History of Agriculture - Early History

Early History

Scholars have proposed a number of theories to explain the historical development of farming. Early forms of farming are called protofarming. The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies, based on evidence from south west Asia and China indicates an antecedent period of intensification and increasing sedentism, known as the Natufian in south West Asia and the Early Chinese Neolithic in China. Current models indicate that a range of resources were being used more intensively. Wild stands that had been harvested previously started to be planted. Evidence is also now emerging that the crops grown initially were wild and not domesticated. Crops such as emmer and einkorn wheat do not appear to have become domesticated until well into the Neolithic and 'ancient cultivated rice' (Oryza sativa) took 3000 years to become domesticated.

Localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant, the fact that farming was 'invented' at least three times elsewhere, suggests that social reasons may have been instrumental. When major climate change took place after the last ice age (c. 11,000 BC), much of the earth became subject to long dry seasons. These conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. These plants tended to put more energy into producing seeds than into woody growth. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time.

The Oasis Theory was proposed by Raphael Pumpelly in 1908, and popularized by Vere Gordon Childe who summarized the theory in his book Man Makes Himself This theory maintains that as the climate got drier, communities contracted to oases where they were forced into close association with animals which were then domesticated together with planting of seeds. The theory has little contemporary support, as the climate data for the time does not support the theory.

The Hilly Flanks hypothesis, proposed by Robert Braidwood in 1948, suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains, and that it developed from intensive focused grain gathering in the region.

The Feasting model by Bryan Hayden suggests that agriculture was driven by ostentatious displays of power, such as throwing feasts to exert dominance. This required assembling large quantities of food which drove agricultural technology.

The Demographic theories were proposed by Carl Sauer and adapted by Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery. They describe an increasingly sedentary population, expanding up to the carrying capacity of the local environment, and requiring more food than can be gathered. Various social and economic factors help drive the need for food.

The evolutionary/intentionality theory, advanced by scholars including David Rindos, is the idea that agriculture is a co-evolutionary adaptation of plants and humans. Starting with domestication by protection of wild plants, followed specialization of location and then domestication.

The Levantine Primacy Model was developed in the 1980s by Ofer Bar-Yosef and his collaborators. This provides a cultural ecology explanation, based on the idea that some areas were better favoured with domesticable plants and animals than others.

The domestication theory put forth by Daniel Quinn and others states that first humans stayed in particular areas, giving up their nomadic ways, then developed agriculture and animal domestication.

Another theory is that humans were prevented from staying in one place for much of their history, due to the risk of attacks from other tribes.

The Innovation and Specialisation Model was put forward recently by Rupert Gerritsen, in Australia and the Origins of Agriculture (2008). This theory considers the question in terms of economic development and treats agriculture as a form of specialisation arising from two factors, higher population densities and innovation in areas of higher net natural productivity, and long-term advantageous information acquisition at nodal points in communication in long range scale-free networks.