The Agricultural Revolution

During a relatively warm climatic period between 8000 and 6000 B.C.. humans on the fringes of Mesopotamia began to shift from a hunting-gathering existence and started to control the animals and plants they would eat, thus initiating the Agricultural (or Neolithic Revolution. That it was a revolution there can be no dispute. It transformed the way human beings lived and shattered a tradition over two million years old. However, why the Agricultural Revolution occurred at this precise time is still largely a matter of conjecture. Why. for instance, did it not occur during one of the earlier interglacial periods (intervals of relatively warm climate that occurred periodically between ice ages over millions of years) when, presumably, the same conditions prevailed? It is difficult to find any uniformly satisfying answers. We know that agriculture developed more or less simultaneously in many different parts of the globe, so it is unlikely that it resulted from any single cause such as climatic change or population growth, although both have been offered as explanations. We also know that the move to agriculture was not always permanently successful. In some places it was tried for a while and then abandoned. It is even possible that certain plants and animals were domesticated more than once and by different peoples

Most modern explanations of the origins of agriculture tend to emphasize the role of microenvironments and long-standing human-plant and human-animal relationships. Such factors as changing climatic conditions, the presence of animals and plants that offered good potential for domestication, and the cultural and technological levels of achievement of the human populations present undoubtedly played important roles in the development of agriculture.

The key to understanding agriculture is the process known as domestication. Domestication was the essential technological breakthrough that allowed human beings to escape the age-old system of hunting and gathering and to control the production of food. rather than being at the mercy of what sustenance the terrain might offer at any given moment.

Domestication can be defined as a primitive form of genetic engineering in which certain plants and animals are brought under human control, their objectionable characteristics eliminated. their favorable ones enhanced. and in the case of animals. inducing them to reproduce in captivity. If wild animals cannot be induced to breed in captivity, they cannot be domesticated. Modern domesticated cattle, sheep, and pigs, for example, look only remotely like their leaner. meaner, and faster-moving ancestors. Domestication is best viewed as the creation of an artificial environment in which the chosen plants or animals come to exist exclusively. Left alone, domesticated species either die or revert to their original wild forms. Because herds. farms, orchards. and gardens are permanent, static entities, once they came into being, the old hunting-gathering forms of social organization had to be replaced

Hunter-gatherers place a low value on possessions and a high value on mobility. Always on the move, they carry only a few tools and weapons with them. Agriculture reverses this way of life. It cannot be practiced without a commitment to permanence and the accumulation of large amounts of material goods. Homes, villages and storage facilities must be constructed: fields cleared,divided, and fenced; herds built up and maintained; and tools fabricated. Constant effort is required to maintain all of these. Once settled, farmers may not move again for generations. Pastoralists (animal herders) are equally committed to their flocks and herds.

For practical purposes, hunting-gathering bands always remained small, in the range of 30 to 50 people. Larger groups would have been difficult to sustain in most environments; smaller groups could not reproduce themselves. Agriculture, by contrast knew no limits as far as population growth was concerned. Thus, where hunting-gathering bands restricted their numbers, agricultural communities tended to expand them. People could be put to work in the fields or gardens at an early age and at harvest time, when it was essential to maximize the number of people who could be mobilized. Overpopulation was solved by emigrating and opening up new land for cultivation. By about 6000 B.C., villages with populations in the thousands were common throughout the Middle East.

1.During a relatively warm climatic period between 8000 and 6000 B.C.. humans on the fringes of Mesopotamia began to shift from a hunting-gathering existence and started to control the animals and plants they would eat, thus initiating the Agricultural (or Neolithic Revolution. That it was a revolution there can be no dispute. It transformed the way human beings lived and shattered a tradition over two million years old. However, why the Agricultural Revolution occurred at this precise time is still largely a matter of conjecture. Why. for instance, did it not occur during one of the earlier interglacial periods (intervals of relatively warm climate that occurred periodically between ice ages over millions of years) when, presumably, the same conditions prevailed? It is difficult to find any?uniformly?satisfying answers. We know that agriculture developed more or less simultaneously in many different parts of the globe, so it is unlikely that it resulted from any single cause such as climatic change or population growth, although both have been offered as explanations. We also know that the move to agriculture was not always permanently successful. In some places it was tried for a while and then abandoned. It is even possible that certain plants and animals were domesticated more than once and by different peoples