McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 10 The First Farmers Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity 11 th Edition Conrad Phillip

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

110

The First Farmers

Anthropology:The Exploration of Human Diversity

11th Edition

Conrad Phillip Kottak


2 The First FarmersThe First Farmers

• The Neolithic

• The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East

• Other Old World Farmers

• The First American Farmers

• Explaining the Neolithic

• Costs and Benefits


3 The NeolithicThe Neolithic

• Changes in human subsistence techniques resulted from combination of human invention (e.g., the Neolithic revolution) and changes in environmental pressures (such as post-glacial warming)



– Now refers to that period in a given region wherein the first signs of domestication are present with which Neolithic tools are commonly associated

• “Neolithic period” originally referred only to the presence of advanced stone toolmaking techniques



• By 7500 B.P., most Middle Easterners moving away from a broad spectrum foraging pattern toward more specialized economies based on fewer species


6The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East

– High plateau– Hilly flanks– Steppe– Alluvial plain

• The Fertile Crescent’s Environmental Zones


7The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East• Deliberate cultivation eventually

became most intensely practiced on the alluvial plain

Did not start there because climate was too dry, requiring irrigation


8The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East• In the hilly flanks, habitual harvesting of

wild grains did occur

Suggested that this abundance led to the first sedentary villages (the Natufians) dependent on harvesting wild grains


9The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East• Deliberate cultivation most likely came

in response to documented climatic changes (a drying trend, 11,000 B.P., shrinking the zone of abundant wild grain)

Led inhabitants on the fringe of the hilly flanks to artificially duplicate the dense stands of wheat and barley that grew in the hilly flanks



• Prior to domestication, favored Hilly Flanks zone had densest human population

• Sedentary village life developed before farming and herding in the Middle East



– Vertical economies—patterned adaptation that occurs in areas where several different ecological zones in hilly or mountainous terrain occur close to one another

• Many of the places where food production evolved (Middle East, Peru, Mesoamerica) were areas of vertical economy


12The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East• The Vertical Economy of the Ancient

Middle East– Insert Figure 10.1


13The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East in the Middle East

– In wild grains, the axis (the stem connecting the seed to the stalk) is brittle

• Allows the grain to reseed itself easily

– Humans selected grains in which the axis was tougher, allowing less grain to fall to the ground, thus raising yields

• First as an accidental by-product of harvesting

• Genetic Changes and Domestication



– Humans selected woolly animals from among wild sheep (who are not normally woolly), thus acquiring livestock better suited to lowland heat and from which to obtain wool

– Fossil remains indicate that domestication of sheep and goats was accompanied by a decrease in the size of the animal

• Genetic Changes and Domestication– Humans also selected plants which were

more easily husked


15The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle Eastin the Middle East• A Head of Wheat or Barley

– Insert Figure 10.2



– The early stages of food production in the Middle East marked by gradual transition from foraging to producing economies

• Food Production and the State



• Population increase• Resulting migration• Also gradual, general population increase

spurred spread of food production

• Food Production and the State– Changes caused by food production forced

other areas to respond (e.g., in the hilly flanks, people had to begin cultivating grains; wild yields were no longer sufficient)


18The First Farmers and Herders The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East in the Middle East • The Transition to Food Production in the

Middle East• Insert Table 10.1


19 Other Old World FarmersOther Old World Farmers

– Trade– Diffusion of plants, animals, products, and

information– Migration of farmers

• Egypt’s Nile Valley• Europe• India• Pakistan

• Food production spread out from the Middle East


20 Other Old World Farmers Other Old World Farmers

– Considerable complexity existed in southern Egypt’s Neolithic economy and social system

• First occupied around 12000 B.P.

By 9000 B.P. people lived at Nabta Playa year-round

• The African Neolithic: Nabta Plays



• Seems to have been center for prehistoric herders

• Also was ceremonial center

• The African Neolithic: Nabta Playas– Around 7500 B.P. new settlers occupied

Nabta after a major drought



– Around 8000 B.P., communities on Europe's Mediterranean shores started shifting from foraging to farming

– By 6000 B.P., there were thousands of farming villages as far east as Russia and as far west as northern France

Domestication and Neolithic economies spread rapidly across Eurasia

• The Neolithic in Europe and Asia



• The Neolithic in Europe and Asia– China was one of the first world areas to

develop farming

Northern Chinese also domesticated dogs, pigs, and possibly cattle, goats, and sheep by 7000 B.P.



– Recent discoveries by Chinese archaeologists suggest rice was domesticated in Yangtze River corridor of southern China as early as 8400 B.P.

– It appears that food production arose independently at least seven times in different world areas

• The Neolithic in Europe and Asia



• Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was Independently Invented– Insert Figure 10.3



• Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was Independently Invented– Insert Table 10.2


27 The First American FarmersThe First American Farmers

– America first settled by immigrant H. sapiens from Asia

Followed big game (mammoth) herds across Beringia, perhaps 25,000 years ago

• America’s First Immigrants



• America’s First Immigrants– Early American

Indians, Paleoindians, hunted horses, camels, bison, elephants, mammoths, and giant sloths

Clovis Tradition—sophisticated stone technology based on a point that was fastened to the end of a hunting spear



– Big-game-focused foraging was widely successful strategy in North America

• Caused independent development of food production in the New World to occur 3,000 to 4,000 years after it occurred in Europe and Africa

• Large game animals not domesticated in the New World

• Staple crops in the New World were maize, potatoes, and manioc

• The Foundations of Food Production



– Inhabitants first practiced broad spectrum foraging

Foragers practiced a seasonal economy, making societal and geographical adjustments as they moved

• Early Farming in the Mexican Highlands



– Valley of Oaxaca became the original center of maize domestication

• The apparent ancestor of maize was a wild grass, teocentli

• Experienced combination of incidental and intentional selective pressures due to gathering and cultivation

• Several millennia passed after the origin of cultivation before the first states arose.

• Early Farming in the Mexican Highlands


32 The First American Farmers The First American Farmers

– Food production led to the early village farming community

• Humid lowlands supported maize farming

Around 3500 B.P., sedentary life developed separately in Mexico at Gulf Coast and Pacific

• From Early Farming to the State



• Conditions uniquely (for the mountains) favorable to cultivation

• Constant water sources (for pot irrigation)• Later frost

• From Early Farming to the State– Early village farming communities also

developed in a few highland valleys such as Oaxaca



• From Early Farming to the State– Maize reached the lowlands by 3500 B.P.

where, in combination with the easy water, longer growing season, and rich adjacent microenvironments, maize cultivation quickly gave rise to sedentary village farming communities



• The Ancestors of Native Americans Came to North America as Migrants from Asia– Insert Figure 10.4



• A Clovis Spear Point– Insert Figure 10.5


37 Explaining the NeolithicExplaining the Neolithic

– Development of full-fledged Neolithic economy required settling down

• Sedentism especially attractive when several species of plants and animals available locally

Fertile Crescent had largest Mediterranean climate with highest species diversity

• Several factors converged to make domestication happen and promote its spread



• Some world areas managed independently to invent domestication, but inventory too meager to maintain Neolithic economy

– Full-fledged Neolithic economy requires minimal set of nutritious domesticates



• Perhaps key factor in domestication is animal social structure

• Easiest wild animals to domesticate live in hierarchical herds

– Presence or absence of domesticable animals helps explain the divergent trajectories



– Geography of Old World facilitated diffusion of plants, animals, technology, and information

– In Eurasia, plants and animals could spread more easily east-west than north-south

• Common day lengths• Similar seasonal variations

• Geography and the Spread of Food Productions



• Geography and the Spread of Food Productions– Spread of Middle Eastern crops southward

into Africa eventually halted by climatic contrasts



• Geography and the Spread of Food Productions– In what is now the U.S., east-west spread

of farming from southeast to southwest slowed by dry climates and Texas and southern great plains

Lack of large animals suitable to domestication also slowed down Neolithic transition in the Americas


43 Costs and BenefitsCosts and Benefits

– Learned to spin and weave– Made pottery, bricks, and arched masonry– Learned to smelt and cast metals– Develop trade and commerce by land and

sea

• Food production brought the advantages of discovery and invention



• By 5500 B.P. Middle Easterners living in vibrant cities with markets, streets, temples, and palaces



– Food producers typically work harder than foragers

• Herds, fields, and irrigation systems need care

Producers have more children than foragers, increasing child care demands

• New economy also brought hardship



• Diets less varied• Disease easier to spread

– Social inequality and poverty increased– Rate at which human beings degraded

environments increased with food production

• New economy also brought hardship– Public health declines



• Major axes of the Continents– Insert Figure 10.6



• The Benefits and Costs of Food Production (Compared with Foraging)– Insert Table 10.3

Documents

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 10 The First Farmers Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity 11 th Edition Conrad Phillip