ARC 1010: Origins of Agriculture and Pastoralism

• Temperature record of glacial – interglacial cycles for the last 500,000 years
• Dominant ~100kya climatic cycle
• In general cold with short warm intervals until the Holocene
• no farming during warm periods until Holocene

• DNA demonstrates dog was domesticated between 30,000-20,000 years ago in Europe
• symbiotic relationship - good for hunting and carrying stuff and ppl guarantee food for dogs

• Revolution in subsistence practises
• Sedentism; surplus; specialisation of labour
• Exponential population growth
• The foundation of modern society
• logistically revolutionary way they lived with storing food and staying with them

• Happened in at least 7 different regions independently at about the same time
• Spread from these centres; further domesticates appeared elsewhere (e.g. Ethiopian coffee)
• Pace differs in different regions
• Mostly at the beginning of the Holocene but some occur at different times - 12000-10000ya farmers started to domesticate plants

• Modern Iraq, Levantine corridor, and Iranian border
• Fertile crescent = 1st farming 

Aleppo Citadel

• 8000 yrs occupation
• base = mud house material and when decayed, knocked it down and rebuilt on top so the ground would be another mud house
• symbolic and hereditary 

Jericho

• mud bricks used there too
• 11000 years old, near beginning of Holocene
• 20 successive settlements

• Cereals: wheat (einkorn and emmer), barley (6 and 2 rowed), rye, oats
• chickpea
• lentil
• pea
• bitter vetch
• flax
• cattle
• pigs
• sheep 
• goats

• Physical (and genetic) changes to the plants/animals, particularly size
• Occurrence outside known natural range
• Increasingly permanent settlements (but sedentism is not always required for agriculture)
• Material cultural indicators: sickle blades, grinding stones, mortars, storage facilities, pens
• Mortality patterns in animal remains - new exposure to animal diseases
• Pathologies in human skeletons: toes, ankles, knee joints problems, lower back, teeth (affected by carbs)

• Dates 20,000 – 13,000 BC
• Mobile people
• Hunter-Gatherers of mainly: Wild grass seeds, nuts etc., Gazelle and other animals
• Seasonally diverse diets
• KEY SITE: Ohalo II

• 21,000 years BC; Israel
• Upper Palaeolithic occupation at the coldest point of the last ice age
• 2000m2 site including waterlogged remains of 6 brush huts, living floors and hearths 
• Site sealed rapidly after abandonment.
• Fantastic preservation of organics including plants, and wooden objects
• Everything available was being eaten 
• evidence of control of plant/harvest location, engaging w landscape 
• Many plant remains charred then sealed in low- oxygen conditions in silts at bottom of the lake
• 1,000s of lithic tools, bones from animal prey– Gazelle, birds, etc
• Occupied all year round (unusual)
• 1 burial of an adult male
• Much of the evidence lay in situ

• 150,000 identified seed and fruit specimens representing 140 individual plant species
• 28,000 seeds of wild grasses
• 10,000 seeds of wild cereals including oats, barely, emmer wheat
• Other progenitors of domesticates (pea, lentil, almond, fig, grape, olive)
• Grinding slabs indicate grasses were processed for consumption

• Demonstrates that carbs from small grained grasses were integral to diets at least 10,000 years prior to the emergence of agriculture (Weiss et al. 2004)
• Broad spectrum diets enabled year-round settlement in one place
• Analysis of ‘weeds’ suggests possibly deliberateplanting of grasses (Snir 2015)
• Note: many extant H+Gs modify their environments; niche construction theory

Kebaran / Epipalaeolithic 1        20,000-13,000 BC

Natufian / Epipalaeolithic 2        13,000-9,500 BC  ---> Sedentism

Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)   9,500-8,500 BC   ---> Plants

Pre-pottery Neolithic B (PPNB)   8,500-6,500 BC   ---> Animals

Pottery Neolithic                          6,500 BC - Now

• Dates 13,000 – 9,500 BC
• Increasingly settled and some tell sites start to appear
• Population is larger
• Still exploiting the same species of plants and animals
• Mix of small grained grasses including cereals
• Gazelle and mix of other species
• No direct evidence for domestication of plants. Harvesting cereals with sickles.
• Animals definitely not domestic, strong seasonal concentration of gazelle hunting
• KEY SITES: Jericho, Ain Mallaha, Abu Hureyra, Mureybet

• Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
• Dates 9,500 – 8,500 BC
• Settled, tell sites
• Domesticated grain
• Still hunting animals – gazelle plus some smaller species
• Clear pressure on gazelle populations
• KEY SITES: Abu Hureyra, Mureybit
• Cereals: Wheat, Barley, Oats, Rye
• Wild plants – disperse naturally – brittle rachis shatters, seeds carried away
• Domestic plants – seeds retained within tough rachis, remain until harvested in husk, require extensive processing to release the seed from its spikelets
• Threshing animals can do it when domesticated in O formation
• Winnowing = remove chaff in windy area

• Hillman has carried out experiments on the selective pressures applied during sickle harvesting of wild wheats and barley
• He calculates that domestic varieties could be created easily in 200yrs, but possibly in as little as 20yrs, WITH NO CONSCIOUS SELECTION of grains

• Need enough to eat and sow later
• PPNA = small animal hunting than Netufian gazelle hunting (drop in gazelle no.?) 

• Dates 9,500 – 8,500 BC
• Settled, tell sites
• Domesticated grain
• Still hunting animals – gazelle plus some smaller species
• Clear pressure on gazelle populations
• KEY SITES: Abu Hureyra, Mureybit

• Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
• Dates 8,500 – 6,500 BC
• Mixed farming
• Domesticated sheep and goats
• Large dwellings with plastered walls
• Vast array of ritual objects and burial remains
• KEY SITES: Ain Ghazal

• Species abundance changes
• Size changes (often size drop)
• Shape changes
• Herd structure changes (sex and age profiles at death)

• Ceramics introduced (hand made)
• Starts 6,500 BC
• More cattle and pigs added to economy
• Process in Abu Hereyra 
• Scaling up of population and impact of farm system
• Farming settlements develop in Near East from very small to substantial "proto-towns" at Abu Hereyra and Catal Huyuk
• “Supernova” settlements considered semi-urban 3000-4000years before cities of Mesopotamia first appear

• 11,000 BC
• Sequence of H+G settlement into large farming village
• Natufian, PPNA, PPNB
• Farming and hunting
• After 7600BC introduction of sheep and goats
• Skeletons show pathology of early farmers
• Excavated small area deeply for + info from O to [+] housing

• Tell mound, 25m of deposits spanning 9000 years almost complete sequence
• Natufian occupation at 11,000BC
• Gap of 1,000 years, then PPNA settlement in c.9,500BC.
• Circular or oval houses. Population est. at 400 people 
• Domesticated wheat present, outsideit’s natural range.
• PPNB, population est. at 2,000+ people 
• A rectangular, multi-roomed PPNB house
• Settlements larger, houses rectangular, fill space efficiently
• late PPNA/early PPNB, c. 8700 BC
• Unprecedented walls and towers – possibly for water control/flood defence (Site is next to a permanent spring)
• Circular tower with inside steps, immediately inside the settlement wall, reconstructed as 8.2m high and 9m broad at base
• art reflecting ancestral importance, biblical tradition, genealogy veneration very important
• skulls exhumed and plastered, figurines, >100 humans and animals

• Popular in 60s/70s then...
• Processual models are condemned as being“deterministic”.
• People are not machines; decisions are made in a social context.
• Cultural forces are downplayed or ignored completely.
• The choices of “social actors” are ignored. No account is made for individual “agency”
• everyone has individual thinking, more ways to navigate situations
• Ian Hodder emph post-processual, household, transition to importance of nuclear family = revolution in food economy
• Hodder (1990) The Domestication of Europe
• Talks of the domestication of society –emergence of hierarchical, delayed-return organization – the DOMUS:
• – “it was through the domus that the origins of agriculture were thought about and conceived...the domus became the conceptual and practical locus for the transformation of wild into cultural...[and] provided a way of thinking about the control of the wild...”
• But complex r/ship between society and climate/environment

• Dominant ~100kya climatic cycle
• Ice age climate for majority of last 1 million years
• ‘short’ warm interglacials
• Holocene very unusual
• Complex climatic sequence
• Key variables: temperature, rainfall
• Younger Dryas – short but sharp
• Glacial Maximum - Kebaran
• Bolling-Allerod Interstadial - Early Natufian
• Younger Dryas - Late Natufian
• Early Holocene - PPN A

• Sedentism then plants then animals
• There is more than a single environmental first
• kick in the Near East. There is a very specific sequence.
• This environmental sequence will also have led to: Demographic pressures, Internal friction in society
•  N.B. Agricultural Production has a “Normal Surplus”

• Halstead, P. (1989). The economy has a normal surplus: economic stability and social change among early farming communities of Thessaly, Greece. Bad Year Economics: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty, CUP, 68-80.
• A farmer needs to keep seeds to plant for next year.
• Because of inter-annual variability they always plant more than is necessary, on average, to be relatively secure about having enough.
• The result is substantial surplus as a result of risk mitigation, not necessarily ambition or greed. But opens door to big social change.
• Raises question of ownership and use, person with the food has power, others lose autonomy, the society isn't equal

• Sherratt, A. (1981). Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution. Cambridge University Press.
• Animals kept just for meat by Neolithic farmers; storage on the hoof - food resource 1st, everything else 2nd
• Revolution in Bronze Age with animals used for milk, wool and traction (ploughing)
• Lactose intolerance often cited as reason for delay - dev w age

• Sedentism means ability to accumulate things - craftsmanship
• Raises question of ownership at various levels
• Potentially large wealth differences because some store more than others
• Creates opportunities for increased social inequality
• Ability to support larger populations; carbs inadvertently increases human fertility + early weaning of infants, reduced inter-birth spacing, larger families, reduced infant mortality
• Changing attitudes to age and gender
• Health consequences: new diseases (human and zoonotic)• Reliance on fewer sources of food
• Eventual deforestation and land degradation

• Richard B. Lee, “What hunters do for a living, or how to make out on scarce resources”
• Study of the !Kung bushmen of SW Africa
• Population levels in desert H-Gs well below subsistence ceiling
• hunt/gather not close to subsistence level, no surplus farm preferred
• Plentiful wild resources
• !Kung have far more leisure time than farmers (or adults in western society!)

Appearance of the Neolithic in Europe

Characterised by:

• domesticates
• food production
• settlements
• pottery
• polished-ground stone axes
• arts-crafts
• larger populations

import of agricultural package from Levantine area

• Tell mounted settlement, lots of excavation with access from roofs of houses
• walls with plastered skin and painted then replaced
• rectangular, mud-brick houses all up against each other [+][+][+]
• bull shrines in homes and devotions to mother goddess
• most houses have raised platforms around the edges with burials underneath, ovens against the south wall, ladders in the southeast corner of the main room, storage bins, and areas for grinding and preparing food.
• Regularly plastered floors. Painted walls.

• Central Europe
• 5500-4500 BCE
• LBK pottery
• Arrives as complete package (crops, animals, pottery)
• Named after a very distinctive form of decorated pottery.
• Spread very rapidly from W Hungary to W France and the Low Countries c. 5500-5300 BC.
• More formal cemeteries appear, with grave goods differentiated along age and gender lines.

Characterised by: 

• domesticates, food production, settlements, pottery, polished-ground stone axes, arts-crafts, larger populations

• Mixed farming economy, emphasising wheats and barley. Cattle clearly dominate among the domestic animals.
• Hunting, fishing, and the collecting of wild plants carried out but appears to be only a minor component of the diet.

• Houses immensely long, subdivided into 3 sections = living space, barn-storage, animal pens
• Life about 30-40 years then abandoned, new one built close by. Whole community involved in new building
• Often oriented NE-SW short side to the cold north wind
• Side ditches – drains and rubbish disposal, burials thatched, wattle and daub

• New material culture - Polished stone, pottery, rectangular timber-frame houses, fired clay figurines (Traditional/Culture-historical)
• New economy - Domesticated plants (emmer and einkorn wheats, barley) and animals (sheep/goat, cattle, pig) (Processual)
• New ways of thinking? (Post-processual)

Centres of domestication: Africa, N and S America, East and Asia, and Melanesia

• Handful of main species
• More than 100 plant species in total (e.g. tomatoes, vanilla, chilli pepper, pineapples, avocados, gourds, papaya, guava, amaranths, tobacco, coca [source of cocaine])
• Lack of large animals

Centres of domestication: Africa, N and S America, East and Asia, and Melanesia

• Handful of main species
• More than 100 plant species in total (e.g. tomatoes, vanilla, chilli pepper, pineapples, avocados, gourds, papaya, guava, amaranths, tobacco, coca [source of cocaine])
• Lack of large animals

• Maize DNA and recent archaeology indicates origins in Central Balsas Valley
• Most other archaeological evidence found in dry caves of central Mexico;
• Tehuacán Valley
• Valley of Oaxaca
• many plants, not large animals (only dog and turkey)

• The first domesticates were a squash and the bottle gourd around 8,000 BC (e.g. Guilá Naquitz)
• Nutrition; flavour; containers
• Many species domesticated multiple times
• E.g. beans, chili peppers, cotton, squash (pumpkins), bottle gourd, tobaccos, etc.

• The first domesticates were a squash and the bottle gourd around 8,000 BC (e.g. Guilá Naquitz)
• Nutrition; flavour; containers
• Many species domesticated multiple times
• E.g. beans, chili peppers, cotton, squash (pumpkins), bottle gourd, tobaccos, etc.

• Modern maize is a highly varied crop
• Variability reflects centuries of selective breeding with wild forms.
• The ‘triumvirate’ – maize, beans and squash can all be grown in the same field
• Compliment each other nutritionally (carbs and proteins)
• Domestication history still debated
• Archaeology and genetics suggest initial use of maize around 7,000 BC (Ranere et al. 2009)
• First appear in Guilá Naquitz and Coxcatlán Caves 3,500- 4,500 BC
• Teosinte = original maize
• Now any 2 sub-species of maize as genetically diverse as human and chimp

• Domestication a slow process; begins as early as 8,000 BC
• But by 2500 BC still only ~25% of food from agriculture
• Seasonal aggregations, but first ‘farmers’ forcedto remain mobile by the limited food supply
• Tended ‘garden plots’ and moved betweenthem throughout the year
• As population grew, groups became less mobile and more territorial
• First permanent villages c.2500 BC

• Fast vs slow emergence of domesticates
• Rapid spread vs slow spread
• Single and multiple domestications
• Role of domestic animals
• People more mobile for longer in Mesoamerica as sedentism came later had to manage plants in different areas of the landscape as weather was unpredictable
• Also spread of food prod tended to occur more rapidly along E-W aces than N-S axes bc locations at the same latituded required less evolutionary change or adaptation of domestics than locations at different latitudes

• Major centres of domestication with very different development trajectories
• Food but also raw materials
• Dramatic consequences: Explosive population growth, sedentism, large aggregated settlements, health
• Foundation for systematised social inequality, hierarchy and so-called “complex society”