryside nicknamed the Fertile Crescent, the native species of plants and animals that were later to become domesticated flourished in their wild state. This part of the world did not go through the traumatic neo-thermal changes that affected areas further north but graduated to a climate that was extraordinarily favourable to wild grain. Vast areas sprang up on the slopes facing west which received spring and early-summer rains from the Mediterranean. One can imagine how this area would be a magnet for hunter/gatherers for, apart from wild grain, it contained large numbers of wild sheep, goats and gazelle. It is clear that for three groups of people at least this natural largesse allowed them to spend most of the year and, eventually, all their time, in permanent settlements. A number of these have been excavated. The earliest so far is Ohalo !! in Syria where gathered wild cereal fragments have been uncovered in a level dating to 23,000 years ago.. On the western flanks of the Zagros Mountains in Iran the settlement of Karim Shahir (c12,500BCE) gives its name to the mesolithic culture of that area. Oval stone foundations suggest huts with hearths and pits in which it is thought wild grain was stored. Millstones, stone hoes and sickle blades indicate the processing of wild grain while bones of sheep, goats, cattle, dogs and horses are found on several sites. None of these pieces of evidence prove that people were producing rather than collecting/hunting their own food but suggest that they could have been encouraged by their surroundings to do so when the right stimulus was present. This stimulus could perhaps have been an increase in population in this desirable area, bringing a shortage of food, or perhaps a need to take greater control of their environment... Further west, one of the most interesting sites is in eastern Syria at Tell Abu Hureya (mentioned also in the next chapter) where a sequence of archaeological levels documents the succession from hunting/gathering to full food production. These earliest settlers used wild cereal grains, nuts and legumes and perhaps were cultivating einkorn in levels dating after c11,000BCE. Excavators have been able to contrast the early levels with the later and draw a number of conclusions. In the early hunter/gatherer levels there was a wide range of vegetable and animal foods all obtained in the local area. When people became farmers the variety disappeared and people became almost entirely dependent on what they could produce themselves. Although there was a transition period which we can describe as the Mesolithic when we are not sure whether farming is present or not, the evidence seems to suggest that sheep and/or goats were being domesticated while at the same time people were still actively hunting the local gazelles. Only when the gazelle became scarce did the sheep/goats became important in the economy. A site that the excavator (Klaus Schmidt) suggests belongs to this period, estimated to be around 11000BCE, is at Göbekli Tepe near Urfa in south-eastern Turkey. It is a hilltop sanctuary which in this early stage consisted of circular megalithic structures of unworked stone slabs and T-shaped pillars up to three metres tall, The floors are of burnt lime and a low bench runs along the exterior walls of each. Some pillars are carved with representations of animals and a few anthropomorphic figures. The site was backfilled after 8000BCE. The site is important because it is the first evidence of organised pre-Neolithic construction in this region. It has been suggested therefore that domestication of animals was not an important consideration at the time when it was taking place, that it may have happened more by accident or design as wild creatures which for some reason retained juvenile characteristics (a condition known as neoteny), attached themselves to human beings and their settlements. Dogs were attracted by scraps, sheep and cattle by the crops in the early fields and so on. But the evidence suggests that a price had to be paid for agriculture. Skeletal deformation has been observed in the human bones from Tell Abu Hureya due, it is surmised, to grinding grain for long hours in a crouched position. Also, a number of animal diseases, like tuberculosis in cattle, were transmitted to the human population. A similar process was under way on the Mediterranean side of the Fertile Crescent. Along the slopes facing the littoral a people known as the Natufians (from c12,500BCE) were settling down and exploiting the wild food supplies in the same way as the villagers at Karim Shahir. Unlike their predecessors of the final Palaeolithic cultures of the area who lived mainly in caves, the Natufians lived in open sites that already had the characteristics of villages. Nahal Oren in northern Palestine, the earliest settlement at Jericho, HaYonim in the Levant and other places have produced evidence of people living together in settlements sometimes up to a hectare in area with as many as 180 families. At Nahal Oren three levels of Natufian occupation overlie Palaeolithic remains. Circular or oval depressions were house foundations with walls of polished red plaster and burials below the floors. White-plastered storage pits were probably used for grain and there were flint hoes and composite flint sickles with a silica gloss on their blades from cutting cereal stalks. These things suggest the exploitation of the wild grain or even agriculture but hunting provided a large proportion of the food. Remains of goat, cattle, gazelle, red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, wild horse, boar, birds, fish and shellfish have all been found and microlith-tipped reed arrows provided the most popular weapons. About 80% of flint artefacts were microliths, the rest were burins (engraving tools, a legacy from the Upper Palaeolithic period), backed blades (used as small knives) and scrapers. Microliths are minute flint points. People also made ground-stone vases, stone palettes for red ochre paint and stone figurines. Stone mortars and querns were also common together with small artefacts like needles, awls, harpoons, fish-hooks, beads and pendants made out of bone - a list of objects that is evidence of an innovative culture. A date from the lowest Natufian levels at Jericho comes out at c9000BCE and proves that comparatively large numbers of people can settle down and live a comfortable life more or less permanently on the same spot even though they are not farmers if the natural food supply is constant and plentiful enough. A Changing Way of Life [LINK] main page [LINK] Effective Farming [LINK]