SOC 111Int. to Anthropology

THE FIRST FARMERS

Scientists found enough evidence to claim that modern human are originated in Africa and then spread into Europe and Asia.

‘Eve Theory’ homo sapien’sdescendants left Africa no more than 135000 years ago.

They eventually displaced the Neandertals in Europe and went on to colonize the rest of the world.

What is Nandertal?

• Primitive Person.

• The ancestor of human who lived in Middle Europe on Stone Age duration.

• Neandertal Y chromosome differs significantly from that of modern humans, means there was little interbreeding between the two groups.

• In Western Europe, Neandertals may have survived until about 28000 years BP.

• 2.6 million years ago hominins were still in Africa making stone tools.

• 1.7 million years ago they had spread from Africa to Asia and Europe

• 200.000 years ago anatomically modern humans evolved from ancestors who had remained in Africa.

• Eventually anatomically modern humans replaced nonmodern human types such as Neandertals in Europe.

• Tool making and the qualification of tools determine Paleolithic Age.

• Knives, Pins, Needles with eyes, Fishhooks

– Upper Paleolithic Bone Tools

With increasing technological differentiation, specialization and efficiency, humans have become

increasingly adaptable.

• ‘The Wurm Glaciel’ Ice Age

• Tundra and Step Veggitation

• Humans moving to North for hunting.

• Seas rose.

• Edible species of marine life.

• Birds migrated across Europe.

• New resources such as migratory birds and springtime fish.

• Evidence from the arts of Upper Paleolithic people. Ex: the cave paintings.

• With glacial retreat, foragers pursued a more generalized economy, focusing lesson large animals. This is the beginning of broad-spectrum revolution.

• Wider range of plant and animal life hunted, gathered, caught, collected, fished.

• Revolutionary because it led to foodproduction – human control over thereproduction of plants and animals.

The Mesolithic

• Mesolithic followed Upper Paleolithic

• Microliths: small stone tools

typical of Mesolithic technology

– New hunting techniques

– New kinds of axes, chisels, and gouges

• The process of preserving fish and meat by

smoking and salting grew important.

• Dogs were domesticated.

• Woodworking

• Broad-spectrum economies lasted5,000 years longer in Europe than in

the Middle East. Whereas MiddleEasterners had begun to cultivate

plants and animal breeds by10,000BP, food production reached

Western Europe only around5,000BP.

The Neolithic

• Neolithic: refers to new techniques of grinding and polishing stone tools

–The transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic occurred when groups became dependent on domesticated foods

–Shift toward the Neolithic was under way in the Middle East by 12,000 BP

• Neolithic Revolution refers to the origin andimpact of food production (plant cultivationand animal domestication).

• By 12.000 BP in the Middle East (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel) people startedintervening in the reproductive cycles of plants and animals.

• No longer just harvesting nature’s bounty, they grew their own food.

The Neolithic

• The primary significance of the Neolithicwas the new total economy rather thanjust its characteristic artifacts (pottery).

• Cultivation

• Sedentary life

• Use of ceramic vessels

• Food production did not start in alluvialdesert which relied on irrigation systems tosustain cultivation. Instead, plant cultivationand animal domestication started in areas

with reliable rainfall (re. dry farming)

• Scientists proposed that in certain areas of the Middle East, local environments wereso rich in respurces so people could adapt

sedentism- settled life in villages.

• The Middle East had a vertical economy,

as had Mesoamerica, including Mexico,

Guatemala, Peru.

– Exploited environmental zones that were close but contrasted with one another in altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and vegetation. Allowed the use of differentresources in different seasons.

– Movement of people, animals, and products between zones was a precondition for the emergence of food production.

Food Production and the State

• The shift from foraging to food production

was gradual.

– Middle Eastern economies became geared more exclusively toward crops and herds.

– In the hilly flanks areas, people began to intensify production by cultivating.

– Farming colonies spread down into drier areaswith the invention of better irrigation techniques.

• In Mesopotamia, a new economybased on irrigation and trade fueledthe growth of an entirely new form of society: the state.

• The state: a social and political unitfeaturing a central government, contrasts in wealth, and socialclasses.

Other Old World Producers

• The path from foraging to food production was followed independently in at least seven world areas:– Three in the Americas

– Four in the Old World

• Food production spread, through– Trade

– Diffusion

– Migration

The Neolithic in Europe and Asia

• 8,000 BP: Communities on Europe’s

Mediterranean shores were

shifting from foraging to farming.

• 6,000 BP: Thousands of farming villages grew up, from Russia to northern France.

– Domestication and Neolithic economies spread rapidly across Eurasia.

Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was Independently Invented

The First Farmers in the Americas

• The most significant contrast between Old and New World food production involved animal domestication.– Large game animals were not

domesticated in the New World.

– Three caloric staples were domesticated by Native American farmers:

• Maize: corn

• Potatoes

• Manioc: cassava

The Tropical Origins of New World Domestication

• New World farming began in the

lowlands of South America

and spread to Central America,

Mexico, and the Caribbean

Islands.

Explaining the Neolithic

• Domestication rested on a combination of conditions and resources that had not come together previously.

• Several factors converged to make domestication happen:– Development of a full-fledged Neolithic economy

required settling down.

– Sedentism became especially attractive when several species of plants and animals were available locally.

• Eventually, with climatechange, population growth, and the need for people tosustain themselves in themarginal zones, hunter-

gatherers started cultivating.

Geography and the Spread of Food Production

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

– The spread of Middle Eastern crops southward into Africa was eventually halted by climatic contrasts.

– By contrast, less diffusion in America.

Major Axes of the Continents

Costs and Benefits

• Food production brought the advantages

of discovery and invention.

– Spinning and weaving

– Pottery and brickmaking, arched masonry

– Smelting and casting metals

– Trade and commerce

• By 5,500 BP, Middle Easterners were living in vibrant cities with markets, streets, temples and palaces.

Costs and Benefits

• The new economy also brought hardship:– Food producers typically work harder

than foragers.

– Herds, fields, and irrigation systems need care.

– Trade takes men and women away.

– Producers have more children.

– Public health declines

– Social inequality and poverty increase

– The rate at which human beings degrade their environments increases with food production.

• Deforestation in the Middle East.

The Benefits and Costs of Food Production (Compared with Foraging)