Origins of Food Production and Settled Life

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Origins of Food Production and Settled Life
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Upper Paleolithic Subsistence and Settlement

• Upper Paleolithic subsistence base in many parts
  of the world was the hunting of big game.
• Small groups of people, probably kin groups,
  moved to follow herd animals.
• These people would probably also have depended on
  plant foods and would have had an intimate
  knowledge of the environment.

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Mesolithic Period

• 14,000 BP less dependence on big game and more
  foraging of fish, shellfish, small game and wild
  plants
• Broad spectrum food collecting
• Associated with changes in the climate so
  glaciers and continental ice retreated resulting
  in flooding of coast lines and creation of new
  coastal environments
• Some groups became more settled, while others
  continued a migratory style of life
• Food collecting by foragers as well as the
  beginning of horticulture

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Examples of past pre-agricultural societies

• In Europe, the glaciers began to retreat as the
  temperatures rose during the Holocene which began
  about 10,000 BP.
• People of the Maglemosian culture in northern
  Europe began to exploit the new forested
  environment and rich river and coastal
  environments.
• Groups moved seasonally between the coastal areas
  and the inland areas
• Boats, houses and shell middens are emblematic of
  this time.
• Growing sedentism

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The Natufians

• Lived in the area now known as Israel and Jordan
  about 11,000 BP
• Lived in caves and rock shelters on Mount Carmel
  and in pithouses at the stratified site of Eynan
• Natufian tools, such as sickles with a specific
  kind of sheen, suggest that they were harvesting
  wild grains such as wheat and barley.
• Surplus crop was stored under the floors of their
  homes.
• Natufians also hunted wild game, such as gazelle
• Natufians show evidence of social stratification
  in burials and sedentism in communities which
  were inhabited for most of the year.

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The Jomon people of Sannai Maruyama, northern
Japan

• http//sannaimaruyama.pref.aomori.jp/english/
• 5000-4000 BP
• Sedentary hunting-collecting-gathering
• Beginning of horticultural production

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Maritime Archaic

• Began to develop by 7,000 BP and established by
  5,000-3,500 BP
• Located around the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well
  as in New England and as far north as Labrador
• No intact sites from Nova Scotia since many of
  the areas that might have been used have been
  flooded by rising sea levels.
• Artifacts sometimes found along river banks
• Port au Choix in western Newfoundland is one of
  the best know sites.

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Maritime Archaic

• People would have lived in an environment of
  mixed forest.
• Food varied according to the season.
• People fished for fish and sea mammals using
  dugout canoes.
• They also hunted deer, moose, caribou and beaver
  inland along the rivers.
• These people developed the first elaborate burial
  cult in North America characterized by the use of
  red ochre and grave goods placed with the dead.

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What is horticulture?

• Horticulture Growing crops with simply tools and
  methods like the digging stick or hoe
• 1. Shifting cultivation using slash and burn
  techniques
• 2. Tending of long-growing trees such as
  Chestnuts
• Horticultural societies supplement their crops
  with hunting and collecting
• Beginnings of social differentiation

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Plant and animal domestication

• Domestication means that a plant or animal
  depends on humans for its continued survival
• People who practiced broad spectrum collecting
  used the resources naturally available to them.
• Horticulturalists created environments in which
  plants would thrive and tending plants.
• These people were moving toward food-production
  rather than food-collection
• They were cultivating plants
• When these cultivated plants begin to differ
  significantly from wild species they are
  domesticates

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The Domestication of plants and animals in the
Near East

• By 8000 BC
• Wheat, oats, rye, barley, lentils, peas,
  apricots, pears, pomegranates, dates, figs,
  olives, almonds and pistachios
• Dogs at 10,000 BC
• Sheep at 7000 BC
• Cattle and pigs at 6000 BC
• Catal Huyuk (Turkey, 5600 BC) and Ali Kosh (Iran,
  7500-5500 BC)

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Wild and domesticated maize
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Domestication of animals

• Domesticated animals look different from their
  wild relatives because they have been bred for
  certain specific traits.
• Imbalances in age and sex at a site may indicate
  domestication, for example in sheep at the Zawi
  Chemi Shanidar site in Iraq
• Did dogs and cats domesticate themselves?

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Neolithic Period

• New stone age
• Generally associated with
• Pottery
• Ground stone tools
• Settled villages
• Social stratification
• Specialization

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Domestication of plants
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Why domestication?

• Climate change
• Gordon Childes Oasis hypothesis
• Recent theory of climate change that involves
  increasing seasonality at about 13,000-12,000 BP.
  This might have resulted in grain being
  available only during some seasons coupled with
  larger sedentary populations that could not be
  fed through only foraging.

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Why domestication?

• Braidwood and Willeys cultural readiness
  hypothesis.
• Binford and Flannery suggested that people became
  ready when the growing population pushed then
  into sub-optimal environments and marginal areas.
• Mark Cohen extended this hypothesis to a global
  scale to suggest that domestication happened when
  people could no longer migrate to uninhabited
  areas since these were all populated.

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Why domestication?

• At first, population growth may have led to
  horticulture and the beginnings of cultivation.
• Growing population might then have resulted in
  pressure on resources and the development of
  intensive agriculture.
• Domestication was a gradual process.

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Domestication of plants and animals resulted in

• Sedentism and the development of villages
• Social differentiation
• Social stratification
• Declining health status for many people
• Mono-cropping
• Environmental destruction
• Accelerated population growth
• Long-distance trade
• Complex technologies including pottery, weaving,
  the plow etc.