First FarmersThe Revolutions of Agriculture10,000 B.C.E.–3000 B.C.E.

Key Concept and Focus QuestionsKey Concept 1.2 The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies• What were the long-term demographic, social, political, and economic effects

of the Neolithic Revolution?• How did pastoral societies resemble or differ from early agricultural societies?• How did the Neolithic Revolution affect human societies economically &

socially?• Where did the Neolithic Revolution first transform human populations?• What were the environmental effects of the Neolithic Revolution?• What effects did pastoralism & agriculture have on the food supply?• What were the social effects of the increased food supply caused by increase of

agriculture?• What technological innovations are associated with the growth of agriculture?

Breakthrough to Agriculture Common Patterns• Separate, independent, and almost simultaneous• Between 12,000–4,000 years ago, agriculture

developed in Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, several places in sub-Saharan Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and eastern North America

• Climate change (end of the Ice Age) made it possible for plants to flourish

• Gender patterns: women likely led the way towards developing agriculture

• As hunters, men likely led the way towards animal domestication

• The warmer climate at the end of the Ice Age may have allowed a dramatic population growth of gatherer-hunter communities, thus necessitating a more abundant and stable food supply

The Globalization of Agriculture Triumph and Resistance• Agriculture spread by diffusion, which involved

exposure and adoption (The spread from China into Southeast Asia is an example of this process)

• Agriculture also spread by migration, which involved agricultural ways of life being forced on conquered people or the displacement of existing communities (The sub-Saharan African Bantu migrations illustrate this phenomenon)

• Some resisted agriculture for environmental reasons

• Settled agricultural communities were often incompatible with gathering and hunting groups, leading to violent displacement

• Some pre-agricultural societies were changed by exposure to technology and epidemic diseases and others inter-married with members of the new settled societies

The Globalization of Agriculture The Culture of Agriculture• Dramatic population increase• Increased human impact on the environment• More humans meant a greater impact on the

planet, specifically human selection of favorable plants and animals

• Agricultural life led to shorter life expectancy; people had a shorter physical stature and were plagued by tooth decay, anemia, and malnutrition

• More vulnerable to famine brought on by crop failure or drought

• Technological development such as pottery, jewelry, weaponry, and tool making

• Animals were used for secondary purposes, such as hides, wool, milking, and transport

• Wine and beer became common between 5400 and 4000 B.C.E., as did rowdy behavior

Social Variation in the Age of Agriculture Pastoral Societies• Arctic tundra, deserts, and grasslands were

generally not favorable to settled agriculture, but they were good for animal husbandry

• Milk, meat, and blood became central to the diet of these communities

• Communities moved about with their animals looking for seasonally appropriate and unexploited grazing lands

• Conflict with settled communities: Age-old conflict existed between the wealthier, settled communities and the nomadic herders

Agriculture Village Societies• Ties to social patterns of gathering and hunting

communities continued in communities that did without formal state systems of kings, chiefs, and bureaucrats

• Importance of female work in farming and textile work gave women social importance

• Without a formal state system, extended family ties linked people together with elders exercising authority

Social Variation in the Age of Agriculture Chiefdom• Power came not from physical force or violence

but by giving gifts, performing religious and political rituals, and personal charisma

• Chiefs combined the sacred and the political• Chiefs collected food and manufactured items

from the commoners and redistributed them to warriors