Agricultural Revolution or Transformation?

The Technology of Paleolithic Societies

• Early tools (wood, bones, animal skins, and stone)

- shelter, protection, clothing and food– tents, huts, wooden and stone structures.– Fire for light and warmth

• First weapons (rocks, clubs, knives, spears, axes, and the bow and arrow)

• Mats and baskets - carry nuts, berries, and plants

Slash and Burn Technology

In many areas, tribes would burn off trees, farm the area until the soil was depleted and then move on (slash and burn agriculture)

Social Organization During Paleolithic Age

• Family Unit• Extended families clustered together - clans (ties

of kinship)• Larger groups - bands and tribes

• Sustained themselves by hunting and gathering (foraging).

• Most were mobile or nomadic.• Coordination and teamwork were needed (hunting and war)

Social Organization During Paleolithic Age

• Gender Division

• Men: hunting, war, heavy labor.

• Women: gathering, preparing food,home and children.

• Different but equal?

Religion of Paleolithic Societies

• Worshipped gods or deities.

• Practiced a variety of religious rituals.

• Buried their dead.

• Made sacrifices to gods and spirits

• Performed various ceremonies

How do we know?

Religion of Paleolithic Societies

Intellectual Characteristics of Paleolithic Societies

• Humans expressed themselves in art and music.

• The first known musical instruments are flutes from 30,000 years ago.

Agricultural Revolution or Agricultural Transition?

»Sudden transformation?

Why Change?

• Most evidence suggests that hunters-gatherers resisted agriculture as long as they could.

• Why?

The Neolithic Revolution

(8000BCE-3500BCE)

•Sometimes termed the Agricultural Revolution.•Humans begin to slowly domesticate plant and animal stocks in Southwest Asia.•Agriculture requires nomadic peoples to become sedentary.•Populations begin to rise in areas where plant and animal domestication occurred.

Development and Spread of Agriculture

– Barley – Wild wheat

Development and Spread of Agriculture

• Farming then spread to parts of India, north Africa, and Europe.

• Agriculture spread much later to Africa.

• Agriculture was invented separately in the Americas much later (around 5000 B.C.E.)

• Followed by Southeast Asia and Japan

• And then Central Asia

Independent Development vs. Cultural Diffusion

• Areas of Independent Development:

1. SW Asia (wheat, pea, olive, sheep, goat)

2. China & SE Asia (rice, millet, pig)3. Americas (corn, beans, potato,

llama)

• Areas of Agriculture Through Diffusion:

1. Europe2. West & Sub-Saharan Africa (?)3. Indus River Valley (rice cultivation)

Agriculture Prompted New Ideas and Techniques

The need for storage facilities for grains and seeds prompted the development of basket-making and pottery.

Agricultural needs also encouraged certain kinds of science, supporting the human desire to learn more about weather or flooding.

Discovery of metal tools (4000 B.C.E.) in the Middle East

•Copper was the first metal, followed by bronze – a more resilient metal.

•High starch diets slowly allowSedentary populations to grow.

•First plow invented c.6000BCE;crop yields grow exponentially by 4000BCE.Pop. grows from 5-8 million to 60-70 million. •Eventually agricultural populations begin to spread out, displacing or assimilating nomadic groups; farming groups grow large enough for advanced social organization.

Sedentary Agriculturalists Dominate

First Towns Develop

•Towns require social differentiation: metal workers, pottery workers, farmers, soldiers, religious and political leaders. (POSSIBLE B/C FOOD SURPLUSES!)

•Served as trade centers for the area; specialized in the production of certain unique crafts

•Beginnings of social stratification (class)

First Towns Develop

Catal HuyukModern Turkey

First settled:

c. 7000BCE

JerichoModern Israel

First settled:

c. 7000BCE

First Towns Develop

•Towns require social differentiation: metal workers, pottery workers, farmers, soldiers, religious and political leaders. (POSSIBLE B/C FOOD SURPLUSES!)

•Served as trade centers for the area; specialized in the production of certain unique crafts

•Beginnings of social stratification (class)

Towns Present Evidence of:

•Religious structures (burial rites, art)

•Political & Religious leaders were the same

•Still relied on limited hunting & gathering for food

Roles of Women

•Women generally lost status under male-dominated, patriarchal systems.

•Women were limited in vocation,worked in food production, etc.

•Women may have lacked thesame social rights as men.

Metal Working: From Copper to Bronze

•Early settlements gradually shifted from copper to the stronger alloy bronze by 3,000BCE—ushers in the Bronze Age!

•Metal working spread throughout human communities slowly as agriculture had.

Wheeled Vehicles

Potters Wheel (c.6000BCE)

Irrigation & Driven Plows

Early Human Impact on the Environment

•Deforestation in places where copper, bronze, and salt were produced.

•Erosion and flooding where agriculture disturbed soil and natural vegetation.

•Selective extinction of large land animals and weed plants due to hunting & agriculture.

Neolithic Village: Catal Huyuk (shot-l- hoo-yook) in southern Turkey

• Houses: mud bricks in timber frameworks, crowded together with few windows

• rooftops - daylight and social contact (broken bones)

•Houses decorated - hunting scenes

•Religious images: powerful male hunters

mother goddesses representing agricultural fertility

Neolithic Village: Catal Huyuk (shot-l- hoo-yook) in southern

Turkey

• trade with hunting people in surrounding hills

•Large villages ruled over smaller communities, -> politics, military

•Accumulation of wealth -> social classes.

Catal Huyuk (shot-l- hoo-yook) in southern Turkey

Wall Painting from Catal Huyuk (shot-l- hoo-yook) in southern

Turkey

Civilizations

• Writing: Middle East around 3500 B.C.E.

– a recipe for making beer.

Civilizations

• Prejudices.

- “barbarian”

• Human history:

civilizations vs primitive nomads?