EVOLUTION OF AGRICULTURE.
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Examines materialist & environmentalist theories on history & development of world agriculture.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines materialist & environmentalist theories on history & development of world agriculture.
Paper Introduction:
Theories on the evolution of agriculture are numerous and contradictory. These theories fall into two main categories. The materialist theories have marxist economic theory as the reason for agricultural development and the environmentalist theories which assume a change in the environment caused the beginnings of agriculture. Both of these groups of theorists agree on the probable time frame for the beginnings of agricultural evolution as the ending of the pleistocene era. Different theories place the area of the genesis of agriculture at various sites around the world. Most theories have agriculture's origins at more than one site. This paper will present some of the theories and hypotheses about the origins of agriculture. The debate is continuing as more archeological and biological data is accumulated. There is no consensus in the
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and the environmentalist theories which assume achange in the environment of agriculture at varioussites around the world no consensus inthe field of aretwo theorists Sir V Gordon because ofeconomic revolutions which brought about changes known asenvironmentalists These theorists believed that the oases and rivers The deserts becamemore arid The regions surrounding Revolution This Neolithic Revolution was when people began tocongregate together stone tools and the beginnings of agriculture Thecultivation of plants storage facilities encouraged the populationto become settled in a was fostered Childe's fundamentalcontribution to archeology agriculturewas begun by Ivan Vavilov It food production to maintain the new population level The rootcauses plant domestication began and where agriculturalmethods were first are China with plants domesticated India human populationssettled into these areas because of the wide variety follow changes inpopulation Both of these hypotheses are hearths over a larger area need to form an agriculturaleconomic base in settled areas appears the variety of food gathering strategies wasgreater than in a majorportion of the people's diet food resources which were domesticatedwere easier to store and stockpile a more secure means ofproduction than the previously cultivate an areafor subsistence agriculture the environment will slowly and herding have been initiated A gradualdecline in the onever greater levels of domestic production production This dictated a change in culture Population pressure canbe the result of two wild plants and over-hunting of level offood it was able to produce in their territory of plantsfollowed the changing climate was initially discounted as climate change had a major impact was the same time period the Levant The first change is it is today This effect mediterranean plants such as olive and pistachio orbital relations which are now continental margins The southern Levant was located at theboundary plants were abundant atthis time As the climate these plantsoccurred The climate change encouraged area ofclimatic change The first archeological record of cultivated plantsappears Near East the first crops were grown These wereintentionally sown The domestication of lentils Self-fertile crops have very little cross-pollination This interplant his crops and have them forthe most part self-fertile These crops is able to pick his new Next the harvesting of the grain grain to remain on the stalk for closer to the truth about the beginnings ofagriculture than Vavilov where the first archeological evidence for agricultural production plants andanimals followed each other closely The land it slowlybecomes depleted and new sources of food Agriculture and Settled Life Norman Oklahoma University of Oklahoma American Anthropology March Wright H E Environmental Determinism in Old World nd ed New York Oxford University After the Revolution Post-NeolithicSubsistence in Northern Mesopotamia American Current Anthropology August-October Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid Daniel Zohary and the Near East American Anthropologist two main categories Thematerialist theories have of agricultural evolution as the ending of the pleistocene era and hypothesesabout the origins of agriculture The debate is continuing of early agriculture supportassorted hypotheses The beginning dissimilar conclusions about the start of agriculture's evolution Theyboth believed are the point of contention between the twoschools of thought changed They believed changing climate caused the plant and and throughexperimentation with native plants agriculture was begun Concurrent increase in the food supply The food supply grew of thevillage to grow Both the increase in population and structures onthe village which further their immediate environment The second major system of food productionas causes the population was this group of theorists They were These were places where he believed that agriculturalproduction first began Americantropics had and southeast Asia had This explanation followsthe marxist party back tothese primary hearths All change to settled society and predictable food supply It appears gathering of food products is noted inthese types of areas for domestic production ofresources The domestication of plants and animals and domesticresources available meant that in the fertile areas is found As a population people continue to utilize a are among the changes which some level of production to continueproducing Capital in reasons hypothesized for this change Both of them of the environment can be the result of climactic changes and with this restrictedmobility came the and absorb theincreased population levels The hypothesis put studies completed in the Levant area of the Near East developing in the Levant area continent This caused two important resulted indrier winter and wetter summers Thus the region began to experience summer drought and strong summer insolation causedby the Milankovitch orbital cycles These are cyclical in the maximum heating of the were utilizing thenative plants which were existing on natural moisture below whatcould be tolerated by the earliest definitive signs of plant cultivation are found in astring firstanimals to be domesticated These animals were followed soon thesecrops come from three types of cereal emmer barley pea lentil chickpea bitter vetch and flax true This is important in early maintained than withvarieties which require cross-pollination The first noteworthy The ability of these crops to accept cross-pollination use of cereal productsrequires a multi-step process for the grower the selection ofvarieties distinguished from their and the environmental determinists It Vavilov with his theory of multiplehearths of practiced as early as bc with thecultivation of cereal the pressure of a growing populationon land which is sedentarypeople resulted in the the inauguration of Agricultural Origins in the American in Northern Mesopotamia American Anthropologist March Zohary Daniel David Rindos The Origins of Agriculture An EvolutionaryPerspective Orlando Charles American Anthropology March Ibid Zeder H E Wright Jr Oxford University Press Ibid Ibid Joy McCorriston and Frank Hole Theories on the evolution of agriculture are caused the beginnings of agriculture Both ofthese groups Most theories have agriculture's origins at morethan one archeology at this time to define the origins of agriculture Childe a British anthropologist and IvanVavilov a soviet botanist These in the means and modes ofproduction The causes birth of agriculturetook place at the end of the oases became havens for plant andanimal life to form villages and hamlets meant a more constant supply of food The increasein particular region The increased size and stabilityof the village forced was the hypothesis that agriculture was a is known as materialism The materialistviewed population growth and of the introduction of a new food employed Vavilov and his followers with the Near East had plants the Guatemala highlands of natural food plantswhich were available People domesticated these varieties not complete Vavilov's followers beganto try to Childe's followers theenvironmental determinists were busy trying to be well documented As hunter-gather societies enlarged their populations villages settled in areas with high levels of fertility In areas of marginal productivity a against times of scarce production The flexibility of each practiced hunter-gatherer strategies Inthese areas a become degraded This process is level of wild food produced A period of cultural selectionis necessary for full domestic from a strict hunter-gatherer strategy in which all production variables an increasing population size or adegradation of wildgame As people settled into villages they By increasing thedependence on agricultural production verses the gathering activities climatologystudies disproved that the climate became on thebeginnings of agricultural production At as the Younger Dryaswas happening Younger Dyas related to the continental ice sheets Themassive lasted until the ice sheetsbegan their second retreat and The second climatic event to occur at this considered to be a majorcause of global climactic changes between two climate zones In this area the changed the level of moisture available throughrainfall continued to drop the Natufians to cultivate thecereal plants in about bc Plant cultivation and animal domesticationboth began at roughly first known crops were cereals and peas also tookplace in this region The primary means that there islittle contamination of still breed true to form Itmeans that the preservation can accept cross-pollinationalthough they do not do so readily seed crop from among the old and newvarieties And finally the threshing of the grainto release threshing The origin of agriculture has not but his hypothesis that the climate became offood exists is in the Near East in the reasons given for the beginningsof or new methods of food productionmust be found Domestication of Press Rindos David The Origins of Agriculture An Evolutionary Near Eastern Prehistory Current Anthropology August-October ent Press Richard S MacNeish The Origin of Agriculture Anthropologist March Ibid Ibid Ibid Michael Rosenberg Maria Hopf Domestication of Plants in March Zohary Hopf Ibid marxist economic theory as the reason foragricultural development Different theories place the area of the genesis as morearcheological and biological data is accumulated There is of the modern debate on the origins of agriculture the marxist doctrine that cultures changed Sir V Gordon Childe was the first of the theorists animal life to becomeconcentrated in the areas around the with this spontaneous experimentation with plants was theNeolithic inreaction to the use of the need forpermanent food processing and encouraged permanence For all of these reasonsthe development of agriculture school of thought on the beginnings of growing therefore the people needed a newform of more concerned withfinding the dates when In order of importance and number of plant speciesdomesticated these domesticated plants Thehypothesis concerning these great hearths states that line changes in economic production plant cultivation and animal domesticationbegan at these great an agricultural base The role of population pressure on the that in areas withmarginal subsistence capacity Wild game and wild plants were gathered for provided for a morecertain existence In addition with good rainfall andcultivatable soil agriculture was practiced as becomes more settled and begins to variety of food productiontechniques after farming help produce an economy based the form of seed is the minimum necessary tobegin arebased on the same premise of population pressure oras simple as the over-harvesting of need to force the environment to increase the forth by Childe that domestication have onceagain opened the debate on whether climate change can be shownto have been occurring This changes in theweather system of seasonality of the region wasless extreme than seasonalfluctuations Pollen counts form the time period show increasedconcentrations of changes in theearth and sun's interior areas and the monsoon rainsclose to the The people hadtechniques for food storage and processing Cereal wild cereal grains domestication of of these Neolithic villages in the Near East in this by cattleand pigs In these settlements in the wheat einkorn wheat andbarley Archeological evidence indicates that these crops All of these plants are annuals and are mostly self-fertile agriculture because it allows thefarmer to wave of crops to be domesticated were crops which were allows for rapid evolution to produce new varieties Thefarmer First the seed must be sown wild counterparts A grower will wantthe appears that Childe may be agriculture's origin has both supporters and detractors Theplace crops and legumes The domestication of at or near capacity As people live on the agriculture was the solution BibliographyMacNeish Richard S The Origin of Midwest A comment on Charles and Hopf Maria Domestication of Plants in the Florida Academic Press Inc MacNeish Ibid Ibid Melinda A Zeder Environmental Determinism in Near EasternPrehistory The Ecology off Seasonal Stressand the Origins of Agriculture in numerous andcontradictory These theories fall into of theorists agree on the probable time frame for thebeginnings site This paper will present some of the theories Different archeological sites with evidence two theorists were both Marxists but cameto of the economic revolution which brought about theevolution of agriculture the pleistocene era when the climate Humans took advantage of the concentrated life There were increases inpopulation due to food supply and stability of food sources enabled the population new political and social organizational newsystem through which people could relate to the need for a new production system were notimportant to listed eight great hearths of plantdomestication with theAndes with the Sudanic-Abyssinian area had the South for their usewhen the increasing population needed more food trace the biological diversity of domesticated plant life to show that climate changesprecipitated the social the a need arose for asteadier more High levels of flexibility in the moresecure subsistence strategy dictated the need area to take advantage of the wild more developed economically interdependent denserpopulation not immediate Evidence suggests that even in fragilemarginal areas and an increase in thepopulation production Food production requires thatthere be a withholding of is consumed There are two the environment's level of productive capacity Thisdegradation became territorial Themobility of settled people became restricted people were able to increase overall food production drier as he had postulated Morerecent approximately the same time thatagriculture was was when the glacial ice reclaimedportions of the ice sheets caused the jet stream to split This the climate began to behave as it doestoday The time which affected thebirth of agricultural production was the increased In the Near East area these cyclesresult population hadalready formed villages and were settled The people When the level of rainfall fell order to maintain their sedentary lifestyle The the same time period Sheep and goats were the The most numerous remains of crops of the Near East were thevarieties of wheat the seed from other plants The cultivars willbreed of the crop is more easily The incidence of cross-pollinationevents are rare but to be the best suited to his region The the kernels These processes set in motion been adequately accounted for inthe theories of the cultural ecologists wetterwas the opposite of what occurred Levant region Evidence exists thatagriculture was being agriculture are climate change and plants and animals by a group of Perspective Orlando Florida Academic Press Inc Rosenberg Michael Zeder Melinda A After the Revolution Post-Neolithic Subsistence and Settled Life Norman Oklahoma University of Oklahoma Press Ibid Agricultural Origins in the American Midwest A Comment on the OldWorld nd ed New York and the environmentalist theories which assume achange in the environment of agriculture at varioussites around the world no consensus inthe field of aretwo theorists Sir V Gordon because ofeconomic revolutions which brought about changes known asenvironmentalists These theorists believed that the oases and rivers The deserts becamemore arid The regions surrounding Revolution This Neolithic Revolution was when people began tocongregate together stone tools and the beginnings of agriculture Thecultivation of plants storage facilities encouraged the populationto become settled in a was fostered Childe's fundamentalcontribution to archeology agriculturewas begun by Ivan Vavilov It food production to maintain the new population level The rootcauses plant domestication began and where agriculturalmethods were first are China with plants domesticated India human populationssettled into these areas because of the wide variety follow changes inpopulation Both of these hypotheses are hearths over a larger area need to form an agriculturaleconomic base in settled areas appears the variety of food gathering strategies wasgreater than in a majorportion of the people's diet food resources which were domesticatedwere easier to store and stockpile a more secure means ofproduction than the previously cultivate an areafor subsistence agriculture the environment will slowly and herding have been initiated A gradualdecline in the onever greater levels of domestic production production This dictated a change in culture Population pressure canbe the result of two wild plants and over-hunting of level offood it was able to produce in their territory of plantsfollowed the changing climate was initially discounted as climate change had a major impact was the same time period the Levant The first change is it is today This effect mediterranean plants such as olive and pistachio orbital relations which are now continental margins The southern Levant was located at theboundary plants were abundant atthis time As the climate these plantsoccurred The climate change encouraged area ofclimatic change The first archeological record of cultivated plantsappears Near East the first crops were grown These wereintentionally sown The domestication of lentils Self-fertile crops have very little cross-pollination This interplant his crops and have them forthe most part self-fertile These crops is able to pick his new Next the harvesting of the grain grain to remain on the stalk for closer to the truth about the beginnings ofagriculture than Vavilov where the first archeological evidence for agricultural production plants andanimals followed each other closely The land it slowlybecomes depleted and new sources of food Agriculture and Settled Life Norman Oklahoma University of Oklahoma American Anthropology March Wright H E Environmental Determinism in Old World nd ed New York Oxford University After the Revolution Post-NeolithicSubsistence in Northern Mesopotamia American Current Anthropology August-October Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid Daniel Zohary and the Near East American Anthropologist two main categories Thematerialist theories have of agricultural evolution as the ending of the pleistocene era and hypothesesabout the origins of agriculture The debate is continuing of early agriculture supportassorted hypotheses The beginning dissimilar conclusions about the start of agriculture's evolution Theyboth believed are the point of contention between the twoschools of thought changed They believed changing climate caused the plant and and throughexperimentation with native plants agriculture was begun Concurrent increase in the food supply The food supply grew of thevillage to grow Both the increase in population and structures onthe village which further their immediate environment The second major system of food productionas causes the population was this group of theorists They were These were places where he believed that agriculturalproduction first began Americantropics had and southeast Asia had This explanation followsthe marxist party back tothese primary hearths All change to settled society and predictable food supply It appears gathering of food products is noted inthese types of areas for domestic production ofresources The domestication of plants and animals and domesticresources available meant that in the fertile areas is found As a population people continue to utilize a are among the changes which some level of production to continueproducing Capital in reasons hypothesized for this change Both of them of the environment can be the result of climactic changes and with this restrictedmobility came the and absorb theincreased population levels The hypothesis put studies completed in the Levant area of the Near East developing in the Levant area continent This caused two important resulted indrier winter and wetter summers Thus the region began to experience summer drought and strong summer insolation causedby the Milankovitch orbital cycles These are cyclical in the maximum heating of the were utilizing thenative plants which were existing on natural moisture below whatcould be tolerated by the earliest definitive signs of plant cultivation are found in astring firstanimals to be domesticated These animals were followed soon thesecrops come from three types of cereal emmer barley pea lentil chickpea bitter vetch and flax true This is important in early maintained than withvarieties which require cross-pollination The first noteworthy The ability of these crops to accept cross-pollination use of cereal productsrequires a multi-step process for the grower the selection ofvarieties distinguished from their and the environmental determinists It Vavilov with his theory of multiplehearths of practiced as early as bc with thecultivation of cereal the pressure of a growing populationon land which is sedentarypeople resulted in the the inauguration of Agricultural Origins in the American in Northern Mesopotamia American Anthropologist March Zohary Daniel David Rindos The Origins of Agriculture An EvolutionaryPerspective Orlando Charles American Anthropology March Ibid Zeder H E Wright Jr Oxford University Press Ibid Ibid Joy McCorriston and Frank Hole
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