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The causes of and impact of the Neolithic revolution
Agricultural Revolution
Summary of the agricultural revolution
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Establishing an adequate supply of food is historically one of the fundamental challenges facing mankind. The modern food infrastructure employed by contemporary society is rooted in the creation and innovation of food production. Its effective utilization decreases the level of societal labor contribution required and discourages food shortage trepidation amongst individuals. It is hard to fathom given the current status of our society massive agricultural-industrial complex that the hunter-gatherer organization of society dominated for more than 99 percent of our existence (Fagan 2007: 126). The hunter-gatherer population was characterized by their primary subsistence method, which involved the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild. The primary methods employed were foraging and hunting, which were conducted without any significant recourse to the domestication of either food source (Fagan 2007: 129). Food production is presumed to have emerged approximately 12,000 years ago as a system of “deliberate cultivation of cereal grasses, edible root plants, and animal domestication” (Fagan 2007: 126). The pronounced change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and domestication can be simplistically designated the Agricultural or Neolithic Revolution (Pringle 1998). The catalytic developments of the Neolithic Revolution mark a major turning point in the history of humankind. The resulting animal and plant domestication established the foundation on which modern civilization was built. Archaeologists commonly offer differing hypotheses for the origins of food production. Various theoretical approaches have attempted to identify the circumstances that caused people to shift to deliberate cultivation and do... ... middle of paper ... ... Chapter 25: Origins of Food Production. Oxford University Press. University of California Davis. Pg 476, 482, 478, 479-480 Scarre, Chris 2005. The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies. The World Transformed: From Foragers and Farmers to States and Empires. Thames and Hudson. Pg. 188 Sutton, Mark Q. Anderson, Eugene N. 2004 Introduction to Cultural Ecology. Chapter 8: The Origins of Food, Rowman Altamira. Pg 177 Weiss, Ehud. Kislev, Mordechai E. Hartmann, Anat June 2006 Science Anthropology: Autonomous Cultivation Before Domestication Vol. 312 No. 5780 Pg. 1608-1610 White, Nancy January 2004 M.A.T.R.I.X Introduction To Archaeology: Origins of Food Production. Electronic document. http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/ia/ia03_mod_12.html, Accessed October 9, 2010
In a comprehensive summary and analyzation of the history of mankind’s record of affairs, Mark T. Gilderhus tackles the many aspects of the overall biography of human existence. Through scrutiny of the goals of past and present historians, a brief explanation of the origins of historiography, a thorough exploration of the philosophies behind history, and a review of the modern approach to past events, Gilderhus sums up the entirety of historical thought in one hundred and twenty-five pages. His superior knowledge is exemplified through his work which effectively conveys the full extent of historiography.
In Jared Diamond’s excerpt from his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, he puts forward the historical narrative of how human evolution progresses at varying rates for different cultures due solely to the particular geographic region that people assimilate from. Diamond supports this thesis with specific evidence on the importance of food production, emphasizing that food is the main ingredient needed for a population to experience progress and growth, enabling that culture to expand around the world. I agree with Diamond’s dissertation and find it compelling due to his logical evidence and ethos on the topic.
We also know that during the Neolithic period in Greece , animals were bred for meat but not for dairy byproducts . However towards the end of the Neolithic period there is a “turn” to these by-products (milk and wool ) , also known as " second...
Farming also became a steady source of food for the early civilization. With established dwellings, communities were able to create crude irrigation systems to support their crops in the very dry dessert like climate. Domestication of animals also became a possibility as well with the more permanent living situation the early civilization h...
For a long time, all groups of people on Earth were hunter-gatherers. Why did some of them being food production and why did they begin around 8500 B.C.? Thomas Hobbes described the life of hunter-gatherers as “nasty, brutish, and short.” They woke up each day knowing that they must obtain food to survive.
The human race was once completely dependent on hunting and gathering as its source for caloric intake. Today, this is not the case. We live in a society that is continuously becoming more global, and the large global population is being supported by modern food production. But what factors caused this switch to take place from hunting and gathering to food production? The main contributors over the last several thousand years include: the increase in calorie yield, the stability, and the benefits derived from domesticate-able animals that can all be attributed to food production.
For some, it might be hard to imagine how the Paleolithic diet was able to thrive millions of years ago in comparison to our diet of processed foods today. Our modern diet was created in response to changes in the biological trends over time as well as the innovations in culture. We can examine these changes by studying the human evolution through a biological perspective, while observing the changes in culture through an archaeological perspective.
The choice to change to an agricultural society may have actually been the best choice available when considering the conditions that existed at the time of the dramatic change from a primarily hunter-gather society to an agricultural society, it may have been the ...
Before the land of what we no class Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and other countries in the middle east grains, such as wheat and wild barley, could be seen growing in the wild without human hand to cultivate and nurture it (Authors 2007). Over time, humans began to recognize the benefit of the plants and began the first signs of human agriculture. The skill of farming took time and trial and error, but along the way, humans began to settle down to tend to their crops. Though the first crops were nothing more than seed s thrown about without rhyme or reason to the process we know today such as fields having, rows and sorting out the seeds to create a higher yield each harvest (Authors 2007). Because of the trial and error process, agriculture of plants did not take place of a short period but took many, many years to evolve to what we know today as agriculture; the new fa...
Spencer, Colin. The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. Hanover, NH: U of New England, 1996. Print.
The blessing and curse of the Agricultural Revolution is advocated with its augmentation and dissemination. Taking the stipulative definition of “blessing” and “curse” from the original premise, one can only superimpose the layman’s terms of “negative” and “positive”. Upon examination of the two classifications within the Neolithic Period and ancient Mesopotamian civilization one can confirm the premise. Therefore, the agriculture revolution was a blessing and a curse for humanity. Human society began to emerge in the Neolithic Period or the New Stone Age. This new age began around 9,000 B.C.E. by the development of agriculture in the region surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is commonly referred to as “The Fertile Crescent” located in West Asia.1 The very development of agriculture had benefited humans by no longer having to move about in search of wild game and plants. Unencumbered by nomadic life humans found little need to limit family size and possessions and settled in a single location for many years. One negative aspect of this settling is that the population increased so much so that wild food sources were no longer sufficient to support large groups. Forced to survive by any means necessary they discovered using seeds of the most productive plants and clearing weeds enhanced their yield.2 This also lead humans to develop a wider array of tools far superior to the tools previously used in the Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age. The spread of the Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Period also cultivated positive aspects by creating connections with other cultures and societies. Through these connections they exchanged knowledge, goods, and ideas on herding and farming.3 Another major positive aspec...
McKay, J/P/, Hill, B.D., Buckler, J., Ebrey, P.B., Beck, R.B., Crowston, C.H., & Wiesner-Hanks, M.E. (2008). A History of World Societies, Volume A: From Antiquity to 1500. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's
One of the most key examples of understanding human culture through archaeology is the topic of climate and the environment. As seen through history, there is an intricate relationship between the environment and life on earth. Through extensive research, archaeologists have the ability to take note of minor cultural changes that can be attributed to the environment during a particular time period. These changes include, shifts in methods of food collection, changes in the artwor...
The Neolithic Revolution while fantastic did one thing that would change the course of history, it was at its heart the domination of humans over everything else. As the author explains, “ The Old World Neolithic Revolution, for all it's dazzling advantages in metallurgy, the arts, writing, politics, and city life was at its base a matter of direct control and exploitation of many species for the s...
Lambert, Tim. A Brief History of Farming. Local history. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov 2013.