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NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION. PALEOLITHIC PEOPLE. What is the Agriculture Revolution?. The Agriculture Revolution. The domestication of plants and animals Series of changes in food production that occurred independently in various parts of the world. Setting the Scene…. End of the Ice Age
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The Agriculture Revolution • The domestication of plants and animals • Series of changes in food production that occurred independently in various parts of the world
Setting the Scene… • End of the Ice Age • Historians believe Holocene Period (beginning 9000 BCE) brought environmental changes that reduced supplies of game and wild food plants..
Did the steps happen at the same pace everywhere? • NO!!! • Some people never got past herding • Others skipped herding and went right to farming • Still others stayed as hunter gatherers
Agriculture Society • Grow your own food • Crops grown depended on where people lived • i.e. Wheat and Barley in Mediterranean area; Yams in West Africa; rice in East/South Asia • Hunting and herding supplemented agriculture • Result = food surplus
What about the animals? • Domestication of animals happening at the same time • i.e sheep and goats were domesticated for their meat, milk, and wool • Like plants, this also occurred independently in different parts of the world • Most parts of the world, plant and animal domestication went hand in hand, as animals were used for pulling plows and for manure.
Environment dictated changes • The Americas • Central Asia and Africa
Population Growth • Food surplus led to bigger families
Life in Neolithic Communities • WHAT CHANGED?
Where do we live now? • Most people lived in villages but some lived in towns with facilities for food surplus storage and communities of specialized craftsmen. • i.e. Jericho and CatalHuyuk
RELIGION • Early food producers appeared to have worshipped ancestral and nature spirits • Centered on sacred groves, springs, and wild animals and included deities such as the Earth Mother and the Sky God.
Megaliths • Used megaliths to construct burial chambers and calendar circles.
Jericho • On the west bank of the Jordan River • 8000 BCE • Walled town with mud-brick structures
CatalHuyuk • Central Anatolia, 7000-5000 BCE • -centre for trade in obsidian • Craftsmen produced pottery, baskets, woolen cloth, beads, and leather and wood products.
CatalHuyuk • Art reflects continued fascination with hunting • BUT remains show that agriculture was mainstay of the economy • Remains also show religion involved offerings of food • Perhaps centered around the worship of a goddess and administered by a priestess
Other Culture • Remains at CatalHuyuk include decorative or ceremonial objects made of copper, lead, silver, and gold. • Softer materials were easy to work with but to soft for tools • Somebody had to know how to makes these objects
What does this suggest? • Emergence of social organization in which food producers had to support non-producing specialists such as priests or craftsmen • Labour had to be mobilized for non-food production projects such as building walls, megalithic structures, and tombs.
