First Farmers: The Revolution of Agriculture
Assignment 3
By: Alexis Apgar
The Last Ice Age70,000 BCE – 10,000 BCE
The Agricultural Revolution coincided with the end of the last Ice Age.
At the end of the last Ice Age human migration across the earth began.
The Neolithic Age10,000 BCE – 4,000 BCE
“Neolithic” “New Stone” Age
• Gradual shift from:• Nomadic lifestyle settled, stationery lifestyle.• Hunting/Gathering agricultural production and
domestication of animals.• Transition to agriculture: 11,000 – 8,500 B.C.E.• Extinction of some large animals due to hunting and
climate change led to scarce food.• Warmer, wetter weather allowed more plants to grow.• Gathering and hunting peoples started to establish
more permanent homes in resource-rich areas. • Growing crops on a regular basis made possible the
support of larger populations.
The Agricultural Revolution8,000 BCE – 5,000 BCE
Agriculture developed independently In different parts of the world.
Rise of settledVillages parallelsOrigin of agriculture.
The Fertile CrescentThe Fertile Crescent was the first region to have a full Agricultural Revolution.
Domestication: figs, wheat, barley, rye, peas, lentils, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle.
Eastern Sahara
In Africa animals wereDomesticated first unlike Elsewhere where plants Were domesticated first.
Africa had scattered Farming practices. In the East was the grainSorghum. In the highlandsOf Ethiopia was the highlyNutritious grain teff. InWest Africa yams, oil palmTrees, okra, and the kolaNut.
This scattered form ofFarming was a less Productive way of farmingThen in the regionOf the Fertile Crescent.
In the Americas there was an absence of animals that could be domesticated So the peoples of America relied heavily on hunting and fishing. Furthermore, they lacked the rich cereal grains like in
Afro-Eurasia instead they had maize.
Advantages & Costs of Agriculture
• Advantages– Steady food supplies– Greater populations– Leads to organized societies
• Costs– Heavily dependent on certain food crops
(failure=starvation)– Disease from close contact with animals, humans, and
waste– Population growth prevents return to the hunting and
gathering life.
New Technology
• Explosion of new technology– Pots, vases, and dishes– Textiles – MetallurgyA new set of technological changes- New uses for domesticated animals milking,
riding, hitching them to plows and carts.
Social Variation in the Age of Agriculture
• Pastoral Societies– In Central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Sahara, and in parts of eastern
and southern Africa people depended heavily on their animals and became herders, pastoralists, or nomads.
• Agricultural Village Societies– Settled village based farms maintenance of equality and freedom: no kings,
chiefs, bureaucrats, and aristocrats.– Organized by kinship, group, or lineage performed the functions of its
government.
• Chiefdoms– Chiefs, unlike kings rely on generosity, ritual status, or charisma to govern,
not force.– Locations include Mesopotamia, Pacific Islands, and North America.
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