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:
 Explain the meaning of the term ‘Domestication’ with reference to the early plants
and animals selected by more sedentary human groups;
 Identify the environmental context for the beginning of domestication of plants and
animals;
 Explain why different animals were selected for domestication;
 Give reasons for selection of particular plants domesticated by humans in the early
phase; and
 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.
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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
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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?
.....................................................................................................................
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.....................................................................................................................
2) Identify the points of emphasis in the different theoretical approaches pertaining to
the beginning of agriculture.
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.....................................................................................................................
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.
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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
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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

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