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Who invented Farming?
• Observations of plant behavior—recognition of young seedlings, seeds,
• Over time Connections between rain and growth
• Awareness of where certain plants grew• Worked out how to grow and tend crops• But, “Why bother to grow crops if they are all
over the place?”
Why Change?
• Easier access to tasty grains, or reliable food supply (foragers do not carry food with them)
• Cereals only ripen once a year but seeds could be kept and eaten—storage? Accidental planting?
• Slow change to sedentism• Increase in population (Why?)
Evidence
• 20,000 BCE– women had discovered food value of einkorn
• A single good stand of wild einkorn could feed a family for a year
• Grains had 50% more protein than wheat today• Easily plants itself so ancient peoples would
return to campsite each year. • Eventually the small band might decide to stay a
little longer, or not move on at all.
So women had it easier now?
• H & G men hunted about 4 days a week and women spent 2.5 days gathering to feed family for a week
• Rest of the time was leisure (visiting, being, rituals, games, informal education/ raising of kids)
Eynan
• Three layers of 50 stone houses• Small stone domes• Storage pits• Huts had hearths• Child and infant burials• A settled hunting and gathering band…
And with Farming (horticulture initially and then agriculture)
• Woman’s world:– Mark fields for planting– Used fire hardened pointed digging sticks (later, larger
scale– plowing)– Harvest time—all including children-helped bring in grain– Children watched sheep and goats– Gathering continued – fruit and nuts– Women did milking and cheese-making– Children’s work increased (from the age of three—
chasing birds away...)
Horticulture-> Agriculture
• Men would begin to help clear fields using Slash and burn methods
• Women would tend fields, complete household chores and tending children
• And build stone/ mud brick homes, make tools, containers (first pottery around 8000 BCE)
Was Farming Harder?
• Abu Hareya (Syria)• Female skeletons had
deformed toe bones and powerful upper arms (not found in male skeletons)
Podcast• http://www.uh.edu/
engines/epi960.htm
Textile Production
Why would it be a women’s task?• Domestic spinning and fiber preparation could
be done with children underfoot (unlike hunting, plowing, deep sea fishing, mining
• This tends to differ if weaving becomes a public, urban business
Evidence of Increasing Distinction in Tasks
Liulin site in China’s Yellow River Valley• Males are buried
with stone adzes and chisels
• Women are buried with spinning whorls
Neolithic Xipo site, Lingbao, Henan
Religion
• In some societies, religion may have been an early form of social control– a way of encouraging certain standards of conduct as people learned to live together– Moderation in animal slaughter– Planting season
• Viewed nature as imbued with supernatural powers (due to strong dependency on natural environment)
Importance of Fertility Rites
Settled agriculturalists tended to emphasize the FEMALE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE: the earth or womb out of which their crops grew and life depended on this rite as the true source of life