1. SECTION 3 BREAKTHROUGHS TO AGRICULTURE

2. INTRODUCTION/BIG PICTURE Chief feature of Paleolithic Era – initial settlement of the earth Chief feature of Neolithic Era – agriculture (began around 12,000 years ago or 10,000BC (BCE) The term Neolithic Revolution or Agricultural Revolution refers to the domestication of plants and animals; This begins to spread slowly over thousands of years and gradually replaced the nomadic life Led to: growing population, settled villages, animal- borne diseases, horse-drawn chariot warfare, cities, states, empires, civilizations, writing, literature, etc.

3. TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE CORN, FIELDS, IRRIGATION, MORE!

4. QUESTIONS Why can’t the later generations of farmers and herders go back to hunting and gathering? Who domesticated whom? Corn or Humans? What is intensification?

5. COMMON PATTERNS Independent invention or cultural diffusion? Let’s get our map out and label it…use a highlighter Label the area with a highlighter; arrows showing spread List the foods that were domesticated at each site Began within a 12,000-4,000 year ago span

6. What accounts for the emergence of agriculture after countless millennia of human life without it? 25 ice ages caused by minor periodic changes in earth’s orbit around the sun Global warming at the same time Homo sapiens were populating the earth during the last ice age Extinction of large mammals Warmer, wetter, more stable conditions particularly on the tropical and temperate regions of earth Flourishing of more wild plants especially cereal grasses Archeologists think they had already developed the “broad-spectrum diet” ME – sickle, baskets, mortar/pestle, storage pits Amazon – get rid of plants to grow others Australians – traps to catch eels

7. WOMEN PROBABLY STARTED FARMING! MEN STARTED HERDING! Women were already educated in the wild plants Men more likely domesticated animals since of course they were more familiar with tracking of the animals Sedentary life around resource-rich areas Need for more food was likely a reason for agriculture Building the monolithic/megalithic structures may have been the catalyst for the need for more food There were many pressures or incentives to increase food production and thus begin the NAR.

8. VARIATIONS First invention – the digging stick or hoe to make a hole to plant only later came the plow Out of 200,000 plants, only hundreds have been domesticated and 5 supply more than half of the calories that sustain human life today: wheat, corn, rice, barley, and sorghum Only 14 species of large mammals have been successfully domesticated, of which sheep, pigs, goats, cattle, and horses have been most important What are some reasons other animals cannot be domesticated? The NAR was very much a local revolution

9. FIRST OF THE REVOLUTION Fertile Crescent (Southwest Asia or the Middle East) Extraordinary variety of plants and animals Figs the first cultivated crop Then wheat, barley, rye, peas, lentils, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle

10. ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF FULL TRANSITION TO AGRICULTURE IN 500 YEARS Increases in the size of settlements (up to 1,000) Major innovations: sun-dried mud bricks, monuments or shrine-like buildings, displays of cattle skulls, more elaborate human burials-removal of the skull and more sophisticated tools-sickles, polished axes, and awls

11. DOMESTICATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Between 10,000-5,000 years ago there was no dessert Domesticated cattle first (perhaps 1,000 years before it happened in the ME and India) Donkey domesticated in NA about the same time near the Red Sea Sorghum was domesticated in Africa as well In Ethiopia a grain call “teff” and “enset” a relative of the banana were cultivated West Africa, in the forested region yams, oil palm trees, okra, and the kola nut emerged as important crops

12. DOMESTICATION IN THE AMERICAS Andes in western South America – Llama/Alpaca is the only large mammal to be domesticated in the Western Hemisphere This is the reason people in the Americas relied on hunting, gathering, and fishing longer than those in the Eastern Hemisphere Only one cereal grain as well: maize (corn) Corn and beans were also domesticated in the Americas East-West, North-South Agricultural transfers