Chapter 5

1. Chapter 5 The Neolithic Revolution: The Domestication of Plants and Animals

2. Chapter Outline • The Mesolithic Roots Of Farming And Pastoralism • The Neolithic Revolution • Why Humans Became Food Producers • Food Production and Population Size • The Spread of Food Production • Culture of Neolithic Settlements • The Neolithic and Human Biology • The Neolithic and the Idea of Progress

3. Neolithic • The New Stone Age; a prehistoric period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which peoples possessed stone-based technologies and depended on domesticated crops and/or animals.

4. Mesolithic • The Middle Stone Age that began about 12,000 years ago. • The end of the glacial period saw physical changes in human habitats. • Sea levels rose, vegetation changed, and herd animals disappeared from many areas. • This period marked a shift to hunting smaller game and gathering a broad spectrum of plants and aquatic resources. • It was a more sedentary period with increased reliance on seafood and plants.

5. Archaic Cultures • Term used to refer to Mesolithic cultures in the Americas. • The change to food production took place independently and more or less simultaneously in various regions of the world. • People became more sedentary, allowing for a reorganization of the workload, so some people could pursue other tasks. • Some human groups became larger and more permanent as people domesticated plants and animals.

6. Mesolithic Tools • Ground stone tools, including axes and adzes, were needed for new technologies in the post-glacial world. • Many tools were made with microliths: small, hard, sharp blades of flint that could be mass produced and hafted with others to produce implements like sickles.

7. Natufian Culture • A Mesolithic culture living in what are now Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between about 12,500 and 10,200 years ago. • They buried their dead in communal cemeteries. • Basin-shaped depressions in the rocks found outside homes and plastered storage pits indicate they were the earliest Mesolithic people known to store plant foods.

8. The Neolithic Revolution • The Neolithic, or New Stone Age derives its name from polished stone tools characteristic of this period. • This period saw a transition from a foraging economy to one based on food production. • Southwest Asia was one of the first regions to undergo this transition. • Remains of domesticated plants and animals are known from parts of Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, from well before 10,000 years ago.

9. Domestication • An evolutionary process whereby humans modify the genetic makeup of plants or animals, to the extent that members of the population are unable to survive and/or reproduce without human assistance.

10. Domestication of Plants • Teosinte (A), compared to 5,500-year-old maize (B) and modern maize (C). • Domestication transformed Teosinte into something highly desirable. INSERT PHOTO P. 98

11. Early Domestication • Source of all cultural change is either primary or secondary innovation. • The shift to rely on domesticated plants and animals took several thousand years. • Plants were selected for increased size, loss of delayed seed germination, and reduction or loss of protective devices. • In general, animals were selected for smaller horns and smaller overall body size.

12. Beginnings of Domestication General observations: • Contemporary food foragers have detailed knowledge of plant growth and uses. • A switch from food foraging to food production does not free people from hard work. • Food production is not necessarily a more secure means of subsistence than food foraging.

13. The Oasis Theory • Proposed by V. Gordon Childe • Addresses why humans became food producers. • Argues that when glaciers retreated north, the area of the Fertile Crescent became drier and forced people to congregate at water holes. • Increased population and food scarcity pushed people to cultivate food in order to meet caloric needs.

14. Fertile Crescent INSERT FIGURE 5.1 P. 100

15. The Fertile Crescent • Evidence indicates that the earliest plant domestication took place gradually in the Fertile Crescent, just east of the Mediterranean Sea. • Archaeological data suggest the domestication of rye as early as 13,000 years ago by people living at a site (Abu Hureyra) east of Aleppo, Syria. • By 10,300 years ago,others in the region were also growing crops.

16. Natufian culture • A Mesolithic culture living in the lands that are now Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between about 12,500 and 10,200 years ago.

17. Natufians and Domestication • The Natufians lived at a time of dramatically changing climates in Southwest Asia. • Between 12,000 and 6,000 years ago, the region experienced dry summers significantly longer and hotter than today. • The Natufians modified their subsistence practices: • They burned the landscape to promote browsing by deer and grazing by gazelles. • They emphasized the collection of wild seeds from the annual plants that could be effectively stored to see people through the dry season.

18. Vegeculture • Root crop farming • Typically involves the growing of many different species together in a single field. • Tends to be more stable than seed crop cultivation, because it approximates the complexity of the natural vegetation.

19. Horticulture/Horticultural Societies • Cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes. • Small community of gardeners working with simple hand tools and using neither irrigation nor the plow.

20. The Spread of Food Production • Farming allowed people to increase their populations, to live together in substantial sedentary communities, and reorganize the workload in ways that permitted craft specialization. • There was still a decline in the quality and length of human life.

21. Diffusion • The spread of certain ideas, customs, or practices from one culture to another. • Once farming emerged, it was more or less guaranteed that it would spread to neighboring regions through migration and diffusion.

22. Culture Of Neolithic Settlements: Jericho • An early farming community in the Jordan River Valley of Palestine. • A sizable farming community inhabited as early as 10,350 years ago. • Crops could be grown almost continuously, due to the presence of a bounteous spring and the rich soils of an Ice Age lake that dried up 3,000 years earlier.

23. Culture Of Neolithic Settlements: Jericho • To protect their settlement against floods and mudflows they built stone walls (6 1/2 feet wide and 12 feet high) and a ditch (27 feet wide and 9 feet deep). • A village cemetery reflects a sedentary life. • Evidence of trade includes obsidian and turquoise from Sinai as well as marine shells from the coast.

24. Neolithic Material Culture • Stone that was too hard to be chipped was ground and polished for tools. • People developed scythes, forks, hoes, and plows to replace digging sticks. • There was extensive manufacture and use of pottery which requires knowledge of clay and techniques of firing and baking. • Other technological developments included building of permanent houses and the weaving of textiles.

25. The Neolithic and Human Biology • Skeletons from Neolithic villages show evidence of severe and chronic nutritional stress as well as pathologies related to infectious and deficiency diseases. • High starch diets led to increased dental decay. • Domestication encourages a sedentary lifestyle with the potential for overpopulation relative to the resource base.

26. The Neolithic and the Idea of Progress • Competition among settlements for resources led to increased mortality due to warfare. • Sedentary life brought sanitation problems as garbage and human waste accumulated. • The close association between humans and domestic animals allowed the transmission of some animal diseases to humans.

27. Diseases Acquired From Domesticated Animals INSERT TABLE 5.1 ON P. 111

28. Other Developments • Horticulture • Cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes. • Agriculture • Intensive crop cultivation, employing plows, fertilizers, and/or irrigation. • Pastoralism • Breeding and managing migratory herds of domesticated grazing animals.