Site Library Library of Rome

Agriculture: A Choice

Before ten thousand years ago, hunting-and-gathering was the sole economy and subsistence pattern developed by humans. Around ten thousand years ago, however, a new pattern developed: agriculture, or, food production. This pattern seems to have developed in the region of the Middle East known as the Levant. The choice to produce food rather than gather it was never a clear one. The adoption and spread of agriculture across Europe occurred very slowly and haltingly and the very origins of agriculture in the Levant itself saw setbacks. Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, argues that the choice between the two patterns is simply a choice of energy and resource allocation and that this choice would have varied around the globe accordingly with the different needs of different populations. I concur with this idea. The archaeological record certainly seems to support this and we very often see an unclear boundary between the two patterns, evidence of an attempt by epipaleolithic peoples to allocate their energy and resources to best fit their needs in a dynamic world.
When speaking in terms of the Levant, the period in which agriculture arose is known as the Natufian Period. People living in the Levant during this time are known as the Natufians and shared an overlaying culture defined by intensified foraging, early sedentism, cemeteries, microlithization, and domestication of the dog. These people would choose to become the first farmers. The reason for the switch is probably multi-fold and involving a dynamic relationship between demographics, climate, and resource base. Diamond refers to these relationships in his discussion of the adoption of food production as an “autocatalytic process.” That is, a process that catalyzes itself in a positive feedback cycle, going faster and faster once it has started (Diamond, 111). The Levant (and much of the whole world) saw significant climate change over the centuries following the Pleistocene. This would have caused the resource base of the Natufians to become unstable and unpredictable; faunal and floral populations may migrate or die-off. In the past human populations would follow the resource, but these people chose not to. Perhaps they found themselves circumscribed by other cultures and were prevented from moving out of the region by these people or perhaps physical barriers. Maybe a few successful years bumped their population to a size that wasn’t easy to pick up to move. Not being able to travel to new hunting grounds would have brought on sedentism as well as intensified foraging and the use of technologies such as microlithization. The these consequences would have promoted a large, dense population and the resource base would have become depleted. Producing their food would have become a necessity to support the population. Farming provides predictability in the resource base and allows for surplus (to be eaten during unsuccessful harvests).
Energy is at the core of the agriculture problem. It has been proven that farming is much more taxing than gathering. I’ve often felt that the best place and time to be alive was North America, ten thousand years ago. Humans experienced virtually unlimited resources, with space being a chief resource to consider. At some point during the Natufian, resources became too scarce and it was no longer cheaper to spend energy searching for resources that weren’t there. It was much smarter to produce the resources through farming as well as through trade. The adoption of agriculture varied throughout the Natufian with the resource base and it would be the same with the spread into the rest of the Mediterranean and Europe as well.
Europe saw its first glimpse of agriculture between the sixth and seventh centuries BC. The earliest sites are spread across Greek Macedonia and Thessaly, and, according to the archaeological record, showed up very quickly (Bugucki, 3). This suggests that these farming villages were not created by indigenous hunter-gatherers, but by colonizing agriculturalists from the Levant. The indigenous people probably didn’t adopt agriculture for another thousand years or so. The decision to go ahead with agriculture probably arose from pressure for survival from the invading agriculturalists. Agriculture supports a much larger populations and need prime soil and plenty of space. River valleys, flood plains, and other otherwise fertile lowlands would have been sought after and claimed first by the agriculturalists. A similar picture can be applied to the introduction of farming to central Europe as well as along the Mediterranean into the Iberian peninsula (5,000-6,000 ya). A displacement model begins to show. Colonizing agriculturalists settled down and claimed these fertile areas for themselves, pushing the natives into the less-desirable highlands. Food production allowed the invaders to sustain large populations and outbreed the natives. Small native populations would disappear into the larger agriculturalist gene pool whereas larger native populations would have no choice but to adopt agriculture once they became circumscribed and their resources ran out. In the event of conflict between the two groups, agriculturalists would have had the advantage with larger, healthier populations as well as the opportunity for professional soldiers*, for with agriculture comes more specialization in society. A surplus can allow some people to farm, others to do other things such as soldiering. The soldiers give the farmers protection, the farmers give the soldiers their surplus of food.
By 4,000 BC agriculture had been introduced to all of Europe after the inclusions of the North European Plain, the Alps, the British Isles, and Scandinavia. Agriculture did not spread easily to these areas; they were geographically isolated and supported larger populations of hunter-gatherers. Nevertheless, agriculture did come. In contrast with the Aegean, Central Europe, and the Mediterranean, however, these last holdouts don’t seem to have been colonized by a great influx of people. Instead, a continuity model is more likely where the last hunter-gatherers of the region became the first farmers (Bogucki,11). Ahead of the colonizers moving across central Europe would have likely been feral populations of their livestock. Hunters would have hunted these animals and maybe found the benefits of pastoralism first off. Perhaps some trade developed between these hunters and the agriculturalists. At any rate, the archaeological record shows no difference in the land-use patterns between the hunter-gatherer populations and agriculturalist populations in these areas. Let’s look specifically at the case in Ireland. Bogucki holds that for agriculture to have been picked up in Ireland, intrusions, even the smallest of scale, must have occurred. I don’t think this is necessarily true. The distance from France to England, at the nearest point, is only 20 or so miles. The same is the case for Scotland and Ireland. This distance is even shorter with a stop at Rathlin Island, which sits in the North Channel of the Irish Sea. Feral livestock could have swam these distances or traveled there via oversea trade routes between hunter-gatherer populations. This would require no colonist intrusions. Grain could have traveled in a similar way. Seeds could have traveled ahead via wind, water, and animals (within their dung or on their hide). Hunter-gatherer groups could also have spread the crop, even unintentionally. Hunter-gatherers living in Ireland and Britain may have recognized advantages to agriculture and started their own agricultural traditions. These cultural traditions may hold the key to how agriculture arrived at these isolated pockets. More research is needed to compare these traditions with those that were present in the rest of Europe at the time. Similar traditions would suggest the presence of colonizers, different traditions would suggest their absence.
The spread of agriculture into Europe started with a choice that was made by hunter-gatherers living in the Levant. These Natufians chose to produce their own food, rather than gather it. This choice was probably brought on by changing climactic and demographic conditions in the area and was the only likely one if they were going to survive. This is at the heart of Diamond’s argument of Guns, Germs, and Steel. At some point, it becomes more advantageous (and sometimes necessary for survival) for a society to restructure itself economically. The Natufians and most early Europeans saw an advantage or necessity in an agriculture based economy rather than a hunter-gather based one and chose to make the switch. The very presence of hunter-gatherer societies still existing in the area 6,000 years ago shows that the choice was not for everyone at that particular time. The switch from agriculture back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle could just as likely occur today with the onslaught of some sort of catastrophic climactic or demographic change.

Indonesia or the Dutch East Indies
Brigantes Abu!
Clan Mulrian
A Walk Through the Temple of Amun
The Precinct of Mut at Ipet-Isut
The First Gods
The First Kings
The First Queens
The First Cities
The First Artefacts
Image Overview of the Abydos Area
Chocolate — I can't live without it!
Hewitt and O'Direain's Thoughts
Joyce Vs. O'Conaire

Agriculture: A Choice

The Gods at Abydos: Ptah
The Temple Building in Ancient Egypt
title
Ancient Egyptian Religion 2: Ma'at and Divine Kingship
Ancient Egyptian Religion 5: The Levels of Priesthood
Ancient Egyptian Religion 4: The Conditions of Priesthood
Ancient Egyptian Religion 6: The Service of Priesthood
Abusir, The Realm of Osiris
Ancient Egyptian Religion 3: Temples and Priests
Castrum Moguntiacum
Ancient Egyptian Religion 1: Ma'at and the Eternal Return
Fauces
The Festival of Opet at Waset
Ovid on Salmacis & Hermaphroditus
Vedic Astronomy
Oracle of Wadjet
Manchurian Sacred Crows.
The Trade in Tigers.
Bhutanese Sources.