Horticultural Society Essay

Horticultural society emerged around the Neolithic period from about 8000 to 3000 BC after hunter-gatherers began to domesticate animals and cultivate plants. Some theories speculate that the transition from hunting and gathering society to horticultural society was forced upon people. The leading causes to this theory include the growth in human population and a change in climate over hundreds of years. A time had come for the people to seek a new reliable, which lead to the domestication of plants and animals. Some major factors that influenced the need to change include environmental change, population growth, and a growth in development of technology that formed the basis of horticultural society. Environmental change describes the change

Domestication of plants and animals lead the people of horticultural societies to lead more sedentary lifestyles as food resources were not always moving as they were in hunting and gathering society. The permanence of settlement gave people more time to procreate and invite outsiders into societies. As a result, horticultural population grew denser and led to larger settlements as people joined the society. The division of labor also changed with the transition into horticulture as men’s primary role in hunting and gathering was tracking large game animals that gradually grew scarce. Men still went on hunts, but not as many with the constant supply of food resources provided by the women. Women worked in all other aspects of society such as caring for the children and domesticating the animals. The division of labor heavily weighed on the women of society in simple horticulture, as men’s sole primary duty was to hunt the animals leaving women with all other tasks in horticulture. Kinship was also important in horticultural societies as they provided a means to create a social system. The emergence of trade in horticultural societies began with trade among kin groups in an exchange of resources that the other required. The most affluent, in possession of resource surplus,

The line of weapon and tool quality defines the more advanced society where simple continues to use mainly wood and stone and advanced society creates tools out of metals through metalwork. Creation of metal tools led to better weapons which became a decisive factor in war and made war more tempting for those in possession of copper, bronze, and iron. Wealth becomes redistributed as resources are traded and won in battle creating a social system based on those with wealth are put in power and control those without creating a higher incidence in slavery for advanced horticultural societies over simple. Gender role becomes important in political affairs as society becomes more matrilineal where men are in power and women are influential; however, gender role otherwise remains the same in all other aspects where men hunt and inherit land and women take care of everything else. Gender role remains the same in simple and advanced horticultural societies but differ in most other social characteristics brought about by metallurgy discovered by advanced society, creating a technological gap between the two respective