Theme II

Food Production

Time line
Vegetational Changes in West Asia: 28,000 BCE
Beginning of Domestication of Animals: 20,000 Before Present (BP)
Transition to Agriculture: Post-11,700 BP
Beginning of Agriculture: 10,000-5000 BCE

Early Agricultural Regions:

West Asia: The Fertile Crescent
Beidha
Jericho
Zagros Mountains

Anatolia and Europe

SanliuafaYeni Mahalle
CatalHoyuk

Mesoamerica
Tehuacan Valley

China
Hemudu Culture
Peiligarg Culture
Photograph: Threshing Wheat in Ancient Egypt
Credit: Carlos E. Soliverez
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trilla_del_trigo_en_el_Antiguo_Egipto.jpg
UNIT 4 DOMESTICATION OF PLANTS AND
ANIMALS*
Structure
4.1 Objectives
4.2 Introduction
4.3 Environmental Changes in Early Holocene
4.4 Domestication of Plants
4.5 Domestication of Animals
4.6 Transition to Agriculture: Theoretical Approaches
4.6.1 Climatic Stress Hypothesis – The Oasis Theory
4.6.2 Nuclear-Zone Hypothesis
4.6.3 Demographic Hypothesis
4.6.4 Ecological Hypothesis
4.6.5 Social Hypothesis

4.7 Summary
4.8 Key Words
4.9 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
4.10 Suggested Readings
4.11 Instructional Video Recommendations

4.1 OBJECTIVES
In this Unit we will discuss the meaning and implications of an activity essential to the
beginning of agriculture i.e. Domestication of Plants and Animals. After going through
this Unit, you will be able to:
z Explain the meaning of the term ‘Domestication’ with reference to the early plants
and animals selected by more sedentary human groups;
z Identify the environmental context for the beginning of domestication of plants and
animals;
z Explain why different animals were selected for domestication;
z Give reasons for selection of particular plants domesticated by humans in the early
phase; and
z Interpret the theoretical insights on the causes for the beginning of agriculture in
different parts of the world.

4.2 INTRODUCTION
In everyday life there is an unquestioning acceptance of agriculture as a way of replenishing
our food requirements. However, for area specialists like botanists and zoologists,
environmentalists and archaeologists and prehistorians, questions related to the origins

* Dr. Srimanjari, Department of History, Miranda House, University of Delhi, New Delhi. 73
Food of agriculture remain a matter of debate. Hunting and gathering were activities that were
Production undertaken naturally due to a combination of biological and cultural changes, particularly
improved cognition and the cultural ability to make tools and weapons. Our existence
as hunter-gatherers continued for a fairly long period of time in co-relationship with the
changing seasons and climatic conditions of the Pleistocene epoch (also known as the
Last Ice Age). The Pleistocene epoch is also identified as the age of humanity because
it coincides with the evolution of humans. Geologically, it is part of the most recent
period in the history of the earth which began around 2.6 million years ago and ended
about 11,700 years ago.Thus, as recent studies show human communities had gathered
knowledge of the potentialities inherent in plants and animals but had not faced a
compulsion to give up their foraging strategy. However, the food procurement strategy
of hunter-gatherers did undergo a change towards the end of the Pleistocene epoch
transforming significant numbers of foragers into pastoralists and farmers. The process
of domestication of plants and animals that made agriculture possible will be examined
in this Unit on the basis of various perspectives and theoretical insights provided by
scholars.
The domestication of plants and animals entails human intervention in the reproduction
process of plants and animals. It involves removal of biological obstacles that exist, in
plants in the form of brittleness of rachis (stems) that causes easy dispersal of the seed
in nature; the toughness of husks or glumes in edible plants; and the adaptation of
certain cereal grasses to particular environment like the hillside and slopes rather than
the more fertile floodplains. Similarly, the wild species of the‘domesticable’ animals like
sheep and goat were larger in size and there was a high proportion of adult male animals
as some case-studies in southwestern Asia have shown. Thus, there had to be human
intervention in the age-sex profiles of animals before they could be put to use for purposes
other than hunting.The process entailed identification of ‘domesticable’ plants and animals
and the displacement of some of them from their natural habitat. This contributes to
their availability in newer places, and at times in better forms. It also makes them more
attractive and useful to human beings. This is a very visible process and can be detected
on the basis of three primary classes of evidence:
a) The availability of animals and plants outside their natural range.
b) Morphological form and structural changes.
c) Increase in numbers of animals and plants.
It is true that there is a natural process of replacement of plants that takes place through
movement of air, due to rain and floods, by way of bird and animal droppings as also
through pollination. Similarly, animals do migrate seasonally as also following major
environmental episodes. This brings them to newer terrains. Thus, newer strains develop
in plants and animals due to exposure to new climatic conditions and due to cross-
fertilization. This is specifically true of plants. However, human ingenuity was needed to
make these plants and animals more useful to human communities. It is this process of
growth of mutual interdependence of ‘men, plants and animals’ that we will examine in
this Unit.

4.3 ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES IN EARLY

HOLOCENE
The process of domestication required human intervention and control over species of
plants and animals. It should be remembered that this was neither a completely post-
74 Pleistocene
7 3 adaptation nor did it suddenly change the life of hunter-gatherers into one
based on sedentary existence in villages. Environmental changes have played a very Domestication of
crucial role in the morphological make-up of plants. This was particularly true of the Plants and Animals
late Pleistocene epoch around 20,000 years ago when there occurred very discernible
changes in specific plants and animal species.There were worldwide climatic changes
towards the end of the Pleistocene epoch i.e. around 11,700 BP. These changes have
now been described in terms of the onset of neo-thermal environmental conditions that
fluctuated between warm and cold; dry and moist. The Bolling-Allerod Interstadial i.e.
the abrupt warm and moist period during the last glacial period,which lasted for about
2,000 years from c.12,700 to c.10,950 BCE, saw a massive increase in world
temperature with accompanying increase in sea-levels. These changes brought to an
end the cold episode of the Wurm glaciation (c.11,700-11,500 years ago). It was the
last glacial period in the Alpine region. It was followed by the Younger-Dryas Interval
of c. 10950 to 9650 BCE. This phase witnessed a brief period of extreme cold and
was followed by warm conditions again which continued to be on a rise thereafter.
These changes led to major changes in world geography. The retreat of the massive
boulders of ice-sheets in Scandinavia caused depression of the earths’ crust; Britain
was separated from Europe due to flooding of the North Sea; large areas of North
America and northern Europe were available for human settlement due to the retreat of
the ice-sheets for the first time after nearly 1,00,000 years.
The shift in temperature and rainfall affected vegetational changes in different parts of
the world. Recent research has established that the atmosphere of the early Holocene
was richer in carbon dioxide than at any time towards the end of the Pleistocene epoch.
The Holocene plants were thus, more productive due to increased photosynthesis,
biomass and seed yield and more tolerant of extremes of climatic conditions (Fagan,
2016: 282).The megafauna of the Pleistocene, best represented by animals such as the
mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the bison in Central and Western Europe, grew
extinct. The reindeer moved to the colder regions of the Alps and Apennines, following
movement of the ice-sheets. They were replaced by smaller animals like red deer and
the roe deer. Similar changes were at work in the tropical regions. There was a general
increase in the population of the gazelle, wild sheep, goat, bovine animals and wild pig.
Thus, the early Holocene hunter-gatherers coped with climatic fluctuations and food
shortages by broadening their diet and by becoming dependent on a broad-spectrum
economy consisting of specialized hunting, seasonal gathering and fishing, and fowling
activities. The Mesolithic economies in different parts of the world exemplify some of
these adjustments and adaptations. The fossil remains of plants and animals, the tool-
kit of the hunter-gatherers and fisherfolk of the Mesolithic and their mortuary behaviour
indicate the shifts in the cultural existence of human communities in the early Holocene.

4.4 DOMESTICATION OF PLANTS

The vegetational changes in West Asia after 28,000 BCE can be seen in the wider and
dense range of large seeded grasses. There were two kinds of large-seeded grasses.
One variety consisted of grasses in which the spikes were loose and brittle. The seeds
of these grasses therefore dispersed even before the plant had ripened. Initially, the
hunter-gatherers would have collected the seeds of these plants by tapping the stem
with a stick. If these seeds were sown, ‘selective pressure’ in favour of plants of a
shattering variety or with natural means of dispersal would be at work. The Russian
agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov (1887-1943) had earlier suggested that the principal
changes in cultivation are inherent in the method of cultivation. Generally, the move is
from unconscious selection to conscious selection. Engel Brecht, the plant geographer
has pointed out that several plants and crops grown today were once selected
unconsciously. Some of the important examples are plants like gourd, tomatoes which 75
Food earlier grew as ‘habitation weed’ due to unconscious discarding of seeds; barley and
Production rye in Central Asia were a weed of wheat at low levels. The most striking secondary
crop was millet, the seeds of which were so small that the plant failed to attract the early
cultivators (Darlington, 1969: 68). However, subsequently they would have preferred
plants with a tough spike.

Figure 4.1 : Spikes of Cultivated Emmer Wheat Figure 4.2 : Wild Einkorn Wheat

Sources:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Usdaemmer1.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Wildeinkorn.jpg

Wenke has described the changes taking place in cultivated wheat. According to him
‘Domestication of wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, involved both human
manipulation and natural hybridisation between related genera. Human intervention appears
to have been aimed at producing free-threshing, non-shattering varieties. The simplest wheats
are “diploid” meaning that they have two sets of seven chromosomes. Hybridization with
related species produced tetraploid wheats, with four sets of chromosomes. Hybridization
eventually produced hexaploid wheats, with six sets of chromosomes, which occur only in
cultivated species of wheat. By mixing genetic material from various species, early farmers
produced forms of wheat that could adapt to diverse habitats’ (Wenke and Olszewski, 2007:
248).

These were grasses in which the seeds dispersed only when the plants ripened. Sowing
of seeds of plants with tough spikes however required additional efforts. These seeds
had to be sown away from other wild, self-seeding plants in order to avoid competition
among plants. This required clearing up of small plots of land in regions where rainfall
was adequate or that were close to reliable sources of water like lakes, springs and
rivers.
Human intervention was indispensable for the domestication of plants. It widened the
gene pool of these plants. The early process of cultivation of plants can be seen at work
in the early agricultural sites of Israel and Syria such as Netiv Hagdud and Abuy Hureyra
respectively, where the advanced hunter gatherers experimented with cultivation of
plants as early as 10,500-10,000 BCE. The presence of seeds and plants such as wild
einkorn and emmer wheat, barley and rye show that these were selectively cultivated at
a very early date when humans were primarily nomadic. Similar developments followed
in southern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwest Iran. A similarity in the process of
domestication of plants could be seen in the way in which the seeds had been brought
to more level ground near reliable sources of water or to places with adequate rainfall
in which these plants could thrive. The remains of cereals provide the evidence for this.
These plants have tough spikes and are indistinguishable from the wild varieties. They
are found in places away from the natural habitat of these species.
76
 Domestication of
4.5 DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS Plants and Animals
A domesticated animal is one that is bred in captivity for economic gain to a human
community. The latter maintains complete mastery over the breeding, territory and food
supply of the animals. The history of the domestication of animals shows that the process
must have begun among the hunter-gatherers. The young ones of the animals they hunted
attached themselves to people when abandoned or left alone. This was due to ‘imprinting’
i.e., the tendency of animals to follow the first living being during an impressionistic
period in their infancy. The hunting-gathering communities could have sporadically reared
the animals that they could use as decoys in the hunt. This was perhaps the manner in
which the dog had been domesticated around 20,000 BP. Controversy persists whether
the domesticated dog was the offspring of the wild dog or wolf. The dog, however,
proved to be extremely useful as an aid or an assistant in the hunts of the Upper-
Palaeolithic (40,000-11,700 years BP) and Mesolithic (approx. 8,000 BCE)
communities.
The advanced hunter-gatherers would have found it easier to tame, herd and domesticate
the animals that were more submissive and were therefore potentially ‘domesticable’.
The animals that were herded could be made more submissive by various means, such
as slaughter of the more aggressive males in the herd or castration.The initial steps in the
domestication of animals must have been as hesitant as in the domestication of plants.
The history of domestication of animals is now being reconstructed from fresh
morphological and genetic data. Such research also shows that the process must have
begun among the hunter-gatherers and not all the animals that people hunted could be
tamed, herded and domesticated. Some scholars have therefore argued that animals
that were eventually domesticated were physiologically and behaviourally pre-adapted
to being tamed without losing their ability to reproduce. The animals that bred well in
captivity must have been selected for domestication. For instance, when animals were
herded people would have opted for submissive or aggressive and unmanageable animals.
An intervention in the breeding systems of these animals by slaughter or castration of
aggressive adult-male animals would have, over time, produced a race of submissive
creatures. It can therefore be observed that an unplanned breeding method preceded
the careful artificial selection that produced different breeds of the same domesticated
species.This is how communities domesticated pig, goat, sheep and cattle in different
parts of the world.
Although the domesticated animals must have certainly provided ready food during
times of crisis, it does not seem that a scarcity of food had caused the domestication of
animals. The first of the tamed and herded animals could have been used in ritual sacrifices.
These animals got incorporated into the social structure of humans and were the first
‘objects’ of ownership. The domesticated dog, sheep, cattle and pig, were thus driven
along with their owners as ‘livestock’, rather than being followed and hunted like wild
animals. In the early phases of domestication, goat, sheep and cattle could only be used
for meat and hide. Wild cattle produce little milk and wild sheep was not woolly but
hairy. It is only with domestication that the milk and wool producing strains emerge in
these animals. But these traits take time to surface. Measurable morphological changes
need about thirty generations after domestication before they become visible (in small
species this process takes two or three years and in large mammals about four or five
years from one generation). However, with the onset of the new strains, there was
greater regularity in the domestication of goat, sheep and cattle for meat, hide, wool
and milk. Dogs and pigs that had been tamed more than 18,000 years ago functioned
as scavengers of human debris. The pig especially did not require large quantities of
vegetable fodder and ate the same food as the hunter-gatherers. 77
Food
Production

Map 4.1 : Domestication of Animals in West Asia (Reproduced from History of Humanity, Vol. I, p. 393)
Source: MHI-01: Ancient and Medieval Societies, IGNOU Study Material, 1990, Block 1, Unit 2, Map 1, p. 31.

The transition to agriculture was made after the end of the Pleistocene epoch around
11,700 years BP. At this time the hunter-gatherers adapted their subsistence strategy to
suit the changes in climate as well as in animal and plant life. Hunting and gathering
activities became well regulated, specialised and demanded an intimate knowledge of
plants and animals. A better understanding of the available wild plants and animals was,
therefore, a precondition for the beginning of agriculture. The use of more efficient tools
like the broad and flat harpoon, sickle and the reaping knife and the introduction of the
new ones like mortar, pestle and other thrashing and pounding instruments indicate that
in many parts of the world people were exploring newer ways of acquiring food. Generally
speaking, archaeologists have associated the beginning of agriculture with a relatively
new stage of cultural evolution – the Neolithic period (10,000-5,000 BCE). By about
6000 BCE substantial sections of the world’s population had given up hunting gathering
and were pursuing farming and pastoral activities.
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) Explain the gradual process by which human communities adapted to the new
environmental conditions.
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78
2) Do you think beginning of agriculture was a sudden event or a consequence of Domestication of
gradual increase in the interdependence of humans, plants and animals? Plants and Animals

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3) Name some of the earliest domesticated animals and how did they prove useful to
humans.
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4.6 TRANSITION TO AGRICULTURE:

THEORETICAL APPROACHES
The preceding discussion indicates that the domestication of plants and animals was not
the result of a sudden departure from hunting-gathering activities. Prolonged exposure
to varying climatic conditions and the vegetation and the animal life that supported these
had increased the horticultural and zoological knowledge of human communities. Thus,
the archaeological period that is best representative of the cultural adaptation of humans
to a more sedentary existence based on early domestication of plants and animals is the
Mesolithic period.1 The Mesolithic cultures represent a slow adaptation of communities
with a Palaeolithic background to a changed neo-thermal environment better suited to
the adoption of a farming economy. Highlighting its significance G. Clark says, ‘The
change in the relationship between men, animals and plants that precipitated the
transformation of social systems was accomplished not by Neolithic but by Mesolithic
communities. It was precisely as an outcome of this process that men became Neolithic’
(Clark, 1977: 42). The most significant development associated with the Neolithic period
is the transition to agriculture with the use of new ‘grounded and polished’ tools and
with accompanying changes in the form of appearance of a village economy and society.
Thus, in many parts of the world, food gathering was gradually replaced by food
production. For Gordon Childe food production represented ‘an economic revolution’
‘the greatest in human history after the mastery of fire’ (For details, see Clark, 1977).
Several explanations have been offered to explain the beginning of agriculture. These
explanations are based on speculations, hypothesis and field-work driven by the urge
to know the nature of cultural transformation that humanity experienced following the
end of the Ice Age. Rising populations as seen in the archaeological evidence of increasing

1
In West Asia, Mesolithic period began in approximately 11,000 BCE and lasted until about 8500
BCE and in Europe from 8000 -3500 BCE. 79
Food number of villages and cemeteries indicated that humanity was now culturally equipped
Production to deal with the exigencies of nature. However, there were other questions to be asked.
Did agriculture begin at a particular place and time and get diffused elsewhere? Was
agriculture the ‘invention’ of a single genius or a lucky accident of nature? Were plants
and animals domesticated simultaneously or one after another? And several more.
Inherent in these questions was the belief that agriculture had been accepted by large
sections of people in different parts of the world. At the same time, specialists were
concerned about the fact that majority of the world’s populations had given up a time-
tested activity like hunting-gathering to adopt some form of agriculture knowing that
there were immense risks involved in the rainfall-based farming or dry farming of the
early phase. This has compelled them to examine the advantages and disadvantages of
these two methods of food procurement.
Altered selective pressures in the form of gradual increase in population, environmental
changes etc. did necessitate modifications in the subsistence activities. Palaeontological
record suggests that in the biological world, change mainly results from altered selective
pressures which necessitate adjustive modifications on the part of the human communities
(Cohen, 1977:1). At the same time, it is necessary to understand that there were
considerable shifts within the general structure of hunting-gathering economies throughout
the Pleistocene epoch due to the impact of the selective pressures on flora and fauna as
also evolving humans. The impact on humans was not just physiological but also
neurological and behavioural, in the form of improved cognition and improved social
existence. The degree and extent of impact of selective pressures was more intensive
during the Pleistocene than during earlier geological epochs. Moreover, they affected
larger number of people subsisting in diverse ecological contexts.

4.6.1 Climatic Stress Hypothesis – The Oasis Theory

The Soviet agronomist Nikolai Vavilov, American geographer Carl O. Sauer, and
British archaeologist V. Gordon Childe were among the first ones in the 1920s and
1930s to discuss the origins of agriculture. Childe’s analysis was concerned with economic
interpretation of archaeological data. The available data referred to intense desiccation
in southwestern Asia and North Africa and the shrinking of lakes and other sources of
water after the end of the Pleistocene epoch.There was a need for a radical post-glacial
re-adaptation of economic life if human communities were to survive the increase in
starvation levels. Thus, Gordon Childe’s climate stress is variously described as the
‘Oasis’, desiccation or the propinquity theory dealt with how human endeavours in
pre-history were determined by the exigencies of climate. He was of the view that
farming began in some parts of the Fertile Crescent (Southwest Asia) due to severe
climatic changes. The dramatic reversals in climate in this region followed the northward
movement of the rain-bearing clouds. These conditions caused severe drought and
increased the starvation levels. Thus humans, plants and animals got concentrated in the
oasis that were small patches of green separated by large tracts of deserts. The ‘enforced
juxtaposition’ that the changing warm and dry conditions caused, encouraged a symbiotic
relationship between all three – humans, plants and animals.
The ‘oasis theory’ was based on the idea that socio-economic events like the beginning
of agriculture do not take place on a worldwide scale simultaneously. They occur in
restricted blocks of area measuring a few hundred miles. It is only after the completion
of the experiment in such areas that the idea of cultivation got diffused to other regions.The
beginning of agriculture in Childe’s estimate had brought about a Neolithic Revolution.
According to him,‘Food production the deliberate cultivation of food plants, especially
cereals, and the taming, breeding, and selection of animals was an economic revolution
80
– the greatest in human history after the mastery of fire’ (1952: 23).
 Domestication of
Plants and Animals

Map 4.2 : The Fertile Crescent

Credit: Nafsadh, 2011
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Map_of_fertile_crescent.svg

4.6.2 Nuclear-Zone Hypothesis

The climatic hypothesis has continued to engage the attention of scholars ever since the
extent of climatic change in the immediate post-Pleistocene epoch with some either
doubting or arguing that the climate change had in fact taken place towards the end of
the Pleistocene during the Younger Dryas episode when there was an increase in the
cold and arid spell.
The Younger Dryas episode is the period of abrupt, rapid and intense cooling which
started approximately 12,800 years ago in the late Pleistocene epoch. The fall in temperature
happened as the northern continents were well on their way to warming and losing their
ice cover. The warming was however interrupted by the sudden return to cold conditions
which led to the extinction of many animal species such as the mammoth (extinct group of
elephants). It also pushed the Northern Hemisphere, and especially northern Europe,
back into cold conditions. The cold climatic conditions lasted little more than 1000 years
and disappeared as abruptly as they had appeared as by 11,500 years ago, warming toward
current climate conditions had resumed.

Robert Braidwood, the eminent archaeologist of the University of Chicago, USA,

undertook field work in the 1950s in the western slopes of the Zagros mountain region
to study the nature and impact of climatic changes in the immediate post-glacial period.
Based on extensive investigations in which he was assisted by specialists like botanists,
earth scientists, zoologists and archaeologists, he ruled out any kind of drastic change in
the climate of the region. However, there was definite evidence for plant and animal
domestication in places where these were abundant as wild species. Had climatic change
been the only factor responsible for beginning of agriculture then similar change towards
domestication should have taken place during the earlier periods of interglaciation in the 81
Food Pleistocene when the climate had warmed up substantially. Since no such cultural change
Production had been undertaken in the earlier periods, it was necessary to rule out climate as a
crucial determinant of change in the post-glacial period.
Robert Braidwood argued that there was a gradual evolution to the stage of food
production. According to him farming began in the ‘nuclear zones’ or natural habitats
i.e. areas that had abundant animal and plant species. The availability of the 14-C
dating method had enabled his team to determine the date of the various sites where
early food production had been undertaken. It is important to note that this new dating
technique was not known when Childe had undertaken his analysis. In a site close to
Jarmo, dated back to about 11,000 years ago, Braidwood found wild but edible plants
and animals, highlighting that people were still dependent on hunting wild ancestors of
sheep, goat and gathering wild wheat and barley here.Two thousand years later, i.e.
9,000 BP, Jarmo had evolved as a village. Based on such evidence, he proposed a
‘Nuclear Zone’ theory that was applied to various cultural levels in the origin of agriculture,
beginning with food gathering till the food producing stage. In his estimate the process
of change had to be seen in the context of changing human culture which he defined in
terms of ‘ever increasing cultural differentiation and specialization of human communities’.
This kind of change had not taken place earlier because ‘culture was not ready to
receive it’ according to him. Conversely, at the end of the Pleistocene, humans were
culturally adept at exploiting their natural habitat for their advantage.
Thus, the transition to agriculture was mainly due to a combination of changes in human
culture. Most scholars, including Braidwood, considered agriculture to be a ‘revolution’
and a very desirable human achievement which had made security and leisure possible
for prehistoric people. However, in this cultural model, the assumption that the vitality
of human nature caused the agricultural revolution remains untestable.

4.6.3 Demographic Hypothesis

Lewis Binford (1968) challenged the cultural hypothesis and suggested that a major
change like the beginning of agriculture can occur only if there is sufficient stimulus in the
form of demographic pressure or tension. He differentiates between internal and external
demographic pressures. In Binford’s view, population is likely to increase in optimal
areas i.e. areas that are well provided for. In the case of Southwest Asia and coastal
Peru, the rising sea-levels at the end of the Pleistocene pushed the population of hunter-
gatherers towards fishing. Population increased with the change in subsistence activities
leading to population densities beyond the carrying capacity of the environment.
Demographic pressure was maximum on the margins of the optimal habitats. This kind
of ‘internal’ population increase could only be contained with the splitting-off of the
daughter population to the marginal areas in the periphery of the optimal areas. These
were occupied by less sedentary groups of hunter-gatherers.The arrival of more sedentary
groups from the optimal zones disturbed the equilibrium between population and food
resources. The external demographic pressure, that is the population pressure caused
by the arrival of new-set of people rather than a biological increase in numbers, caused
a shortage of resources to subsist on. The resulting imbalance made an adaptive shift in
economic activities necessary. Thus, cultivation was a consequence of demographic
pressures following the Pleistocene climate changes. Cultivation and emigration were
partial solutions to deal with the problem.
J.T. Meyers (1971) extended the demographic model to a good but spatially constricted
environment that permitted a fairly sedentary life based on exploitation of wild plants
and animals. However, when the population grows too numerous the internal pressure
82 on resources is met through cultivation of plants and herding of animals. Citing the case
of upland valleys of Mexico and the surrounding valleys, he felt that both the high Domestication of
mountain walls and tropical jungles at the exit of the valley would restrict emigration as Plants and Animals
a solution to rising populations. The problem, in his estimate, had to be managed through
internal adaptation. The work done among the hunter-gatherer communities has certainly
established that increasing sedentism does contribute to increase in the fertility rate
among the former. But it is difficult to define the semi-arid valleys of central Mexico as
optimal environments.
In Mark Cohen’s (1977, 2009) view, human response rather than environmental change
was more crucial for the beginning of agriculture. He agrees with Ester Boserup (1965)
that increase in population contributes to intensive farming. Boserup had argued against
the Malthusian theory of population change that dependence on agriculture causes an
increase in population. Mark Cohen refers to increasing threshold levels of population
throughout the Pleistocene epoch. Population increase among hunter-gatherers led to
territorial expansion and infiltration of marginal areas to the extent that the avenues for
further expansion were exhausted. Once population increase reached the critical
threshold-level when hunting-gathering could not be followed successfully, it was used
to undertake farming. In other words, horticultural knowledge had increased
considerably during the different stages of hunting and gathering. But it was not put to
practice because labour was not adequate for it. After the end of the Pleistocene epoch
hunting and gathering could not be continued because of lack of hunting zones but
intensive farming could be done with additional input of labour. This explanation highlights
the significance of population expansion throughout pre-history and not just during the
post-Pleistocene epoch. However, many researchers are sceptical of this claim.
Population did grow to an extent but on the time-scale of food-production, population
increase must have been more or less, constant and manageable.
While the significance of demographic pressures cannot be neglected, it is also important
that we acknowledge the fact that high densities of population do not necessarily lead
to transition to agriculture. A scarcity of resources induced by increasing density of
population must have occurred in several parts of the world during the late Pleistocene
epoch without resulting in adaptive changes. Because the time-scale of demographic
increase does not match the extent of cultural change as seen in the beginning of cultivation,
critics observe that population increase alone cannot determine socio-economic changes.
In any case there is no evidence for population pressure leading to the origins of
agriculture in prehistory.

4.6.4 Ecological Hypothesis

Carl Sauer (1952) rejected the climatic stress model entirely and instead offered an
ecological model in which human intervention was given utmost primacy. He bases his
argument on the following premises: ‘1. Agriculture does not arise due to food shortages.
People on the verge of starvation do not have the leisure time to experiment with
improving food plants. 2. The “hearths of domestication” are to be found in areas of
marked diversification of plants and animals, regions characterized by both diversified
terrain and a variable climate. 3. Domestication did not begin in the river valleys, which
are subject to floods and aridity and require irrigation. 4. The earliest agriculture was
practiced in ‘wooded lands’. 5. The earliest agriculturalists had already achieved special
skills that predisposed them to domestication. 6. The inventors of agriculture were
already sedentary, since growing crops require constant attention. Planting a field, then
leaving it until harvest time would have invited predators and led to the loss of the
harvest’ (Wright,1990:120).
For precursors or progenitors, Carl Sauer looks to the Mesolithic where we have 83
Food evidence of communities living near the sea and fresh-water streams and undertaking
Production fishing as also advanced hunting-gathering activities. Thus, in his estimate the early
agriculturists could have been fishermen, an idea also shared by Robert McC Adams
(1966). In their estimate fishing predisposed people to agriculture since it allowed greater
sedentism and enabled people to stay in a particular place for a longer time. Sauer
suggested that fishermen living in a mild climate alongside fresh waters were more
innovative. The leisure time that fishing provided encouraged them to exploit the
neighbouring regions for plants. The plants that provided starch foods and substance
for toughening fishing nets and lines and making them water-resistant, that is the root
crops, were domesticated first. The earliest farmers utilized vegetative reproduction
(i.e., using root crops, or by stem cutting and replanting) and thus learnt to ‘plant’
before they learned to ‘sow’. The initial crops were bananas, ginger, yams, and certain
palms such as sago, sugarcane, etc. It is also in this region that dogs, pigs, geese, and
ducks were first domesticated (Sauer,1952:120). The appearance of domesticated
dogs and pigs in southwestern Asia is explained by Sauer as a result of diffusion from
the southeast.
The difference in acquiring these two differently located staples – fish and grain (one
available in water and the other on ground) at a time when populations were gradually
rising encouraged an advance towards greater dependence on farming. Carl Sauer
claimed that he had adopted an ecological model, however he was more concerned
with finding the early ‘hearths’ or centres of food production. In his ‘water-source-
centred model’ he gave primacy to root-crop agriculture over seeding and the diffusion
of the idea of domestication from southeast Asia to southwest Asia. This model ultimately
remains untested except for parts of Southeast Asia. In West Asia cereal production
and herding of animals had taken place with no preceding attempts at root-crop
production.
An ecological model was then extended by Leslie White (1959), who refuted the idea
that food production was a sudden development. Adopting a gradualist approach, he
observed that the hunter-gatherers knew their environs well enough to know the potential
‘domesticability’ of some of the plants and animals. Thus, beginning of cultivation
represented the change in the relationship of human communities and plants. White
extended Childe’s argument that climatic and physiographic factors in the form of the
post-glacial warm conditions induced an increase in population and migration of people.
As people settled in new areas, there was an imbalance in need and supply of resources
that encouraged them to put into practice the horticultural knowledge that they had
acquired over time and pushed them to look for new techniques. Robert McC Adams’
perspective offers a cultural and ecological model in which changes in local eco-systems
stimulate local adaptations including beginning of agriculture.
Kent Flannery (1965, 1968) and Lewis Binford’s analysis and more recently the research
undertaken by students of Gordon Hillman like Romana Unger-Hamilton at the Institute
of Archaeology, London, have established the relevance of local studies in establishing
the sequence of developments following the end of the ice age. From about 1968
attempts were made to put forward more elaborate theories about the origin of agriculture.
Geological research and archaeological excavations had revealed fresh evidence from
different parts of the world. It showed that environmental changes affected different
parts of the world differently. The understanding that the onset of the Holocene epoch
saw sudden and sharp variation in temperature especially in Southwest Asia was no
longer acceptable. At the same time, environmental change as a factor was not completely
abandoned. Focus, however, shifted to other factors like population growth and social
consequences of a more sedentary lifestyle.
84
David Harris (1969) was of the view that population does not normally outgrow Domestication of
resources. But it did in prehistory at the end of the ice age due to environmental Plants and Animals
degradations. Environmental changes affected the mobility of advanced hunter-gatherers,
encouraged sedentism and caused population stress. Because of environmental shifts,
human population in certain parts of the world tended to settle in areas which he refers
to as transitional zones between forest and steppe, savanna, river or coast or on the
margins of upland and lowland. The transitional zones enjoyed an eco-system where
there were a large variety of plant and animal species. In these zones, people could
‘settle-in’ and exploit a variety of plant and animal species through farming and herding.
Systems Model
Kent Flannery (1968, 1969) has adopted a gradualist approach to explain the transition
from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The view could be traced back to Charles
Darwin’s description (1868) of the first steps in cultivation. It stressed on the continuities
rather than the contrast between hunting, gathering and agriculture. The change in the
method of ‘food procurement’ was explained in systemic terms i.e. in terms of analysing
the continuous interaction of environmental, demographic and cultural variables.
Flannery’s hypothesis is based on three assumptions:
1) That the hunting-gathering population had increased before food production.
2) That the early experiments in food production began in the marginal areas bordering
the optimal zones of the mountain zones of Iran, Iraq and Turkey and the woodland
zones of Palestine.
3) That there were many centres of food production from the beginning. The pre-
agricultural people were adapted not to specific environments but to specific animals
and plants available in different environments. Thus, the mobile groups of hunter-
gatherers exploited different environments. They also carried the seeds of mutant
variety of plants and planted them in the new terrains that they visited.
In the ‘Systems’ theory, that was applied both to the Zagros Mountains and the southern
uplands of Mexico, Flannery attached primacy to the seasonal movement of hunter-
gatherers that enabled them to experience the flora and fauna of different zones. In the
Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, plant species are guided by the principle of
‘negative feedback’ i.e. a principle operating in nature that the same plants available in
different areas ripen at different times. The hunter-gatherers who had for long observed
the phenomenon had scheduled their hunting-gathering strategy similarly, by arriving in
different eco-niches seasonally. Availability of different plants and animals regulated
the movement and size of the group. People thus became dependent on a ‘broad-
spectrum’ economy, rather than one based on a few plants and animals.
Since the relationship between human society and its environment is shaped by culture
as the primary mechanism of adaptation, the hunter-gatherers optimized their foraging
strategy by selecting specific plants and animal species. Often carrying the mutant variety
of plants to new places, the hunter-gatherers widened the area in which a particular
plant grew. For example, wheat was brought to Zagros mountain region while upland
Mexico saw the plantation of maize. When introduced in new niches these plants disturbed
the equilibrium. Thus, through their efficient foraging strategy the advanced hunter-
gatherers were responsible for the introduction of the ‘positive feedback’ principle in
plants due to which they could be grown at the same place during different times of the
year. With hybridisation and combination with other plants like beans and squash, maize
could now be procured almost the whole year round in Mexico as also in places where
85
Food it was not available earlier. The old pattern of existence of hunter-gatherers that demanded
Production seasonal movement was gradually replaced by a subsistence pattern based on prolonged
stay and food production. Scholars like Colin Renfrew (1973) have also accepted the
systems theory as an explanatory model for culture change.
The theories and ideas about the origins of agriculture have sometimes been categorized
as either ‘push’ or ‘pull’ models. In the push models, hunter-gatherers are either pushed,
or forced, to become farmers. These theories emphasise on climate or population as
variables and highlight the pressure exerted by these variables in pushing society towards
new cultural adaptations. The pull models refer to the inherent traits of certain plants
and animals that attract or pull human communities towards them by the benefits of a
new lifestyle or behavioural changes in humans.

4.6.5 Social Hypothesis

The social models draw upon social compulsions of exchange and the need to conduct
feasts and ceremonies by individuals and groups in order to garner social ties. The
members of hunter-gatherer society were drawn into a relationship of barter and
exchange in food as well as non-perishable goods. The need to produce in order to
exchange was therefore the driving force behind increasing sedentariness of society
based on food production. The new arrangements led to greater social cooperation
and sharing and therefore reduced the risk of starvation. Thus, in the opinion of Barbara
Bender (1975) social relations initially change due to the need for distribution and
exchange. In more recent times, Brian Hayden (1995) has argued that agriculture played
an important role in augmenting the leadership role of individuals who successfully
competed with others in organising feasts for members of the group. These individuals
increased their social standing and prestige by organising feasts and reducing the element
of risk of starvation. Thereby a relationship based on reciprocity was replaced with one
based on inequality and hierarchy. This social hypothesis is important but difficult to
document and test. There is considerable evidence for increase in social inequality in
the early Neolithic societies of the Near East. But it is not yet known whether it was
also a cause for the beginning of cultivation.
Check Your Progress Exercise-2
1) Why is the beginning of domestication of plants and animals a debatable issue?
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
2) Identify the points of emphasis in the different theoretical approaches pertaining to
the beginning of agriculture.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
86
.....................................................................................................................
3) Can you perceive the similarities and differences in the theoretical insights provided Domestication of
by different scholars related to origins of agriculture? Comment on any two Plants and Animals
hypothesis.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................

4.7 SUMMARY
By now you would have understood that it is very difficult to arrive at the exact nature
of the origin of agriculture. There is no single accepted theory for the beginning of
agriculture. Research is still ongoing. The most persistent question that has intrigued
scholars is whether agriculture originated in difficult environments under conditions of
scarcity of natural resources or in optimal or abundant environments where there was
less risk in undertaking new experiments. In recent times, Douglas D. Price and Anne
B. Gebauer (1995) have argued that experiments such as domestication of plants and
animals are successful where risks are limited. The ongoing research in environmental
changes, demographic shifts, greater cultural interaction and social dynamism shows
the how and why of the Neolithic transition remains, like the question of human origins,
among the intriguing questions in prehistory. Undoubtedly however, about 12,000 years
ago several groups of foragers chose to take up pastoralism and farming on a regular
basis.

4.8 KEY WORDS

Broad-spectrum economy : an economy that is based on exploitation of a
variety of diverse resources for fulfilment of
dietary needs.
Eco-niches : also known as ecological niches, the term is used
to describe the relational position of a species or
population.
Fertile Crescent : the regions in the Middle East West Asia which
curves like a quarter-moon shape, from the
Persian Gulf through southern Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and northern Egypt.
Holocene : the most-modern or recent stratigraphic unit
within the geological record. It covers the time
interval from 11,700 BP until the present day.
The term Holocene, which means ‘entirely
recent’, was first used by Gervais (1867–69) to
refer to the warm episode that began with the
end of the last glacial period. The term was
formally adopted by the International Geological
Congress (IGC) in 1885 to refer to this episode
and to the appropriate unit in the stratigraphic
87
Food record. Along with the preceding Pleistocene, the
Production Holocene is now formally defined as a Series/
Epoch within the Quaternary System/Period.
Mesolithic : a transitional period between the early hunting-
gathering economy of the Palaeolithic and the
agricultural economy of the Neolithic when we
have the early attempts at taming and herding of
animals and careful selection of plant species.
Natural selection : a principle in nature that prevents the end result
of an action from repeating itself.
Neolithic : an archaeological period representing beginning
of agriculture on the basis of more advanced
ground and polished tools.
Pleistocene : geological epoch from c.1.6 million years ago to
15,000 years ago.
Pollination : transfer of pollen from stamen (male part of plant)
to a pistil (female part of the plant) which
gradually enables fertilization and the production
of seeds.
Positive feedback : it is a principal in nature that allows the end result
of an action to repeat itself.

4.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISES
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) Your answer must include the following points: climatic change, its effect on the
morphology of fauna and flora, evidence of newer forms of tool kit of humans,
ways of acquiring and producing food, deployment of animals by humans. See,
Sections 4.2-4.5.
2) See Sections 4.4 and 4.5.
3) Dog, pig, goat, sheep. Explain their usefulness in terms of hunting, livestock, milk,
wool etc. See Section 4.5.
Check Your Progress Exercise-2
1) No single theory has been accepted. See Section 4.6.
2) See Sub-sections 4.6.1-4.6.4
3) See Sub-sections 4.6.1-4.6.4

4.10 SUGGESTED READINGS

Adams, Robert McC. 2007 [1966]. The Evolution of Urban Society: Early
Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. New Brunswick and London: Aldine
Transaction.
Boserup, Ester. 1965. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of
Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure. London: Allen & Unwin.
88
Bender, Barbara. 1975. Farming in Prehistory: From Hunter-Gatherer to Food- Domestication of
Producer. New York: St. Martin’s. Plants and Animals

Binford, Lewis R. 1968. ‘Post-Pleistocene adaptations’,in L. R. Binford and S. R.

Binford, (eds.), New Perspectives in Archaeology: 313-342. Chicago: Aldine
Publication Co.
Bogucki, P. 1999. The Origins of Human Society. Massachusetts and Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers.
Braidwood, Robert.1960. ‘The Agricultural Revolution’. Scientific American Series.
203 (3):130-148.
Clark, Grahame J. 1977. World Prehistory in New Perspective. (An illustrated 3rd
ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, M. 1977. Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of
Agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cohen, M. 2009. ‘Introduction. Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture’. Current
Anthropology, 50 (5): 591-595.
Darlington, C.D. 1969. ‘The Silent Millenia in the Origin of Agriculture’, in Peter J.
Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants
and Animals. pp. 67-72. London: Ducksworth.
Fagan, B.M. and N. Durrani. 2016. The People of the Earth: An Introduction to
World Pre-history. London: Routledge.
Hole, Frank, Flannery, Kent V and Neely, James A.1969. Prehistory and human
ecology of the Deh Luran plain. An early village sequence from Khuzistan, Iran.
Ann Arbor: Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
Karlovsky, C.C. Lamberg and Jeremy, A.Sabloff.1979. Ancient Civilizations, The
Near East and Mesoamerica. California: Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company.
Flannery, K.V. 1965. ‘The Ecology of Early Food Production in Mesopotamia’.
Science. 147 (3663): 1247-1256.
Flannery, K.V. 1968. ‘Archaeological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica’, in
Betty J. Meggers (ed.), Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas. pp. 67-
87.Washington, DC: The Anthropological Society of Washington.
Flannery, K.V. 1973. ‘The Origins of Agriculture’. Annual Review of Anthropology,
2: 271-310.
Price, T.D. (ed.). 2000.Europe’s First Farmers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Price, T.D. and Gebauer, A.B. (eds.).1995. Last Hunters-First Farmers: New
Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture. Santa Fe, New Mexico:
School of American Research.
Price,T. Douglas and OferBar-Yosef. 2011.‘The Origins of Agriculture: New Data,
New Ideas’. Current Anthropology,52 (4): 163-174.
Redman, C.L. 1978. The Rise of Civilisations. From Early Farmers to Urban
Society in the Ancient Near East. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
89
Food Renfrew, Colin. 1973. Before Civilization: the Radiocarbon Revolution and
Production Prehistoric Europe. London: Jonathan Cape.
Sauer, Carl O. 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. New York: American
Geographical Society.
Ucko, Peter J. and Dimbleby, G.W. (eds.). 2009 [1969]. The Domestication and
Exploitation of Plants and Animals, (UK). New Brunswick and London: Aldine
Transaction [Originally published in Chicago: Aldine Publication Co.].
Wenke, R.J. and D.I. Olszewski. 2007. Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind’s First
Three Million Years. 5th edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wright, Gary A. 1992. ‘Origins of Food Production in Southwestern Asia: A Survey of
Ideas’. Current Anthropology. 33 (1). Supplement: Inquiry and Debate in Human
Sciences: Contributions from Current Anthropology, 1960-1990: 109-139 [Originally
published in Current Anthropology, 12 (4/5), 1971: 447-477].
PDF:
https://www.academia.edu/14869132/Theories_about_Origin_of_Domestication_
and_Agriculture
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0522508.0015.103

4.11 INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

RECOMMENDATIONS
Mankind: The Story of All of Us: Domesticating the Dog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCLQ_8I1paY
Mankind: The Story of All of Us: Birth of Farming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhzQFIZuNFY

90
UNIT 5 EARLY AGRICULTURE IN
DIFFERENT REGIONS*
Structure
5.1 Objectives
5.2 Introduction
5.3 Beginning of Agriculture in West Asia
5.3.1 Beidha and Jericho
5.3.2 Zagros Mountains in Iran and Iraq

5.4 Evidence from Anatolia and Europe

5.5 Mesoamerica and China
5.6 Summary
5.7 Key Words
5.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
5.9 Suggested Readings
5.10 Instructional Video Recommendations

5.1 OBJECTIVES
In this Unit, we will discuss the beginning of agriculture and early agricultural practices
in different parts of the world. After reading this Unit, you should be able to:
z Identify the regions which experienced the early emergence of agriculture;
z Explain the factors that led to the diversity in the nature of agricultural practices in
different regions; and
z Understand the importance of the development of agriculture alongside foraging
and nomadism.

5.2 INTRODUCTION
The transition to farming and stock-raising was very crucial for the social and economic
organization of human communities. Agriculture did revolutionize human existence
particularly because now there was greater possibility of a storable surplus to meet the
demand of growing numbers and to serve as an emergency buffer. However, hunting
and gathering and a mobile way of life was not given up entirely and continued to serve
the subsistence needs of communities in many parts of the world. Several scholars have
contested the description of beginning of agriculture as representing a Neolithic Revolution,
particularly when the term is used to describe the suddenness and abruptness of change.
However, there is wide agreement about the revolutionary significance of agriculture in
terms of its impact on subsistence existence and settlement pattern.
Archaeological evidence from different parts of the world has established that a wide
range of ecological and socio-economic forces, such as increase in world temperature
and its impact on vegetation and faunal population and increasing density of human
* Dr. Srimanjari, Department of History, Miranda House, University of Delhi, New Delhi. 91
Food population had compelled the latter to tap the potentiality inherent in several ‘harvestable’
Production food resources like snails, crab, mussels and fish. In such a context, as Kent Flannery
(1973: 276) observes, even wild cereal grasses would have seemed appetizing despite
the labour involved in their harvest and preparation. Certain plants and animals were
manipulated in such a manner that they became useful to human communities on a
sustained basis. It is mainly in this context that beginning of agriculture is considered an
irreversible phenomenon. There was a regional variation in the timing and nature of
early agriculture. The topography, climate and overall the ecology of the early agricultural
sites determined the time gradient observed in early agriculture. In this Unit we will
explore both, the regional variations as well as the broad cultural similarities observed
by area specialists in the nature of early agriculture. It is not possible to cover all the
regions of the world, here we have reflected West Asia, Europe, Mesoamerica and
China as representative for different parts of the globe.

5.3 BEGINNING OF AGRICULTURE IN WEST ASIA

West Asia has engaged the attention of archaeologists and other specialists for the rich
insights that it provides for understanding the beginning of agriculture. Numerous scholars
including Gordon Childe, Robert Braidwood, Lewis Binford, Kent Flannery, Anthony
Moore and Ofar Bar-Yosef have debated about the different dimensions of early farming
here. The difference in their approach notwithstanding, as seen in Unit 4, the work of all
these scholars have brought to light the enormous richness of this region in terms of the
remarkable strides taken by the early settlers in transforming the landscape to make it
habitable for human existence. The geographer James Henry Breasted called the region
the ‘Fertile Crescent’ – indicating the natural propensity of specific centres of agricultural
production here to provide sustenance to early farmers.
As we observed in the previous Unit, the life of hunter-gatherers in West Asia was
affected by climatic fluctuations towards the end of the Pleistocene i.e. around 11,700
BCE and the onset of the Holocene epoch thereafter. New evidence from deep-sea
cores, surface sediments and the pollen recovered from the lakes of West Asia show
that the climate was cool and dry in the last segment of the Pleistocene. An increase in
temperature and rainfall immediately after the end of the Pleistocene was followed by
an increase in dryness or aridity around 9000 BCE. Yet, at the beginning of the Holocene,
the climate was cooler and humid. These conditions were particularly favorable for
human settlement. The forest zone had expanded throughout the coastal mountains of
Eastern Mediterranean region due to an increase in rainfall. The mountains and lower
hills of Modern Turkey, Syria, Israel, Iraq and Iran received adequate rainfall (over 20
inches a year) in winters. Both the forests and steppe that lay beyond them were rich in
plant and animal species. Levant, for instance, could support two kinds of wild wheat
(einkorn and emmer) and barley.
The wild ancestors of sheep and goat inhabited the hilly terrain. There are traces of
herding of animals here during the Late Kebaran period about 11,000 BCE. Soon after
this, the Mesolithic community of Natufians in the Jordan valley (especially in Wadi-en-
Natuf) developed a fairly broad subsistence base here. They followed the migratory
movement of wild gazelle, sheep and goat when these moved uphill in mid-summer in
search of grass. They exploited the marine resources in the coastal waters and undertook
fishing in the freshly formed lakes of the region. The advanced foragers also collected
the wild cereals and plants found here.

92
 Early Agriculture in
The Kebaran period (13,000-11,000 The Natufians are associated with the Mesolithic
Different Regions
BCE) is named after the site of Culture of West Asia. They are named after the site of
Kebara cave in the Jordan Valley. Wadi-en-Natuf of the Jordan Valley region. They were
This period is identified as an the first of the more sedentary groups of the region
Epipalaeolithic period i.e. the who ‘experimented’ with scheduled gathering of wild
archaeological period that cereal grasses, herding of animals as also newer
immediately followed the Paleolithic implements like the stone sickle and grinding and
and preceded the Mesolithic period. pounding tools like the mortar and pestle.

The Natufians mastered food gathering skills to such an extent that it enabled them to
prolong their stay in particular regions and reduced the extent of their foraging
activities.The cultural record of 10,500 BCE has tools like smaller harpoons, microliths
and fishhooks intermixed with axes and sickles which indicate strengthening of the trend
towards a more sedentary pattern of life. The sheen on the sickles due to the silica
deposits found in the cereal grasses confirms the fact that they had begun harvesting
these plants. They would have also turned to other stable plant foods such as acorns
(oak nuts) to support a more sedentary existence. Tools such as mortar and pestle
found in the Natufian sites confirm greater dependence on plant foods. As the temperature
rose further and it grew increasingly warm in the southern Levant from about 8000
BCE, there was a decrease in forest cover and in rainfall which may have forced the
Natufians to follow the migration of animals towards Lebanon and Syria. Many Natufian
sites were abandoned, and a few, like Jericho, were reoccupied subsequently and are
archaeologically recognized as early agricultural settlements.
It is well-established now that climatic change alone did not induce agriculture. The
need to support large population and the fact that early farming was labour intensive
and could be undertaken when there were more hands available for work, also drove
communities towards a more sedentary existence through farming. Thus, after about
8500 BCE as the Natufians moved to areas that offered more favorable environment,
there was sufficient inducement for communities to explore terrains that were well-
provided for in terms of nature, mainly with water and grazing land for the newly herded
animals. The early villages were confined to the upper reaches of the Euphrates rather
than the lower Euphrates where the move towards irrigation farming and subsequently
urbanism gathered momentum a few millennia later. Neolithic villages like Tell Mureybit,
a site located on the Middle Euphrates site in Syria (c.8000-7600 BCE), experienced
the new settlement pattern mainly due to availability of greater rainfall and grazing land.
The transition was also preceded by a continuous spiral of disequilibrium between the
available resources and the people feeding on them which led to intensification of food
procurement strategies. Animals were now brought under greater control and plants
came to be grown in a more systematic manner.

5.3.1 Beidha and Jericho

As discussed earlier, the early Neolithic villages were founded in areas where there was
water, arable land and also land for grazing. In the Natufian level at Beidha, in Jordan,
capra (genus related to goat) comprised 76% of the total faunal assemblage. This
shows that capra was the most hunted specie. In the succeeding Neolithic period, from
7500-6200 BCE, there are indications in the form of changes in the appearance,
reproduction and physiology of animals that is confirmed by the study of genome (the
complete set of genetic material present in an organism or cell) and fossil remains which
display that a pastoral economy based on maintaining herds of animals had been
succeeded by an economy based on the domestication of animals. Vegetable sources
of high quality protein like field peas, lentils and other leguminous plants are also
represented in the early Neolithic levels. The evidence of knowledge of rudimentary 93
Food irrigation techniques in Beidha and use of pestles and other stone vessels shows that it
Production had made advances in cultivation.
Jericho (now in Palestine) in the Jordan Valley region was close to a perennial spring
and therefore a very significant source of water for a growing agricultural settlement.
Archaeological excavations of the mid-twentieth century carried out mainly by Kathleen
Kenyon (1959) have shown that there was a continuity of settlement here from the
Mesolithic period to the early farming stage that followed it after c.10000 BCE. The
lower stratigraphic levels of Jericho are aceramic i.e. they do not have evidence of the
use of clay pottery. In this Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) phase (c. 8300-7300
BCE) the wheat and barley grown here were not native to the region. The seeds of
these grasses may have been brought from the JordanValley. However, soon after the
initial attempts at cultivating these grasses here, the early farmers exploited the
environment in such a way that they became capable of producing a food surplus.
Gazelle, pig and wild cattle are the animals represented in the early levels of PPNA.
There is no evidence of domestication of animals in this phase. The evidence that comes
from Jericho establishes a very significant point that while specialized hunting did
encourage domestication of animals, not every hunting economy (in this case gazelle
hunting economy) necessarily led to domestication of the animals hunted. In Jericho,
sheep and goat were selected over gazelle. This could have been due to some desirable
traits (like a hairy body) or feeding habits of these animals. Gazelle has a selective diet
and restricted habitat, which makes it unsuitable for domestication.
With greater dependence on farming, the typical Mesolithic tools like microliths and
bone harpoons were gradually discontinued to be replaced with cutting instruments,
digging stick and a simple variety of grinding and pounding tools. Blades of all sorts,
including sickle blades with fine denticulation and well-worked arrowheads were smaller
in proportion and there was a qualitative shift in the nature of lithic equipment. In the
succeeding Pre-Pottery Neolithic A stage, which occurs after a time-gap (c. 9250-
8350 BCE) when there is denudation of the settlement, there is a qualitative shift in the
nature of lithic equipment. The relatively new tool-kit comprising the grinding tools like
mortar, pestle, querns, as also hammer stones and polishing stones is certainly an indicator
of the greater dependence on an agricultural economy.
It is easy to discern the increase in population that farming induced from the changing
pattern of the housing architecture. The houses are round or rather curvilinear in the
PPNA stage and are subsequently built on a rectangular plan in the PPNB phase (c.
7300-6000 BCE). The changing architectural style indicates both a shift in the pattern
of life as also an increase in population. The rounded houses of the earlier period were
of light material and could be carried along. The rectangular houses were mud-plastered
with brick platforms. Rooms could be added to rectangular structures and therefore,
these houses indicate an increase in population as also greater sedentism. Interestingly,
during her excavations here in the 1950s Kathleen Kenyon had also discovered a
deposit, thirteen feet in depth, immediately below the round houses.
This deposit was made up of innumerable succession of floors associated not with solid
wall but with humps which were estimated to be the floors of hut-like shelters. Therefore,
for a length of time sufficient to build this depth of deposit, communities had lived more
or less permanently by the perennial stream but in residences more suited for a nomadic
existence and they had then moved to more permanent residences (Kenyon, 1959:
40).

94
 Early Agriculture in
Different Regions

Figure 5.1 : Ground and Polished stone tools from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of Southern Levant
including Jericho. (a and b) grinding stone; (c and d) pestle; (e and f) hand stones; (g and h)
ground and polished stone axes.
Credit: Kuijt, Ian and Morris, Adrian Nigel Goring. 2002. ‘Foraging, Farming, and Social
Complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A Review and Synthesis’.
Journal of World Prehistory. Vol. 16 (4). pp. 361-440.
Source:https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ground-and-polish-stone-tools-from-the-Early-
Middle-and-Late-Pre-Pottery-Neolithic-B_fig12_227138426

A rock-cut ditch more than 9 feet deep and 10 feet wide was bordered by a finely built
stone wall with towers. While the exact reasons for the wall are not clear, the competition
for scarce resources and the need to safeguard these resources suggest that these
could have served the purpose of defence. Some recent geomorphological researches
(Ofer Bar-Yosef, 1998) indicate that Jericho was flood-prone, hint that the walls may
have been flood control works.
Except for settlements in the north of Palestine-Damascus Basin and the Mediterranean
coastline, the Neolithic villages at Beidha and Jericho disappeared after 6000 BCE.
There was a shift in settlements as the steppe was abandoned due to environmental
degradation and an increase in aridity. The Neolithic communities did have a role to
play here. The domestication of plants and animals required clearing up of small patches
of land for cultivation as also for grazing purposes. This certainly had an impact on the
process of deforestation. This, together with the practice of felling trees to get wood for 95
Food fuel, disturbed the ecology as is evident from the decreasing pollen core in the
Production stratigraphical layers of the Neolithic period here.

Figure 5.2 : Tower of Jericho, Tell es-Sultan archaeological site, ca. 7000 BCE
Credit: Reinhard Dietrich
Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Tower_of_Jericho.jpg)

5.3.2 Zagros Mountains in Iraq and Iran

The woodlands of the Zagros mountains in Iran and Iraq were ancestral homes of some
of the cereal grasses like wild wheat, barley, lentils, vetch (wild variety of plant belonging
to the pea family), peas and linseed as also some of the tamable animal species. However,
the brittleness of the rachis (stems) which caused the seeds to disperse as they
ripened,would have slowed down the process of cereal-seed collection. Also, as Jack
Harlan’s study undertaken in the 1960s amply demonstrated, in the absence of necessary
tools the collections had to take recourse to hand-stripping of cereal seeds. The
dependence on these resources would have increased once the early farmers introduced
new kind of cutting implements and storage facilities between 10000-7000 BCE.
Excavations at the sites in Kurdistan like Karim Shahr, Shanidar (both are in Iraqi
Kurdistan) and Tepe Asiab (Iran) show that hunter-gatherers had grown and reaped
wild cereals and other plants here since 9800 BCE. Some of the earliest agricultural
sites in the Zagros Mountains experienced a continuity of settlements between the
Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Ganj-dareh, situated at a height of 4,593 ft. on the Zagros
Mountains, was occupied about 10500 years ago as a seasonal camp of hunter-gatherers.
It has provided the earliest evidence for goat domestication in the world (Zeder &
Brian, 2000: 2254). During the Neolithic period it had emerged as a village. Ali Kosh,
on the arid steppe of Western Iran, was occupied in mid-tenth millennium BCE. This
was the time when the hunter-gatherers hunted gazelle, wild ass, pig, fished in the Mehmeh
96
River, collected shellfish and snared wild fowl. The work undertaken by Frank Hole Early Agriculture in
and Kent Flannery who excavated the settlement in the 1960s demonstrated that by Different Regions
8000 BCE the inhabitants of the settlement lived through a combination of simple farming,
hunting and gathering.

Map 5.1: Early domesticated plant species (After Wenke, Robert J. 1984. Patterns in
Prehistory: Humankind’s First Three Million Years. OUP. p.162)
Source: MHI-01: Ancient and Medieval Societies, IGNOU Study Material, 1990, Block 1, Unit 3,
Map 4, p. 55.

Jarmo in the Kurdish foothills in Iraq, had a long history of growth from c.7000-4700BCE,
and it grew from a temporary settlement to a settled village. Excavations were first
carried out here in 1949-50 by Robert J. Braidwood of the Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago. Braidwood strongly held the belief that the earliest centre of
food production could be found in the hilly flanks of the Zagros mountains where the
natural abundance of domesticable plants and animals due to ecological reasons
encouraged him to use the term ‘nuclear zone’ for this location.The diggings which
continued for the next five years till 1955 showed that the Neolithic village of Jarmo
was well-established by 4700 BCE and measured approximately three to four acres
(‘Jarmo Expedition’, 1955: 460).The settlers built mud houses which were not very
durable. There is evidence for repeated construction at the same spot. Houses were
repaired and rebuilt at the same spot perhaps to economize on land. A wall, about 5
feet thick, raised due to rebuilding from the disintegrated debris could have also guarded
against floods. As a result of the very frequent reoccupation of the area, the elevated
areas created about 12 distinct levels of occupancy. Jarmo came to represent a cluster
of about 24 houses built of baked mud. Villages of mud-plastered walls, as in Jarmo,
hint at a somewhat elaborate village network of about 150 people.
Jarmo was a community of herdsmen and farmers. The animal bone remains have
yielded a large number of bones of domesticable animals particularly sheep, goat and
pig. The milling stones, mortars, pestles and stone sickles found during excavations as
also the carbonized grain kernels showed that the inhabitants of Jarmo were very active
farmers. Hans Halbaek, the botanist who was part of the expedition that carried out
excavations in Jarmo in the early 1950s, had also found impressions of grains in the clay
of the house walls and particularly on the clay on the oven walls. Braidwood established
97
Food that the farmers here were at a very early stage of domestication of wheat and barley.
Production Field peas and lentils were grown alongside the cereal grasses. The inhabitants used
stone extensively for daily use. Their tools were chipped mainly from flint and obsidian
(a natural glass formed by a volcanic rock) and their tool-kit consisted of microliths as
well. The obsidian was imported mainly from the Lake Van region of Anatolia, about
three hundred miles in the north. This means that there were regular exchange relations
between the two regions.
Stone was also used for making grinding implements like pestles, mortars and querns.
Many decorative objects like beads, pendants and bracelets were also made from
stone. Bone was used for both making useful as well as decorative objects such as
awls, needles, pins, spoons and beads. Clay was used extensively for making a variety
of human and animal heads which were perhaps votive offerings or used in fertility
practices. Interestingly, despite their understanding of plasticity of clay, the early inhabitants
of Jarmo did not use it for making portable pottery and continued to use stone bowls
and bitumen lined baskets. Linda Braidwood (1952) is of the view that pottery used
later by the last of the inhabitants, however, was well-made suggesting local adaptation
of an idea that was brought to Jarmo from outside.

Figure 5.3 : Personal adornments from Jarmo – 1 carnelian beads, 2 turquoise bead, 3 clay
beads, 4 stone bracelets, 5 pendants of clay, stone, and shell
Credit: Daderot (Exhibit in the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA)
Source: Creative Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Jarmo_personal_adornments,_1_carnelian_beads,_2_turquoise_bead,_3_clay_beads,_
4_stone_bracelets,_5_pendants_of_clay,_stone,_and_shell__Oriental_Institute_Museum,_
University_of_Chicago_-_DSC06938.JPG)

Similar developments were at work in the neighbouring regions of southwestern central

Iran. Explorations since the mid-twentieth century in Karmanshah and other sites on
the eastern side of the Zagros have established the early process of settling down of
communities on the basis of specialized hunting and gathering. Robert Braidwood
continued to hold the view that the trinitarian concept forwarded by Kent Flannery in
which he distinguished between the stage of specialized hunting-gathering and a stage
of ‘incipient cultivation’ that led to a ‘broad-spectrum revolution’ was hard to establish
on the basis of evidence from these sites.
Considerable advances could however be seen in the Neolithic cultures of Syria and
Mesopotamia from c. 6000-5000 BCE as seen in the Halaf, Hassuna, Samara and
98
Ubaid cultures. The advance was marked mainly by the uniqueness of the hand-made Early Agriculture in
pottery, in the architectural pattern of houses and the dependence on irrigation in some Different Regions
of the sites. By about 5,500 years BCE, there was considerable improvement in
agriculture, cattle and sheep breeding, date palm cultivation and fishing in certain parts
of southern Mesopotamia.
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) Name some of the early agricultural sites in West Asia.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
2) Discuss the interrelationship between environmental changes, population increase
and social change in the beginning of agriculture in the regions discussed so far.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
3) Highlight the similarities and differences in the agricultural practices adopted in the
West-Asian sites.
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.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................

5.4 EVIDENCE FROM ANATOLIA AND EUROPE

Rainfall continued to increase in the early Holocene in Anatolia. This helped in the
spread of forest cover especially in the western and central parts of the region. The
conditions for human habitation improved much later than in the Levant but the habitable
conditions lasted for a longer time. Evidence for einkorn cultivation has been found in
southeastern Anatolia in the regions inundated by the Euphrates and Tigris. One such
region, Sanliurfa Yeni Mahalle, where the world’s oldest known domesticated einkorn
has been identified, dates back to about 9400 BCE. In some of the other neighbouring
sites such as Cayonu Tepesi (8600-7000 BCE) we can clearly detect a progression
from a fairly simple economy dependent on both hunting-gathering and some amount of
farming as evident from processing equipment such as grinding stones as also
domestication of caprines (related to goat), principally sheep and goat to one that was
socially complex with some amount of ritualistic beliefs. 99
Food CatalHoyuk, a site first excavated by J. Mellaart in the 1960s and more recently by Ian
Production Hodder was the largest and one of the most prominent of the late Neolithic sites in
Anatolia. It existed as a village between 7400 BCE and 6200 BCE. It was situated on
rich alluvial soil besides a stream and thus presented excellent opportunities for
domestication of plants and cereal hybridization (breeding of one variety with another).
Cattle were the most prominent animal domesticated here. Situated on the Anatolian
plateau, the region was also close to an outcrop of obsidian, the volcanic glass that was
bartered throughout West Asia for the sharp cutting edge that it provided to agricultural
implements. So widespread was its use that scholars have often used the term ‘trade’
for a kind of ‘down the line’ bartering of obsidian in return for other substances.

Figure 5.4 : The earliest excavations of CatalHoyuk

Credit: Omar Hoftun
Source: Wikipedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%
C3%BCk_excavations_..jpg)

About 8000 years ago, the Neolithic settlement of CatalHoyuk covered about 32 acres.
Numerous houses of sun-dried bricks of standard sizes were built. The foundation of
houses also consisted of mud bricks. The houses were rectangular with a small storeroom
attached to them. They were designed to back onto one another, occasionally separated
by small courtyards. The insides of the houses show a remarkable consistency of plan
with specific areas for resting, cooking and for worship. The entrance to the houses
was through the roof, access to which could have been with the help of a moveable
ladder. This could have provided protection against outsiders and floods. This system
of defence must have been quite successful because the only form of destruction suffered
by CatalHoyuk was fire. This village, which has often merited the description of a town,
was rebuilt about 18 times in a span of 1200 years.
Interestingly, unlike in the neighbouring site of Gobekli Tepe where recent excavations
have established the presence of megalith-like structures, there is no evidences of separate
public buildings for worship or ceremonial centres from CatalHoyuk. Evidently, activities,
both secular and ritualistic were conducted within the houses. Archaeological evidence
revealed that many among the cluster of houses that are separated only by middens or
narrow alleyways, were elaborately decorated and were marked by high degree of
symbolism. During their excavations here, the team of Ian Hodder found elaborate
paintings of humans and animals, burials in many houses, detached skulls of the dead
100
removed after death as well as ox horns and plastered bull horns on walls or arranged Early Agriculture in
on benches. This reflects a complex world of meanings that was circulated and shared Different Regions
and recognized in a wide area. It also suggests that there was a complete blurring of the
sacred and the secular and yet there remained a deep connect with the world of
ancestors, as Hodder observes in his work (2010). Similar but perhaps lesser complex
trends were at work in Anatolia and other parts of southwest Asia. The beginning of
agriculture was not an isolated phenomenon. It preceded, followed and at times kept
pace with a web of complex social and cultural changes that have intrigued scholars.
The trend towards agriculture was less dramatic in Europe. Following the gradual
contraction of the ice-sheets and the resulting onset of post-glacial warm and humid
conditions, the reindeer had moved to cooler regions and herbivorous like the red deer
and elk (a specie of the deer family) now moved to northwestern Europe. Groups of
hunter-gatherers had taken advantage of the newly formed lakes and streams during
the Mesolithic Period. Elsewhere, as along the Baltic and the Caspian Sea region,
fishing and fowling were providing additional means of subsistence. The archaeological
record of the Mesolithic period in northwestern Europe (approximately 11,000-9000
BCE) shows that the climatic changes had resulted in the abundance of small animals
like deer, water birds, fish, snails and mussels which made hunting difficult and compelled
communities to take recourse to an intensified food gathering and selective hunting.
There is a debate among scholars regarding the beginning of agriculture in Europe.
Several scholars uphold the view that agriculture originated in West Asia and got diffused
to different parts of Europe after the arrival of farmers from Anatolia and other parts.
This view is challenged by those who argue for indigenous growth of agriculture in
Europe. In Europe the earliest evidence of cultivated emmer wheat, barley, domesticated
cattle and pig comes from Argissa-Maghula in southeastern Greece (7000 BCE)
followed by the Franchthi caves (6000 BCE) here. The West coast of Italy experienced
similar developments by about 6000 BCE.
As far as temperate Europe is concerned, the beginning of agriculture was both a result
of indigenous and intrusive developments. Environmental changes, such as the rising
levels of the Black Sea due to the increase in the levels of the Mediterranean would
have also played a role in bringing communities to settle around the sea shores and
coasts upstream to the Danube Valley. This phenomenon may have occurred around
5500 BCE. Early agriculture in temperate Europe was mainly pursued in the rich in
loess soil that could be easily tilled with digging sticks and simple hoe. A farming economy
based on cattle herding and crops such as barley and einkorn had developed here by
the end of the sixth millennium BCE.
Early experiments in farming were quite successful in the fertile floodplains of the Balkans
(located in Southeast Europe). By 5500 BCE an agricultural economy based on wheat
and barley and domesticated sheep and goats and single-room mud plastered houses
was flourishing here. The Balkans is an area with as much environmental variability and
ranges in temperature as West Asia and Anatolia. The fertile and the spring-fed
permanently moist areas of the floodplains encouraged communities to live here
uninterruptedly for a long period of time. The Karanovo (c. 5500 BCE) and the
Bandkeramic culture (5,300 BCE) that followed it in quick succession, came to be
based on the cultivation of barley, einkorn, emmer wheat and minor plants such as flax.
They used a system of crop rotation and fallowing. In this process, the stubble of the
crop that was harvested was burnt to allow the land to regain its fertility. In this process,
called swidden cultivation or slash and burn farming, the farmers were enabled to remain
in a place for a longer time. Sheep, goat and dog were kept but cattle was the main
101
Food animal domesticated here. As the density of population increased and agriculture
Production supported the increase successfully, the Bandkeramik culture spread to other parts of
Europe. This is evident from the presence of the liner line (band) decorated pottery in
Holland and other places around 4000 BCE.
It was the biological diversity and a rich flora and fauna that enabled hunter-gatherers
to thrive in Eastern Europe. Around 8000 BCE Eastern Europe was covered with pine
and birch forest with a mixture of broad-leaved species of trees in the north and steppe
vegetation in the south, which supported large animals. These could thus provide a
substantial basis to the hunting-gathering economy. Some scholars even observe that
subsequently there was a budding-off of surplus population from the Neolithic zones to
such ecological niches where they adopted the Mesolithic way of life. So, a reversal in
the way of acquiring subsistence was also possible!
The discussion, so far on the beginning of agriculture, was aimed to highlight and familiarize
you that the early farmers did not adapt to specific environments but to specific plants
and animals available in several environments. Their knowledge about the growth of
certain cereal plants must have begun through the collection of the seeds of these plants.
The Natufians, for instance, had scheduled their hunting and collecting activities according
to the movement and/or availability of plants and animals in specific places during specific
times of the year. Eventually, scheduled, i.e., time-bound ways of acquiring food, rather
than erratic and unplanned food-procurement strategies, made them dependent on
specific plants and animals. The reference to various sites in West Asia and Europe
establishes the fact there could be year long and repeated settlements in the same
region without the development of full-blown agriculture.

5.5 MESOAMERICA AND CHINA

Mesoamerica is the geographical area between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
While agriculture was practiced at various sites in West Asia and Europe, a contrasting
trend emerged of the practice of temporary settlement without agriculture in Mesoamerica
and nomadism persisting even after the domestication of certain maize (Map 5.2). The
environment of this region was not favourable for the hunter-gatherers who found it
difficult to locate game. In the Tehuacan Valley region, which is 125 miles south east of
the Mexico City, the climate grew increasingly arid/dry after 11000 BCE. The hunter-
gatherers resorted to season-bound hunting and gathering which did not cause exhaustion
of resources. In winter people lived off the hunt and in summer they gathered fruits and
seeds in the better-watered regions of the valley.
As people moved from one eco-zone to another, their knowledge of the available
species also increased. They domesticated maize, squash and beans in both the highland
and lowland of Mesoamerica and also continued to explore new terrains. By 5000
BCE small bands of hunter-gatherers were occasionally settling down near the coast.
The initial impulse for agriculture and village life came from these coastal areas nearly
4000 years after the attempts at domesticating maize. By 3400 BCE people had begun
living in villages and grew maize. Squash and bean grew alongside maize and comprised
the bulk of the diet of the inhabitants of this region. The new evidence of domestication
of maize from the Central and South American regions of Peru, Argentina and Chile,
dating back to 3000 BCE amply demonstrates that a cereal which essentially belonged
to the highland had now been domesticated in almost all the eco-zones. A mobile and
nomadic life-style had not, however, been fully abandoned.

102
 Early Agriculture in
Different Regions

Map 5.2 : Mesoamerica and its cultural areas

Credit: GringoInChile
Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerica#/media/File:Mesoamerica_
english.PNG) Adopted from Wikipedia

The beginning of agriculture in China in early Holocene is associated with the cultivation
of rice and millet. Botanists are of the view that both the Asian variety of rice and millet
radiated from the eastern Himalayan region in the post-Pleistocene epoch. Of the two,
rice is more suitable for the warm and moist conditions that prevailed in the swampy
and marshy areas of middle –Yangzi in southern China. The propagation of the wild
progenitor of rice then gathered momentum in the alluvial and well-watered areas of the
south. Wild rice was therefore gathered between 10,000-8000 BCE. The foraging
communities subsisted on a broad spectrum economy of collection of seeds, as also
aquatic plants and root species, fishing and hunting of smaller animals like deer and pig.
Over a period of time the selection of the non-shattering variety of rice seed encouraged
its domestication. Rice cultivation spread to many parts with some of the permanent
settlements with definite evidence for rice cultivation coming up in Pengtoushan in the
Middle-Yangzi Valley between 6500-5800 BCE. The Hemudu Culture south of Shanghai
and dating back to 7000 BCE has yielded evidence for rice cultivation, bone shovels
and handmade pottery.
The main domesticate in Northern China in the Hwang Ho valley region was millet
although rice was cultivated here beginning around mid- 7th millennium BCE. The earliest
farming villages here date back to 6300-5100 BCE and belong to the Peiligang Culture.
Two of the best known regional cultures here are: the Yang-Shao (c.5100-3000 BCE)
and the Long-Shan cultures (c.3000 BCE) (Map 5.3). The economy of the Yang-
Shao culture was based on cultivation of foxtail millet with the help of hoes and digging
sticks as also hunting and fishing. Mulberry trees were utilized for silk worms here. The
Long-Shan culture that expanded eastwards and southwards to Hunan, Shantung, Hupei,
Kiangsu, Chekiang and Taiwan was based on cultivation of rice, millet, wheat, rice,
soybean, poultry and domestication of sheep and cattle. The villages of both the cultures
had defensive moats. The houses were either semi-subterranean or surface buildings of
wooden construction. Many of the features associated with the Bronze Age Civilization 103
Food in China, for instance a highly skilled pottery making tradition, writing system and a
Production
complex stratified society, were already at work during the Neolithic.

Map 5.3 : Areas occupied by different Neolithic cultures of China

Credit: Lamassu Design Gurdjieff (Lopes, Rui Oliveira. 2014. ‘Securing the Harmony between
the High and the Low: Power Animals and Symbols of Political Authority in Ancient Chinese
Jades and Bronze’. Asian Perspectives. Vol. 53 (2): 195-225.)
Source: Adopted from Creative Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_
cultures_of_China#/media/File:Neolithic_china.svg)

Check Your Progress Exercise-2

1) Briefly discuss the importance of CatalHoyuk as an early agricultural site.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
2) Do you think sedentary existence was possible without agriculture and that
nomadism could coexist with early attempts at farming? State some examples.
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................

104 .....................................................................................................................
3) Explain the beginning of agriculture in China. Early Agriculture in
Different Regions
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
4) Where was the region of Mesoamerica located? How did the geography of the
region influence nomadism alongside experiment with plant domestication?
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................

5.6 SUMMARY
The discussion so far establishes the fact that the transition to agriculture was a harbinger
of great significance and in some ways set an irreversible pace of cultural change. Two
features associated with agriculture both as cause and effect – demographic increase
and greater sedentism – encouraged people to explore newer strategies to cope with
changing needs. It will be incorrect to observe that the beginning of agriculture immediately
revolutionized the life of early farmers, yet there is no doubt about the fact that the
potentialities inherent in irrigation farming (with possibility of a surplus, greater exchange
etc.) encouraged formation of a more complex society.The Unit provides a framework
for the study of myriad ways in which agriculture began in different parts of the world.
Early attempts at agriculture had a definite impact on human communities in different
parts of the world as the next Unit demonstrates.

5.7 KEY WORDS

Bitumen : sticky liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum
found in natural deposits, commonly used
nowadays for road binding.
Hybridization : the process of breeding an animal or plant with
an animal or plant of another species or variety.
Obsidian : a naturally occurring hard glass formed by a
volcanic rock. It produces a sharp cutting edge
and was primarily used for making knives and
scrapers.

5.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISES
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) See Section 5.3, including its two Sub-sections. 105
Food 2) Discuss the interconnections between of rise in temperature and rainfall, search
Production for new places, increase in population and search for new strategies of subsistence.
See Section 5.3 and its two Sub-sections.
3) Discuss the different forms of agricultural practices, whether sedentary or
overlapping with nomadism and differences in pottery, tools etc. See Section 5.3.
and its two Sub-sections.
Check Your Progress Exercise-2
1) See Section 5.4
2) Yes. See Section 5.5 for details.
3) See Section 5.5
4) See Section 5.5 for details.

5.9 SUGGESTED READINGS

‘Jarmo Expedition’. September 9, 1955. Science (New Series). 122 (3167): 460
(American Association for the Advancement of Science). Washington DC.
Braidwood, Linda S. September 1952. ‘Early food producers: Excavations in Iraqi
Kurdistan’, Archaeology, 5 (3): 157-164.
Fagan, Brian M. and Durrani. Nadia. 2016. People of the Earth. An Introduction to
Prehistory (Fourteenth Edition). New York: Routledge.
Flannery, Kent V. 1973. ‘The Origins of Agriculture’, Annual Review of Anthropology,
Vol.2: 271-310.
Hodder, Ian (ed.). 2010. Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Catalhoyuk as
a Case Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kenyon, Kathleen M. 1959. ‘Some Observations on the Beginnings of Settlement in
the Near East’. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland. 89 (1): 35-43.
Price, T. Douglas and Ofer-Bar Yosef, October 2011. ‘The Origins of Agriculture:
New Data, New Ideas. Current Anthropology. 52 (Supplement 4): S163-S174.
Wijesuriya, Amalka. Theories about Origin of Domestication and Agriculture.
Academia.edu
(https://www.academia.edu/14869132/Theories_about_Origin_of_Domestication
_and_Agriculture)

5.10 INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

RECOMMENDATIONS
Origin of Agriculture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEv-rH0e03Q

106
UNIT 6 CONSEQUENCES OF
AGRICULTURE*
Structure
6.1 Objectives
6.2 Introduction
6.3 Impact of Agriculture on Human Bio-Systems
6.3.1 Changes in the Human Diet
6.3.2 Craniofacial Changes in Humans
6.3.3 Changes in Attitudes of the Humans
6.3.4 Growth in Human Observation and Questioning Faculties
6.3.5 New Epidemics and Diseases
6.3.6 Increase in Population and Expansion of Settlements

6.4 Impact of Agriculture on the Social Structure of Early Farming Communities

6.4.1 Emergence of a Village Culture
6.4.2 Emergence of Tribal Communities
6.4.3 Complexity in Social Structure
6.4.4 New Forms of Order and Dispute
6.4.5 Structuring of Rituals and Religious System

6.5 New Forms of Material Culture

6.5.1 Pottery
6.5.2 Weaving
6.5.3 Metallurgy
6.5.4 Material Exchanges

6.6 Summary
6.7 Key Words
6.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
6.9 Suggested Readings
6.10 Instructional Video Recommendations

6.1 OBJECTIVES
In Units 1 to 5 we discussed the changes from the origin of humans to the stage of
settled agriculture and sedentary societies. In this Unit we will discuss the consequences
of the coming of agriculture on humans and their habitats. After going through this Unit,
you should be able to:
z Explain the shifts in the diet and physiology of humans;
z Identify the impact of agriculture on their social structure; and
z Outline the correlation between agriculture and new material culture.

* Prof. Prabhat Kumar Basant, Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. 107
Food
Production 6.2 INTRODUCTION
The transition from a hunting-gathering lifestyle to agricultural production is one of the
most important events of human history. The transition to agriculture, often referred to
as the Neolithic Revolution, had far reaching consequences for human societies. It
concerns us because almost all the food we eat is made up of domesticated plants and
animals. It was also a prerequisite for the emergence of cities and civilizations. It spawned
patterns of demographic change that led to the expansion of the culture and languages
of the agriculturists at the cost of foraging groups. For example, about 88% of all
humans speak a language belonging to one of the language families confined in the early
Holocene to two small areas of Eurasia, the Fertile Crescent and parts of China.
The inhabitants of these areas acquired this extraordinary power because they had a
head start in agriculture. While foragers regarded themselves as part of an inherently
productive nature, farmers saw environment as something that could be manipulated,
tamed and controlled. But bending an environment to your needs requires a lot of hard
work on land. Production of food is directly proportional to the amount of energy you
invest. This required a more aggressive attitude towards nature and other human
communities. Consequently, such investment resulted in significant consequences for
the humans and their surrounding environment.

6.3 IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE ON HUMAN BIO-

SYSTEMS
The coming of agriculture meant that our ancestors began to eat cereals and plants in
larger quantities. This had significant impact on human physiology. Changes in the food
regime also led to significant impact on population and human attitude towards nature.

6.3.1 Changes in the Human Diet

An immediate consequence of the advent in agriculture was the change in human diet.
In the Palaeolithic age, meat was important and, in many regions, the primary
component of human diet. With investment in agriculture, human diet became more
diverse and cereals became an important component of their diet. Wheat, for instance,
was a primary diet component in West Asia and Europe while South and East Asia
relied largely on rice. Africa, on the other hand, had millet and America had maize. The
replacement of meat diet by a largely vegetable one necessitated the use of salt which
quickly became an item of local trade, and sometimes of long-distance trade as was the
case in Neolithic Europe.
The introduction of ceramic pottery (detailed later in this Unit) which was durable in
quality further allowed humans to easily boil and cook their food. Along with this, the
domestication of animals added milk and its derivatives to the human diet. These radical
changes in human diet certainly affected their metabolism, resistance, life-span and
were the reasons for the onset of certain human diseases – areas of research which are
still being explored.

6.3.2 Craniofacial Changes in Humans

With the coming of agriculture and the associated changes in diet, humans witnessed a
significant change in their jawline. The hunter-gatherers are associated with larger skulls
than Neolithic people due to their more mobile and active lifestyle. Moreover, foragers
consumed tougher foods, requiring a larger chewing apparatus. With the advent of
agriculture, new people preparation and processing methods were adopted and food
108 became softer and easier to chew. This change in masticatory (chewing) function created
less mechanical demand on the bones of the face and jaws and gradually contributed to Consequences of
an overall reduction of bone mass in the human skull. These changes finally resulted in Agriculture
a smaller human face with reduced jaws and teeth.
Reduction of the face had a negative effect on the human oral health because smaller
jaws compressed the size of teeth, led to crowding and consequently led to increase in
tooth decay and many periodontal diseases (affecting the structures around the teeth) in
humans.

6.3.3 Changes in Attitudes of the Humans

The coming of agriculture was connected with major changes in attitudes and orientations
of humans. That hard work is a virtue and possession of stores of grains is a reflection
of merit, is an idea completely foreign to foraging communities. The ability to grow food
and control its distribution became a path to power and influence. Agriculture also
transformed the way humans think about time. Seeds are planted in one season and
harvested in another. Thus, agricultural societies created economies of hope and
aspiration, in which we focus on the future.

6.3.4 Growth in Human Observation and Questioning

Faculties
The domestication of plants and animals is an indicator of the power of human observation
in the pre-Neolithic communities. This grew further once humans began farming, for
they were led to observe, raise and resolve questions such as: Why seeds germinate?
Which season would lead to better crops? What type of soil was suited to which crop?
Such and similar questions would have promoted cultivation of a variety of crops in
different seasons.

6.3.5 New Epidemics and Diseases

In addition to the negative impact on human dental health, the coming of agriculture had
many other important consequences for the health and hygiene of people. While a
regular supply of food seems to have increased their longevity (Australopithecus lived
for 25 years only), sedentary life created ideal environments for mosquitoes especially
when they started storing water, irrigating crops, or settling near swampy or marshy
land. These mosquitoes were the carriers of diseases like malaria. The trash that
accumulated around villages attracted pests, some of which were hosts for diseases. A
famous example from a later period is that of the medieval spread of bubonic plague
through the infestation of rats whose fleas carried the disease.
Many pathogens jumped from domesticated animals to humans. Diseases like small
pox and measles are a result of this. In the old world, agriculturalists developed immunity
to these diseases. In the period when Europeans discovered America, the Red Indian
population did not have immunity to these diseases. Infectious diseases like smallpox
and measles wiped out an estimated 95% of the New World’s native population.

6.3.6 Increase in Population and Expansion of Settlements

Settled agricultural populations tend to expand both numerically and territorially.
Population growth is higher among sedentary communities. Crops provided farmers
with more dependable supplies of grain based weaning foods such as gruel and porridge,
as well as milk, once goats and sheep began to be milked. Average interval between
births was reduced, leading to increase in population. It has been estimated that in the
Fertile Crescent the size of settlements increased tenfold in the transition to food
109
Food production. Hunter-gatherers lived in groups of twenty or thirty because large numbers
Production could create food shortages. Farmers could grow more food than hunter-gatherers
could collect. They could support more people on small plots of land. Unlike the hunter-
gatherers, farmers could grow food which they could store for a long time. Thus, villages
with population of hundreds of people came into existence. The coming of agriculture
meant that crops were sown in areas where they did not grow naturally. Since 99% of
natural vegetation cannot be consumed by humans, creation of artificial niche meant
that edible plants covered most of the space around villages. Thus, there was an artificial
extension of the production niche. Excavations in Cayonu, Jericho and Jarmo have
revealed successive levels of occupation at the same site. A cluster of about 24 houses
made of baked mud were found in the Neolithic village of Jarmo. The elevated areas
created about 12 distinct levels of occupancy.
While hunter-gatherers depended on nature to provide them food, agriculturists actively
created new landscapes of cultivated crops. But farmers also discovered that soil got
exhausted after supporting few crops. So they needed to cultivate another clearing.
Thus, cultivators colonized many new areas inhabited earlier by foraging population.
Agriculture also led to an increase in the carrying capacity of land. Various calculations
suggest that a hunter-gather would need roughly four-square kilometers of land to feed
him in an year’s time. A very small chunk of land could support large number of
agriculturists.
Predictable availability of food enabled a much greater degree of role differentiation
within farming societies. Craftsmen to make tools, priests to pray for rains, fighters to
protect farmers from rivals, chiefs to transform economic power into social capital,
characterize agricultural societies. In the Upper Palaeolithic there was one specialist,
the sorcerer-shaman. Whereas in the Neolithic villages, a variety of activities such as
farming, stock-breeding and pottery-making demanded a greater role differentiation.
The coming of agriculture also meant slavery for many people. Social conflicts resulting
from sedentary life required individuals with centralized powers who would act as arbiters
in disputes. These people could have emerged as chiefs. Chiefs hungry for power and
wealth forced other members of the community to take up cultivation and give them a
part of the produce.
Domestication of plants is continuing in modern times too. Many of the colourful flowers
growing in our gardens were brought from the Himalayas in the twentieth century.
Similarly, many plants with medicinal properties have been discovered and domesticated
in the present century. Everyday some botanist discovers some useful property in a
plant and in many cases such discoveries are followed by growing those plants artificially.
Unfortunately, because of the large-scale destruction of forests many plants are destroyed
even before their medicinal properties are discovered.
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) In what ways did settled agriculture affect the food habits of humans during the
Neolithic period?
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110 .....................................................................................................................
2) What was the negative impact of agriculture on the physiology and health of humans? Consequences of
Agriculture
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3) Discuss the impact of agriculture on the demographic patterns in Neolithic period.
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6.4 IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE ON THE SOCIAL

STRUCTURE OF EARLY FARMING
COMMUNITIES
The coming of agriculture brought about radical changes in the social world of human
communities. Larger number of humans living together over a long period of time
presented new problems of order and dispute, kinship, sharing of work and produce. It
was these challenges that led to the emergence of new social structures having greater
centralization. Such restructuring is visible in the field of religion too.

6.4.1 Emergence of a Village Culture

Sedentarism was one of the important consequences of agriculture which led to the
growth of village settlements. In the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period, hunter-
gatherers moved their homes according to the seasonal migration of animals and
availability of fruits and roots. Some Mesolithic groups did possess permanent dwellings
where marine resources were available in plenty, but these were rare. The pattern of
settlement transformed over a period of time. The remains of the Yang-shao culture
reveal the fact that the competence in house building had reached a high level.
Unlike hunting-gathering, agriculture requires that the farmer stays in one place for a
long period. They had to sow seeds, water the plants and protect the saplings from
birds and animals. Only after four to six months are the plants ready for harvesting. This
means that unlike hunting-gathering, agriculture encourages settling down in one place.
Farmers began to build houses, barns and stables of wattle and daub, sometimes with
dry-stone, that were more durable than the simple huts of earlier period. Multiple
settlements at one area gradually led to the emergence of villages. These village settlements
were relatively small. For instance, in CatalHoyuk – a village in Turkey – was home to
a small population.
That is why the beginning of agriculture is connected with the emergence of villages.
Although, foraging communities found villages and towns in some places where plentiful
supply of food was available all the year round, such places were rare. In domesticating
111
Food animals and plants, humans necessarily domesticated themselves. The present world
Production covered with roads and paths, huts and houses, hamlets, villages and towns are a
creation of our agricultural ancestors. These are the places archaeologists dig up.

6.4.2 Emergence of Tribal Communities

Coming of agriculture is also related to the emergence of long term patterns of
cooperation. Hunting-gathering groups needed cooperation for organizing hunt. Once
the hunt was over and game had been shared, the group ceased to exist. Agriculturists
needed cooperation from sowing to harvesting. Unlike a typical hunting expedition
which might last a day or a week, agriculturists had to cooperate in the production
process lasting at least four months. While agriculturists waited for the crops to grow,
they survived on the food produced by farmers in the previous season. So, there was a
need for cooperation among food producing groups across the year. No wonder
agricultural societies are characterized by large kinship networks which are the
institutional frame for cooperation among the farmers.

6.4.3 Complexity in Social Structure

Permanent settlement in a village led to social and occupational divisions. In the Upper
Palaeolithic period, there was only one specialist, the sorcerer-shaman, while all the
other members of the community shared similar activities of hunting, fishing and
manufacturing of artefacts. With the emergence of a village settlement in the Neolithic
period, the occupation of people got diversified as farmers, breeders, herdsmen, potters,
weavers, stoneworkers, and carpenters. In the following centuries, further specialization
emerged with people practicing as wheelwrights, traders and as early metallurgists.
Sedentism thus paved the way for craft specialization. Regional centres of pottery
manufacturing emerged in Merimde and Fayum in North Africa.
There probably also existed a division of labour between sexes and activities such as
pot making and basket making being reserved for women. In the initial stages, even
farming and stock-raising was exclusively done by women. With the development of
agricultural techniques such as the invention of plough, drainage and irrigation, which
required greater physical strength, these activities came to be dominated by men.
According to Clark Larsen (1984), men carried on hunting and fishing after the adoption
of agriculture, whereas women took on the taxing field and household chores.
Social stratification, which was hardly evident in the hunting-gathering societies, took a
complex form. The position of chief became hereditary in this period and it became
synonymous with the power of a ruler combining military control and religious sanction
for his authority. There also emerged the position of a ‘priest’, whose religious authority
was combined with secular, economic and political power.
Ethnographic evidence from Africa has revealed that hunting-gathering communities
shared the products of their hunts equally among themselves. Such solidarity however
faded away with the transition to food production wherein ownership of resources
became a point of competition. While the concept of property was present even in
earlier period in the form of marking the hunting territories,with agriculture it became
more pronounced with the farmers competing to possess their own fields, tools and
cattle. The need for private resources promoted crimes such as theft and pillaging,
especially in situations when the fields of a neighbouring village were prospering.
Sometimes this resulted in inter-village conflicts which explains the presence of
fortifications as security in many Neolithic villages. Besides Jericho, where a stone wall
surrounding the closely clustered houses is found, defensive walls were found in early
112 Mesoamerica.
6.4.4 New Forms of Order and Dispute Consequences of
Agriculture
Permanent houses meant substantial investments in labour. Similarly, agricultural fields
too required considerable investment of labour. Agricultural communities would defend
their fields and homes much more than the foraging groups. Anthropological literature
suggests that in case there is a conflict among foragers the losing side simply leaves the
place. Agriculturists tend to stay in their villages even if the victors take away part of
their produce or give them a subordinate status. Thus, coming of agriculture changed
the significance of war. It also paved the way for the creation of societies based on
inequality. The presence of certain precious goods in the graves of a few in Abu Hureyra
and CatalHoyuk is an indication of inequality in society.

6.4.5 Structuring of Rituals and Religious System

Agriculture and its associated social changes also brought changes in the religious system.
The changes were not so much in the human belief system, rather they took the form of
new forms of rituals and religious structure. Such organization is evident in the demarcation
of specific spaces for religious purposes. For example, megalithic monuments and stone
tools found at the site of Gobelki Tepe in Modern Turkey have been interpreted to
symbolize ceremonial structures. The absence of a water resource near this site and the
missing artefacts necessary for habitation indicate that it was a ritual space. Similarly,
CatalHoyuk in Turkey has revealed buildings that are believed to have been used for
religious or ceremonial purposes.

Figure 6.1 : The site of Gobelki Tepe in Modern Turkey

Credit: Zhengan, 2012
Source:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Göbekli_Tepe_site_%281%29.JPG

As for the belief system, early farmers were increasingly concerned with fertility and
procreation. In tandem with the agricultural practices and associated environment, there
emerged a renewed reliance on the reproductive abilities of plants, animals and human
beings. The religious belief in fertility cult was based on a dual (male and female) principle,
both of which were worshipped as supernatural powers. The large sized plaster reliefs,
projections of bull heads from the walls and the elaborate frescoes in the buildings of
113
Food CatalHoyuk are indicators of an elaborate religious system and symbolism during this
Production period.
The dead were buried with grave goods with the belief that these goods would accompany
the dead in their afterlife. These goods were simple in the early stages of farming, but as
social complexity grew, grave goods as also the size of the graves became a symbol for
the display of power and social rank. There coexisted the practice of individual and
collective burials. At sites such as Jericho and Ain Ghazal in Jordon, plaster figurines
modelled after the deceased have been recovered which indicate the presence of some
form of ancestor worship amongst the early village communities.
Check Your Progress Exercise-2
1) How did agriculture lead to the emergence of a village culture?
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2) How did the beginning of agriculture influence the social structure?
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3) Explain the influence of agriculture on the belief system.
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6.5 NEW FORMS OF MATERIAL CULTURE

The coming of agriculture brought significant introductions and changes in the material
culture. The major ones include pottery, weaving and metallurgy. Introduction of these
materials also brought to fore an economy of exchange.

6.5.1 Pottery
Evidence of terracotta figurines from the Upper Palaeolithic period in Moravia (Czech
Republic) indicates that groups of foragers were already familiar with the phenomenon
that clay hardens on contact with fire. However, pots and vessels of terracotta came to
114 be made only with storage needs posed by the process of producing durable food
grains. Given the largely raw food diet in the previous period, hunter-gathers used Consequences of
materials such as hide and wood to make containers which had limited utility and could Agriculture
not be used for cooking.
The Neolithic pottery was also superior in quality compared to the simple, cruder and
non-diverse earthenware of the Mesolithic period. The strength of the Neolithic pottery
resulted from the mixing of materials such as sand and wood to clay which was done by
early farmers to prevent the shrinkage and breakage of clay during the process of its
drying and firing. Since there is no evidence of a furnace or a kiln from this phase, early
pottery was supposedly sun dried or fired in a bonfire or in hearths at homes. Although
clay pottery had gained prominence with farming, it did not spread uniformly across
cultures and many farming communities, especially in places like West Asia, Greece
and South America, were aceramic (did not produce pottery). Those producing pottery,
over time introduced diverse designs, shapes and styles. For example, the early ceramic
ware from CatalHoyuk in Anatolia (Modern Turkey) consists of oval bowls, jars with
handles and vessels with flat bases. Some farmers also decorated their pots with symbols
and artistic patterns which are believed to have held a ritual, magical or ethnic significance.
The undecorated pots seemingly served the everyday needs of cooking and storage in
the households.

Figure 6.2 : Neolithic Painted Earthenware Basin from Yangshao Culture (c. 5000 – c. 3000
BC) China. The basin was excavated from Miaodigou culture site in Shaanxian county, Henan
province in 1956
Credit: Prof. Gary Lee Todd, 2011
Source:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Neolithic_painted_pottery_
basin%2C_Yangshao_Culture%2C_Miaodigou_type%2C_Henan%2C_1956.jpg

While the early farmers made pots with hand, with the introduction of wheel in the sixth
millennium BCE, wheel pottery became prominent in places like West Asia. It is for
such developments and diversity offered by pottery that it stands as a crucial
archaeological artefact for identifying a culture and its facets.

6.5.2 Weaving
Weaving is also connected with sedentary life. Once farmers put the fleece (woolly
covering) of the early domesticated animals, such as the goat and sheep in West Asia 115
Food and llama, guanaco and vicuña in the region of the Andes (South America), through a
Production round of mutations, the wools became suitable for spinning and led to the beginning of
weaving. However, as pointed out in Unit 4, the woolliness of sheep was not the reason
for their domestication in the first place. Gradually, farmers of West Asia, Egypt and
Europe also learned the techniques of using plants like flax for weaving while India and
Mesoamerica had begun to grow cotton in the Neolithic period. Bone needles, awls
and fishhooks are some of the tools associated with early weaving.

6.5.3 Metallurgy
One of the initial consequences for the emergence of metallurgy was the desire of early
agricultural and pastoral communities to adorn themselves. Around the eleventh-ninth
millennium BCE, people in Southwest Asia began to use colourful ores and naturally
occurring metals to decorate human body in life and death. In the beginning, only native
copper which was abundant in West Asia was used to make simple tools and decorative
and adorning jewels such as pendants and rings. The first evidence of trinkets (small
jewellery) made from copper comes in the form of a perforated pendant was found
from the Shanidar caves in the Zagros mountains. Copper trinkets dating to seven
thousand BP have also been found in Ali Kosh (Zagros mountains), Yarim Tepe (north-
eastern Iran) and Hacilar in Turkey. Copper was however not indigenous to all sites
where these artifacts were made which affirms the presence of an exchange economy
along with the transition to agriculture.

6.5.4 Material Exchanges

As the foragers, the early farmers also depended on an economy of exchange. Items
exchanged included seeds and other food products, textiles, salt, rare stones, ceramic
vessels and raw materials such as flint. Food was often exchanged for stones, tools or
other raw materials, or to meet the needs of a local or neighbouring settlement. Obsidian,
which was traded in an earlier period as well, was one of the prominent items of Neolithic
exchanges. Similarly, grains, fruits and pottery were bartered and exchanged. People
exchanged by walking to neighbouring areas on foot or boating across water channels.
Tools made from obsidian have been found in the Natufian sites like Jarmo in the Levant.
In the Neolithic site of CatalHoyuk both obsidian and flint were used for making daggers
and knives.
Obsidian is a hard-volcanic glass which produces a sharp cutting edge. It was primarily
used for making knives and scrapers and was found near regions of volcanic activity such
as Italy, some islands in the Aegean Sea, Taurus (the mountainous region around Modern
Turkey) and Armenia. The abundance of tools of obsidian, far away from areas of occurrence,
is a clear indication that the Neolithic economy was connected in networks of exchange .

While promoting economic contacts between people in different areas, such exchanges
also encouraged interactions, social ties and exchange of ideas among Neolithic
communities. It is believed that such exchanges promoted the early diffusion of the
invention of pottery and eventually that of copper and bronze metallurgy across the
major sites of Neolithic period.
Check Your Progress Exercise-3
1) Explain the relationship between the advent of agriculture and pottery.
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116 .....................................................................................................................
 ..................................................................................................................... Consequences of
Agriculture
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2) Were the early farming communities self-sufficient?
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6.6 SUMMARY
The advent of agriculture is an important phase in human history. Some of its effects
such as greater sedentism were immediate and long drawn, while others such as increase
in population, effects on human health came about gradually. Advent of agriculture also
led people to think about newer ways and strategies to cope with the surroundings.
Certainly, beginnings in agriculture did not immediately revolutionize the life and lifestyle
of early farmers, but it was definitely a harbinger of several significant social and economic
changes that paved the way for more complex social formations.
Transition to agriculture was not universal as many communities chose to retain a hunting
gathering lifestyle. Moreover, as the ongoing excavations at CatalHoyuk in Turkey seem
to indicate, production of food was not the reason for the transition to agriculture in all
the regions. At CatalHoyuk, for instance, evidence suggests that people numbering in
tens of thousands settled down there not for cultivation but for some still mysterious
cultural reason (See www.catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/catal.html for details). Thus, in
this Unit you learnt about the impacts of early agriculture in different regions across the
world.

6.7 KEY WORDS

Aceramic communities : communities or societies that did not produce
pottery
Fertile Crescent : it is the arc of the fertile land that is covered by
the mountains and foothills of Israel, Jordan and
Syria to the west, Turkey to the north and Iran
to the east.
Holocene : the present geological epoch that set in with the
end of the Pleistocene epoch (beginning about
1.6 million years ago and ending about 10,000
years ago)
Lower Palaeolithic : the earliest phase of the Old Stone Age
(palaios+lithos=Palaeolithic). It lasted from
around 3.3 million years ago to 300,000 years
ago
Mesolithic : relating to the period in prehistory immediately
following the Ice Age when people still lived by
117
Food hunting and food gathering but, in some places,
Production had begun very basic farming practices.
Neolithic : relating to the New Stone Age or period of
prehistoric farming before the introduction of
metal-working.
Upper Palaeolithic : relating to that part of the Old Stone Age that
lasted from approximately 40,000 to 12,000
years ago.

6.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISES
Check Your Progress Exercise-1
1) See Sub-section 6.3.1
2) See Sub-sections 6.3.1, 6.3.2 and 6.3.5
3) See Sub-section 6.3.6
Check Your Progress Exercise-2
1) See Sub-section 6.4.1
2) See Section 6.4 (including all its Sub-sections, especially 6.4.3)
3) See Sub-section 6.4.5
Check Your Progress Exercise-3
1) See Sub-section 6.5.1
2) No, See Sub-section 6.5.4

6.9 SUGGESTED READINGS

Bender, Barbara.1975. Farming in Prehistory: From Hunter-gatherer to Food
Producer. London.
Binford, Lewis. 1968. ‘Post-Pleistocene Adaptations’ in New Perspectives in
Archaeology ed. by R. Binford and L.R. Binford. Chicago.
Cohen, M. 1977. The Food Crisis in Prehistory. New Haven and London.
Harris, D. and G. Hillman ed. 1989. Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant
Exploitation, Oxford.
Laet, S.J. de (ed.). 1996. History of Humanity, Vol. I, Prehistory and the Beginning
of Civilization. UNESCO. New York: Routledge.
Latham, Katherine J. 2013. ‘Human Health and the Neolithic Revolution: An Overview
of Impacts of the Agricultural Transition on Oral Health, Epidemiology, and the Human
Body’. Nebraska Anthropologist. Volume 28.
Yasuda, Yoshinori (ed.). 2002. The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture. New Delhi:
Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.

118
Zeder, Melinda. 2009. ‘Macro-evolutionary Theory and the Study of Cultural Change’. Consequences of
Journal of Archaeological Research. 17 (1). 1-63. Agriculture

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6.10 INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

RECOMMENDATIONS
Mankind: The Story of All of Us: Birth of Farming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhzQFIZuNFY

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120 Blank