12,000- 1,400 years ago

• 12,000 years ago- Plants and animals are domesticated
• 5,000 years ago- First Empires, and emergence of polytheistic religion
• 2,500 years ago- Persian Empire, Buddhism in India
• 1,400 years ago-  Rise of Islam

Spring 2020 Entries

Built from the Labors of the Agricultural Revolution: Society

~ 10,000 years ago

Chang How Soh

The Agricultural revolution, which originated in the hill countries of modern-day south-east Turkey, western Iran, and the Levant, saw the change of Homo Sapiens towards a lifestyle of manipulating plants and animals in one space rather than hunting and gathering them. By 3500 BC, the main wave of transition and domestication was over (Harari, 2015). However, when humans started to control the environment, big human and environmental changes came as a result. For example, there was large scale land clearing and deforestation occurring to make room for growing crops, in addition to gathering resources. This results in (when examined from a modern perspective) humans contributing to climate change, in addition to destroying habitat for biodiversity to exist. When farmland was created, fences were erected to keep nosy neighbors and unwanted pests (e.g. snakes and insects) out of the farmlands. The latter, alongside the extermination of pests that could cause problems for a family’s harvest, saw the declaration of war by humanity against insects, snakes, and other creatures of nature who dared to venture too close to these artificial islands. (Harari, 2015). To help these artificial islands survive, humans began to dig canals and irrigation ditches from nearby rivers and streams to nurture the farms with water to ensure the plants survive for harvest. All of this shows how humanity was now way more dependent on the environment than it was before; a seasonal drought or negative change in the local climate could result in a famine that would allow disease and death to ravage any family or village that was affected.

Now that humanity was more attached and manipulated by the environment around it as a result of adopting agriculture, several resource systems were created to ensure the long-term survival of Homo sapiens. Farmers begin to break their backs trying to grow a surplus of food, to remedy the potential ills that could arise from an uncertain future. Evidence of this is demonstrated by the presence of grain silos, jars of olive oil, preserved meats, and the bones of livestock that might be found by archeologists at a settlement. In the process, they might end up exhausting the soil as a result of trying to grow more to feed themselves, powered by a mental force called anxiety. The types of resources that could be collected was now affected by seasons and climate. In response, many societies began to trade with one another to acquire goods from foreign lands; many iconic trade routes such as the Roman roads and the Silk road connecting Asia to Europe began to arise in response to materialistic demand. This would also have the side effect of contributing to a materialistic culture that would later take the form of capitalism that Harari, (2015) describes in the Chapter Building pyramids in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Also, a farmer at this time would have collected more possessions than a nomad of the previous time, creating a resource system of hoarding for survival. It was also during this time that class divisions began to form, with elites and kings on the top, and peasants on the bottom. It paved the way for large scale government systems and empires at the expense of the peasant farmers who paid for it all with their annual harvests. Some examples pointed out by Harari, (2015) include the Roman Empire at its peak and the Qin Dynasty in China, whose levies on its 40 million subjects maintained a huge standing army and 100,000 government officials.

The types of governance systems that characterized these civilizations and empires varied by individual, but they all had one thing in common: they upheld the idea of an “imagined order”, so called because it was not bestowed to humanity via biological evolution. Harari describes how humans did not evolve to cooperate with each other, and therefore, could be brought into the odds of conflict especially when the agricultural revolution came around. It was also because the transition time between foraging and agriculture was insufficient to allow an instinct for mass cooperation to evolve into Homo sapiens. This resulted in human society making up intangible ideas such as laws and rules in order to keep society together in times of unrest. A good example as described by Sapiens is the Code of Hammurabi. This stone stela was best known for being the 1^st set of encoded laws whose goal was to maintain justice and order (the “imaginary order” as Harari describes) in society, despite its glaring shortcomings in gender and social inequality. Rulers and elites exploited this imaginary order as to properly rule over the peasants, subjugating them to toil and servitude via confiscation of their hard work in another imaginary system called taxes. This all served to give rise to a system where a few wealthy rulers and nobles sat on the backs of the already burdened peasant farmers; a characteristic of many empires in that time period and even today. To keep the peasants from revolting against an oppressive system like the latter, many of the cooperation systems involved the use of violence, oppression, standing armies, and religion to maintain the imaginary social order. Harari describes the account of Prince Talleyrand of France, who described the governance system that utilized religion alongside a standing army to keep the peasant class under control. More specifically, the idea that one priest can do the work of 100 soldiers more efficiently and cheaply (Harari, 2015).

One other social and economic system that helped to facilitate the transition into the agricultural revolution was Innovation. It made it easier to till the soil, to remove obstacles, and was ultimately done to increase the yield of crops for farmers in hops of better survival. Innovation also made warfare easier; the best example being the chariot used by the Hyksos to invade Egypt. Any empire that had better innovation in warfare equipment could easily dominate its neighbors and take their farmlands/resources for themselves to support their empire at the expense of the defeated. Therefore, whether created for the purpose of feeding or killing people, innovation helped to spur the agricultural revolution along once the luxury trap had closed shut on its unfortunate victims.

The outcomes of all this are the many issues that characterize modern society. The Amazon Rainforest is burning because Brazil wants more land for growing soybeans and raising cows, the wealth inequality gap is at an all-time high, the climate movement fights for the future against an ill-minded republican party looking to destroy it, and now the human society discusses how to live sustainability without altering the environment in a negative way. In Sudan, warlords and militants fight over resource and land distribution. In Mexico, people who can no longer make a living as a farmer due to generations of unhealthy farming practices migrate to the US, only to be greeted with xenophobia and hate crimes from red hat wearing republicans. All of which was brought on by the Agricultural revolution that started ~10,000 years ago.

References:

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Retrieved from: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a30bcf95ea52/18266599?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200216T202309Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20200216%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=54bc030c8ee9627b1680c4d94a0a2e3087a81818fcfd579023ee713083fa9e3b

The Beginning of the Agricultural Revolution

The beginning of the Agricultural revolution, or the Neolithic Era as it is also known as, was a time that changed human lives extending as far as modern life today.  12,000 years ago, the human race began to change its survival techniques from hunting and gathering to cultivating land for growing crops that would help sustain themselves, their families, and eventually larger populations of people as well.  For the average modern persons perspective, this adaptation may seem like it would be a change for the better.  History shows that might not be true, especially for the relationship between human nutrition and their relationship with the environment.  “As the renowned Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe wrote, ‘with the adoption of agriculture and stock raising, [man] became a creator emancipated from the whims of his environment.’” (Ungar, P. 2017).  In other words, man parted ways with the best interests of the environment for the “convenience” of having farms to grow and maintain.

The relationship between humans and agriculture is an interesting one because it had a surprisingly opposite long-term effect on what humans thought would happen moving forward.  Agriculture made some important things possible for mankind in this time of human evolution and populations of that time.  With constant reliability of crops, people began being able to/needing to have more children.   What they did not realize was with the more mouths to feed and the population increase, the more space they would need to grow crops.  This was a recipe for disaster as it caused disease and malnutrition throughout villages that once thought agriculture was a step in the right direction. “As people began living in disease-ridden settlements, as children fed more on cereals and less on mother’s milk, and as each child competed for his or her porridge with more and more siblings, child mortality soared.” (Harari, 2019)

Among the problems that agriculture had on the effects of human population, it also had an effect on the surrounding environments.  The growing farmlands and the people that were responsible for this gave no care to the habitats of the animals that they relied on for protein and had also lived there for millennials before people arrived.  It was about survival, for family, for villages, or personally.  This was the first time in human history that people started to majorly effect biodiversity in their surrounding areas. Before this time, hunting and gathering kept people nomadic, allowing the environment to recover from human impact.  Once agriculture was established, environments didn’t have the opportunity to regrow and reintroduce native animals and plants.

This era did not have a secure governance system, although the social factor played a major role in the thinking of the people and creating hierarchy.  As the first to create farms and have resources that were disposable, they became “rich”.  Food during these days was a sign of modern-day money. The more resources that a farm could provide, the more that they could profit from.

History seems to repeat itself in many forms and we are currently feeling this.  The beginning of the agricultural era had an upside, in that humans began to learn to settle into lifelong spaces and create bigger families.  Although, the downside was that they unwittingly destroyed the biodiverse surroundings that they and their close ancestors had relied on for many years previously. Although it doesn’t seem that we have learned from our ancestors, I hope that we aren’t following in the same path that they put forth many years ago.

References:

UNGAR, P. (2017). The Neolithic Revolution. In Evolution’s Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins (pp. 169-197). PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc77gbp.11

Harari, Y. N. (2019). Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. London: Vintage.

The Effect of the Number System on the Human Environment

Humans have a limited ability to store data and knowledge in their minds and this became an issue when more permanent settlements began to develop as a result of the agricultural revolution (Harari, 2015). The agricultural revolution led to permanent settlements that allowed the human population to increase much larger than ever before. With populations growing so large, humans needed a way to keep track of large amounts of information like food production for thousands of people. Initially, the solution that humans came up with is to create a partial script which is meant to represent a numerical type system (Harari, 2015). The first partial script was created by Sumerians in Mesopotamia and this partial script allowed Sumerians to process and store larger amounts of data than ever before outside of the limitations of their brains (Harari, 2015). This storing of data made it so that the Sumerian population could process thousands of data points which led to an even larger escalation in population (Harari, 2015).

The creation and use of partial script led to major changes in the interactions between humans and the environment. Of course, the escalation in population made possible by the numeric system led to a larger impact on the environment for several reasons. During the agricultural revolution is when people first began planting a single crop in rows which would eventually lead to monocropping (Harari, 2015). The partial script used by the Sumerians was basic and included ways to tell time, mark product types, and count into the thousands (Harari, 2015). The numeric system used by the Sumerians was pressed into clay tablets so I would venture to say that it didn’t create a very large impact (Harari, 2015). However, the writing system eventually created a much larger effect on the environment by expanding a society’s capacity. The governance systems developed more significantly after writing was created and the actors are difficult to identify although one actor was the Sumerian writer Kushim (Harari, 2015). There were definitely social and economic systems that were relevant to the creation of the writing system and its impact on the human environment. Socially writing expanded communities which created new social structures that didn’t exist before the agricultural revolution (Harari, 2015). With the ability to count communities would slowly become more economically inclined and become economically proficient (Harari, 2015). The outcomes of the numerical and writing systems that came out of the agricultural revolution led to larger populations within communities, economic development and in turn, the environmental footprint of humans increased more and more.

References: 

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humans. Retrieved from

https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a30bcf95ea52/18266599?response-content-disposition=inline;filename*=UTF-8”Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind%281%29.pdf&response-content-type=application/pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200218T184454Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ/20200218/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=3cda3731caf9d99bed62cf023f3664245ffcd34ba6710ca46b78468d50157b32

Agricultural Revolution

Jason Lee

The Agricultural Revolution occurred about 12,000 years before present day. The transition to agriculture happened around 9500-8500 BC (Harari, Yuval N. 2015). The transition occurred in the country of south-eastern Turkey, western Iran, and Levant.

The Agricultural Revolution was the first-time humans were able to grow food domestically rather than having to hunt and gather food. Wheat was one the first plants that dominated the farms and regions. It first started as just a wild grass but eventually started growing all over the world (Harari, Yuval N. 2015). The first humans to cultivate this grass broke their backs doing so. Wheat needed space, it didn’t like other plants or objects like rocks, so Sapiens spent most of their time clearing fields and rooting out weeds. One could say that wheat manipulated Homo sapiens in order to become successful. The problem is that sapiens who were much better adapted to hunting and gathering suffered from farming. Studies of ancient skeletons revealed that humans suffered from arthritis, hernia and slipped discs (Harari, Yuval N. 2015). Not only just physical conditions but farming wheat also affected the diets of Sapiens. Before when sapiens hunted and gathered their diets varied however having a diet based solely on wheat affect the sapiens teeth and gums.

Agriculture not only affected the sapiens but the environment itself. Repeated farming on the same field yield poorer and poorer soil and the land required to farm became larger and larger as better techniques were used. This meant the clearing of forest, whether its slash and burn or logging. This deforestation caused by agriculture essentially destroyed natural habitats and overall contributed to global warming as this practice continued.

The social classes of each society and government was also affected by agriculture. Life of a peasant was even less secure than that of a hunter gather. Being a peasant meant that you were forced to labor in fields for long hours and be rewarded for even less, while the lords gained even more riches. Essentially the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Political stability waned constantly between the different classes as the gap between rich and poor lead to civil wars or even wars with other countries for resources and food.

One could say that the Agricultural Revolution was a fraud. While the sound of being able to stay in a single place instead of hunting and gathering to gain food is promising, the practice of agriculture leads too many to suffer instead whether it was from working on the fields or suffering from physical conditions. Although the Agricultural Revolution lead to many advancements in society, it came with a large cost.

Reference:

Harari, Yuval N. author. (2015). Sapiens : a brief history of humankind. New York :Harper,

Fall 2019 Entries

The Domestication of Wheat

~9000 years ago

Matt S.

When mankind still relied on hunting and gathering to obtain nutrients, wheat was simply one of many wild grasses that Man would occasionally collect as a source of food. This changed about 9000 years ago when it was discovered that land could be altered, namely through forest clearing and tilling, to grow wheat in much larger quantities than it had previously existed in nature. (Harari, 2018)

Since wheat alone does not make a nutritionally balanced diet, Man had to clear massive amounts of land to grow enough calories to sustain a population. This clearing of land drove out native plants and animals that had previously made up a significant portion of mankind’s diet. Furthermore, the clearing of land was so labor intensive that it did not make sense to abandon land that had already been worked, and thus, mankind gave up their nomadic lifestyle. Communities then began to form, centered around established wheat fields. (Harari, 2018)

These more permanent settlements created an opportunity for human population growth. Of this population, a small percentage became “elites” (Harari, 2018) and greatly benefited from taking advantage of the excess food produced by the working class farmers. This elite class became an early form of government as they fueled war, trade, and politics these excess food supplies. As power struggles escalated, the elites used their wealth to build forts and palaces around which larger and larger populations of farmers settled (Harari, 2018). By the end of the Agricultural Revolution, of which wheat played a large role, mankind had fully transitioned from small bands of hunter-gatherers living sustainably off the land to large sprawling civilizations of ill, malnourished peasants, working the land to fuel the upper class.

References:

Harari, Y. N. (2018) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York, New York: Harper Perennial.

The Knowledge Explosion of the Agricultural Revolution

Between 3500 – 2500 BC

Olivia deGregory

The explosion of knowledge during the Agricultural Revolution was a chain-reaction event. The birth of farming resulting in forgers settling in particular places, rather than their typical nomadic lifestyle. This increased control of the food supply led to the creation of villages, societies, and larger populations (Harari, 2015, p. 67). Due to the increase in larger populations, humans encountered a new issue: keeping track of information, “For millions of years people stored information in a single place – their brains. Unfortunately, the human brain is not a good storage device or empire-sized databases, for three main reasons” (Harari, 2015, p. 91). Never had humans had to keep track of data in such large quantities, but the increase in crops and population lead to new practices. Mathematical data became crucial in maintaining these large empires and human brains did not have the capacity to store it all. Luckily, the ancient Sumerians of Southern Mesopotamia had a solution: writing.

The Sumerians utilized the resources around them. Coming from a sunny area with muddy plains, they used this clay to make tablets upon which they began to write. While it may not be the same writing we do today, they created a two-sign system to record their harvests. One sign represented numbers, while the other represented people, animals, and merchandise; by combining these two types of signs they could record any data they needed (Harari, 2015, p. 92).  As the Mesopotamians yearned to expand their writing, more symbols were created to widen the things they could compose. The expansion of writing became incorporated into their societies and government. Around 2500 BC, they had expanded their math and writing so that kings could issue decrees and priests could write oracles, even commoners had begun to write personal letters (Harari, 2015, p. 95).

This revolution of knowledge led to the creation of larger societies, which lent a hand to improving government systems and something that Harari refers to as “imagined order” (Harari, 2015, p. 77). Additionally, the expansion of writing led to social changes such as the ability to write poems, plays, and other creative outlets that had otherwise relied on oral tradition.

Not all of the outcomes from the interaction were good. There was the population growth resulting from farming, which did result in the development of societies as we know them today, though it did also lead to a limited diet for humans and a period of high mortality rates. Moreover, this boom in population did lead to revolutions such as writing, but even that wasn’t perfect. According to Harari, the clay tablets used to transcribe data were not very efficient, especially as the number of tablets used grew. It became difficult to keep track of the tablets, and the accuracy to the data transcription was inefficient (Harari, 2015, p. 96). On the other hand, this was a great starting point for humans to expand their communication and societies, which relied heavily on maintaining data and information.

References:

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. Retrieved from https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a30bcf95ea52/18266599?response-content-disposition=inline; filename*=UTF-8”Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind%281%29.pdf&response-content-type=application/pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20190923T220653Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ/20190923/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=66a31b708936986ce4dd085c0375f6aa33b2b870bbf26725e0e0f6e83d7a14d9

Wheat Bargain

8500 BC

Shannon Cabral

During 9500 BC the agricultural revolution was spreading across the globe and dramatically shifting daily life, as people transitioned from hunter gatherers to farmers. Prior to 9500 BC humans were nomadic, they traveled around hunting animals and harvesting crops. But around 9500 BC a shift began to occur that would set forth the agricultural revolution, and one crop that played a significant role in this revolution was wheat. In the Middle East the shift first appeared to be occurring around 9500 BC. The first evidence of hunting gathers who had permanent housing appeared during this time, as well as the collection and storage of wild seeds (Harari,66). One of these wild seed was wheat. Farming wheat caused people to settle in one area, abandoning the nomadic lifestyle and shift to permanent housing. By 8500 BC the transition to farming domestically grown wheat, instead of wild wheat had almost fully occurred, causing multiple permanent villages to emerge in the Middle East (Harari, 66).

Wheat farming was incredibly physically intensive and domesticating the crop really caused the domestication of the people cultivating it (Harari, 63). Wheat demanded specific environmental conditions that farmers had to provide for it, including sowing fields, removing rocks from soil, clearing fields for growth and eliminating competing crops. While farming seemed to be the key to a more stable lifestyle, it ended up being more grueling than that of the hunter gatherer, with arguably equivalent or even worse results (Harari, 63).

The lifestyle shift caused an increase in births, which at the time people thought would be beneficial, however it had unforeseen results.  People assumed they could have more children because there was more food, but with more children the surplus of food was depleted. The lack of proper nutrients caused children to become sick and die (Harari, 66). It also caused a total dependency on a single crop, making the farmers growing it vulnerable. The social ecological system between humans and wheat was really unequal, humans were trying to get wheat to adapt to them but really, they ended up adapting to wheat. There wasn’t a stable governance system in place, so fields would be raided, if crop harvests were good thieves would steal from farmers and violence was very present (Harari, 64). The lack of governance caused quality of life to stumble, people were dedicating their lives to farming with no security that there fields would be protected.

The wheat farming transition really had everything to do with resource availability and ecological flow within the social-ecological system. People during this time became aware that they could impact and mold their environment to fit their needs. Instead of having to constantly move around for food they could make food come to them. These environmental changes shifted their entire way of life, as well as the environment around them.

While the long-term outcomes of wheat farming/domestication were beneficial, as stated before the immediate outcomes were actually quite bad. People had to work significantly harder, just for their quality of life to decrease. Children ended up dying of malnutrition, adults were burdened with intensive field work, just to fall victim to drought. The long-term outcomes allow us to live as we do today, but the attempt to make nomadic life easier actually had the opposite results.

Reference:

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Toronto, Ontario: Signal.

The effects of traditional agriculture on sapiens

During the agricultural revolution, homo sapiens shifted from foraging the land for various species of wild plants and wild animals, to sowing, harvesting, and raising only a select dozen species of crops and domesticated livestock. Around 10,000 years ago, the transition to a more stationary society created groups of domesticated people whom tended to constant demand from their staple food sources.(Harari, 2014, p. 62-63) The traditional agricultural phenomenon first transcended upon groups of peoples in south-eastern Turkey, western Iran, and the Levant around 9500-8500_BC. By 3500BC, a large portion of modern-day cattle and crops were domesticated globally, including wheat, maize, potatoes, olive trees, sheep, goats and horses. By identifying the effects that traditional agriculture had on homo sapiens, various environmental degradation outcomes from changes to social and ecological systems are found to be greater than compared to past hunter-gather societies. 

 Traditional agriculture provided homo sapiens with an increased amount of the overall quantity of food, leading to advancements in irrigation, planting and cultivation over larger areas of arable land (Harari, 2014, p. 63). The size of crop field and grazing pasture as well as productivity of the land are dependent on the upkeep of soil fertility, prevention of pests and diseases, and over all maintenance of operations, which had great negative physical effects on the bodies of homo sapiens (Harari, 2014, p. 65). The more food that can be produced during an ideal growing season leads to an overall population increase, which creates a vicious cycle of producing more hands to cultivate more crops to feed more mouths. The effects of agriculture on ecological systems, are showcased by the destruction of land, by sowing wheat seeds, clearing trees and rocks for arable land, and maintaining water sources, proved to be more physically demanding than foraging. 

Self-organizing is less likely with mobile resources such as wild food sources (Ostrum, 2009, p. 420). Due to less resource unit mobility in the stationary actions of raising crops and livestock, the overall benefits of agriculture exceed the perceived costs of foraging (Ostrum, 2009, p. 420). With a lack of stable governance, such as an establishment of property rights in order to protect their crops, the sapiens were left open to attacks on their crops from threatening tribes. Furthermore, network structures were not in place for sharing technologies due to the slow transition to agriculture. The famers of the land understand the importance of the resource on their livelihoods, and adapted technologies through the use of their cattle for faster cultivation of land, leading to changes in harvesting levels. 

These subcomponents lead to outcomes of social and ecologic performance. Users become accountable for the maintenance of crops and cattle, rather than the environment, causing environmental degradation. Overharvesting the land and direct changes to the overall biodiversity. Impacts to demographic trends were due to population shifts, where sapiens kept having larger numbers of children, as death rates incresed (Harari, 2014, p. 67) With a dependence of bountiful yields, a lack of rain one year puts the users at danger for starvation and malnutrition, while the presence of domesticated animals increased disease. Due to the use of technologies, pollution patterns were produced from large amounts of run off and emissions from cattle, harming water and air quality.

The overall effects of traditional agriculture on the social and ecological systems leaves the physical environment degraded from overuse, as well as population trends dependent on stable food supplies.  These shifts are vastly different from the landscapes of the past foraging societies, which relied on more of a variety of species of plants and animals to survive, which is in contrast to the largely grain and cereal based diet of the agriculturalists.       

Works Cited:

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Toronto, Ontario: Signal

Ostrom, E. (2009). A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological         Systems. Science, 325(5939), 419–422. doi: 10.1126/science.1172133

 Domestication of wheat in Jericho and The Luxury Trap

Time Period: 10500-8500 BC

Our ancestors hunted and gathered thousands of species and only a few of these species were suitable candidates for farming and herding (Harari, n.d. p 62). The Agricultural Revolution occurred where those few species lived (Harari, n.d. p 62 map 2). The oldest known village, near modern Jericho, may have appeared due to a shrine used by roving bands of hunter-gatherers and by 10,500 years ago it evolved into a small farming village (Balter, 1998). The domestication of wheat in Jericho, part of the Agricultural Revolution, proved to be a milestone that would change the human evolution path forever. Around this time in the Middle East most people were nomadic and did not understand the concepts of domesticating plants like wheat for controlled usage. This on a world-wide scale led to Homo Sapiens driving the extinction of about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing, or iron tools. (Harari, n.d. p 56) “When humans burned down forests and thickets, it helped wheat by clearing away trees and shrubs, which allowed wheat and other grasses to monopolize the sunlight, water, and nutrients” (Harari, n.d. p 66). Where wheat took over, game and other food sources were attracted, this allowed humans to gradually give up their nomadic lifestyle and set up seasonal or permanent camps (Harari, n.d. p 66). Additionally, this led to the domestication of some animal species over time and resulted in a genetic alteration of many animals to be more docile (Harari, n.d. p 70). However, as a farmer they worked harder than the foragers and had a less diverse diet (Harari, n.d. p 62). “Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as slipped discs, arthritis and hernias” (Harari, n.d. p 63). Excavations at Catalhoyuk uncovered little evidence for division of labor among inhabitants (Balter, 1998). This could be the same as what occurred at the earliest agricultural settlements of Jericho. This shows a functional social network where everyone would have contributed to the farming and not having a hierarchy. This place is also famous for its huge walls described in the Christian Bible and its famed destruction. It is thought that the wall was used to protect the settlement from flood waters and the tower was used for ceremonial purposes (“Early Jericho,” n.d.). This could also be evidence that there was a functional social construct in Jericho (“Early Jericho,” n.d.). It is entirely possible that many foragers settled here due to the good farmland and natural spring on Sultan’s Hill (“Early Jericho,” n.d.). “Evidence of such settlements has been discovered throughout the Middle East, particularly in the Levant, where the Natufian culture flourished from 12,500 BC to 9500 BC.” (Harari, n.d. p 66). They stored grain for times of need, they invented new tools such as stone scythes, stone pestles and mortars to grind wheat (Harari, n.d. p 66). This and what came next continued to grow and evolve in their agricultural practices. “When gathering wild grains, they took care to lay aside part of the harvest to sow the fields next season” (Harari, n.d. p 66). They began sewing the grains in the ground rather than scattering them on the surface. This led them to hoe, plough, and weed the fields, to guard them against parasites, and to water/fertilize them (Harari, n.d. p 66). These new developing practices had effects in other areas of the early Homo Sapiens lives. Reproduction is always at the center of a society’s longevity. As a nomadic people they would try to space out their offspring’s births by 3-4 years (Harari, n.d. p 66).  This is due to the constant moving and how youngling would slow down the movement of the family or tribe. The women would accomplish this by nursing around the clock and until a late age, reducing their chance of conceiving another child (Harari, n.d. p 66). There is also evidence to support the idea of full or partial abstinence, abortions and occasional infanticide (Harari, n.d. p 66). Giving up the nomadic lifestyle would have eliminated the need for the 3-4 year waiting period to reproduce again and babies could be weaned at an earlier age (Harari, n.d. p 66). The extra hands were sorely needed in the fields, but the extra mouths quickly wiped out the food surpluses, so even more fields had to be planted (Harari, n.d. p 67). Child malnutrition soared faster than in adolescents and at least one in three died before 20 years old (Harari, n.d. p 67). The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC, lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC due to the increase of reliance on agriculture (Harari, n.d. p 67). Every generation continued like the previous generation by making small improvements to their farming practices expecting it to make life easier and provide a higher yield in crops (Harari, n.d. p 67). “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.” (Harari, n.d. p 68). Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted and begin to count on it. (Harari, n.d. p 68). Finally, they reach a point where they can’t live without it and that is what led to the downfall of many early farming communities. They could not see that yes, the farming yielded a surplus of food. However, it required more hands and gave a less diverse food source which led to malnutrition, disease, and hunger. This was a grave miscalculation that would continue for many centuries across the globe. In the end though the agriculture revolution laid the groundwork for Homo Sapiens to become more socially connected, develop new farming techniques, and ultimately conquer nature to succeed anywhere.

References:

Balter, M. (1998). Why settle down? The mystery of communities. Science; Washington, 282(5393), 1442–1445.

Harari, Y. N. (n.d.). Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a30bcf95ea52/18266599?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind%25281%2529.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20190921T123603Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20190921%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=b19de08fed9489f245701251d04480bde38e4fc9869247c293cc721c3509d3f2

The Agricultural Revolution vs. The Environment

Dakota Mullins

The first agricultural revolution occurred between 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC. Although there was a more recent revolution between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the first one is the one I will be referring to in this assignment. The agricultural revolution began when “aliens began to devote all their time and effort to manipulating the lives of a few animal and plant species..from sunrise to sundown humans sowed seeds, watered plants, plucked weeds from the ground and led sheep to prime pastures” (Harari, 2015). With this new explosion of food production came a lot of new interactions between the environment and the people living during this time. Firstly, there is the obvious fact that land was now being used differently. This impacted the environment negatively because the once natural layout of the land was now being manipulated and destroyed in order to use the land for agricultural purposes. Secondly, the surplus in food gave rise to “population explosions’ and “the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure” (Harari, 2015). This affected the environment because it now had to  accommodate to the larger population, including more land and resource use.

In regards to resources, it can be looked at double-sided. With the agricultural revolution came a massive explosion in cultivation of food and other resources. In this way, it can seem like a positive outcome occurred in regards to resources. However, more land and water resources had to be used in order to reach this surplus, so was it really a positive? Not to mention, the population explosions also required a heavier intake of resources. Unfortunately, the surplus in food wasn’t dispersed equally, which leads my topic into governance. The elites of the population were pampered with the food grown by the farmers. This created a system of farmers, which were viewed as peasants, and the elites in their individual bands.

Speaking of bands, the agricultural revolution led to a new social system that consisted of people living in villages and working together. Neighboring villages would sometimes trade goods, but most people stuck to their own bands in their own villages. It also led to specific roles given to both females and males. The males typically stuck with the labor work, as it was the woman’s role to stay at home and take care of the children, cook, and clean. Some climate patterns that came along with this time period had a lot to do with direct effects from agriculture. Deforestation led to ruined land, and the most common problem was with droughts. Droughts caused heavy damage to the environment, as well as to the agricultural wellbeing of the people. Many people were affected by droughts and food shortage when they occurred.

The overall outcomes of the interactions between the agricultural revolution and the environment were drastic. The land that was once untouched and used to a bare minimum became used at a much larger scale, destroying habitats and ecosystem. Deforestation and droughts were common during this time and took a toll on the environment. Although many believe we took a step forward with the agricultural revolution, the environment was impacted negatively.

References:

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. New York: Harper.