 How did people obtain food before agriculture?

Before the invention of agriculture, all humans probably obtained the food they needed for survival though hunting of animals, fishing, or gathering. - Lived in small groups - Traveled frequently - Establishing new homes or camps - Direction of migration depended on movement of game and seasonal growth of plants. - Only about 250,000 people throughout the world 1. San in Southern Africa 2. Aboriginal people in Australia 3. Hunters and gathers of the Amazon

 BBC Kalahari hunt – 7 minutes 

 What made agriculture possible?

 Domestication is the act of altering wild plants or animals through deliberate breeding for human use. An essential aspect of civilization, domestication of both plants and animals began in approximately 10,000 BCE.  The domestication of animals, including cows, horses, and pigs, gave great impetus to the development of farming.  Domesticated animals were also used for protection and food and as companions. Domesticated plants and animals are genetically different from their wild ancestors and are often altered in both appearance and behavior.

 What do you think are the first domesticated animals?

 Plants: ions/a/plant_domestic.htm ions/a/plant_domestic.htm

Read comic – Describe several characteristics of the Neolithic Revolution Neolithic Revolution - Transition from a hunter- gatherer society to an agricultural society (farming and herding) - 10,000 – 12,000 years ago

Who do you think had the better quality of life, hunter-gatherers or agriculturalists? Explain.

 Tell me at least one thing you did over Spring Break!

 Place the plant or animal where you think it was first domesticated.

 Now compare what you placed on the map to the map and information on your handout.  Fix it if you need to!

10,000 – 12,000 years ago, closely aligned with the declining Ice Age, accompanied by a modest population explosion. Hearths or regions of plant domestication and specific products 1. Upper SE Asia – rice, bananas, beans, teas 2. Lower SE Asia – sugarcane, ginger, citrus 3. Eastern India – rice, sorghum, ginger 4. SW Asia – wheat, barley, rye, beets, grapes 5. East Africa – melons, gourds, coffee 6. Mesoamerica – corn, squash, chili peppers, avocado 7. Mediterranean Basin – grapes, olives, dates, lettuce, carrots 8. Central China – radishes, peaches 9. Sudan – sorghum, millets, yams, peas 10. Andean Highlands – potato, pumpkin, tomatoes, strawberry, papaya 11. Eastern South America – peanuts, pineapples, cotton, tobacco

Vegetative planting – direct cloning from existing plants, such as cutting stems and dividing roots. Plants found growing wild were deliberately divided and transplanted. Seed agriculture – reproduction of plants through annual planting of seeds that results from sexual fertilization. Seed agriculture is practiced by most farmers today.

There were several main hearths, or centers of origin, for vegetative crops (roots and tubers, etc.), from which the crops diffused to other areas.

Seed agriculture also originated in several hearths and diffused from those elsewhere.

 How did these domesticated plants and animals diffuse to other regions of the world?

 Columbian Exchange - a period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds.  Let’s read about the Columbian Exchange …

Progressivist view (farming is better) Revisionist view (hunting and gathering is better)

With your group:  Read the article  Complete the T-chart as a group.  On the back: Write a thesis for the article you read (Diamond’s argument)  Also include group member’s names

PROGRESSIVIST VIEW (FARMING = GOOD!)  Abundant and varied foods  Best tools and goods  Longest and healthiest lives  Efficient way to get more food for less work (planted crops yield more)  Flowering of art  Food can be stored  More free time  More food = can support more people  Hunting and gathering = life is nasty, brutish, short REVISIONIST VIEW (FARMING = BAD!) Better balanced nutrition because of varied diet Farmers = increase in malnutrition (ex: people taller before) Farmers = most food comes from one or a few starchy crops If crop fails = run risk of starvation Crowded societies = spread of parasites and disease Deep class divisions in farming societies, which cannot happen in H & G societies (an elite became better off, most people became worse off) Inequality between the sexes Example: Kalahari Bushmen Article

 Your responses…  What’s written in the first paragraph: “In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.”

 Answer the following on a sheet of notebook paper: Do you agree or disagree with Diamond’s argument? (The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race) Explain in a paragraph, minimum 5 sentences.