Chapter 5
The Neolithic Revolution
Origins Agriculture and Urban Life
The transition from nomadic to sedentary lifestyle lays the foundation for
the development of the city. Environmental conditions and technological
advances are highlighted as co-drivers of the profound change in lifeways.
The beginnings of social classes and new strategies in social control are
emphasized. The urban revolution covers the origins of the institutions
that make city life possible. The systems needed to sustain large numbers
of people living in close proximity are discussed and the issues arising
from such proximity are examined. The development of government,
economy, religion, and infrastructure take center stage.
Pages 72
Effects of Climate
Pages 73-75
Domestication and Horticulture
Pages 75-77
Pastoralism
Pages 77-78
Spread of Agriculture
Pages 78- 81
Effects of Agriculture
Pages 82- 90
Document Based Question
Pages 91
Works Consulted
Essential Question: How do Sedentism and agriculture make civilization possible?
What is the
Neolithic
Revolution?
Younger Dryas
The Great
Conveyor Belt
End of the Ice
Age
The Neolithic Revolution is the tem used to describe the transition from nomadic
hunting and gathering societies to settled agrarian societies. Taken as a whole, from
start to finish, the transition certainly was a revolution in the entirety of changes it
brought in the way people lived. Considered over the entire 250,000 year span of
human existence, the several thousand years it took was relatively sudden. The
changes in any given lifetime were imperceptible. Cumulatively, over time, they
were enormous. The transition took place where both the Paleolithic hunting and
gathering and Neolithic gardening ways of life could co-exist .
According to the University of Nebraska Lincoln, Harvard professor Dr. Ofer BarYosef believes that people began to cultivate and store crops because the cold, dry
weather during the time period led to a reduction in wild food sources. The earliest
evidence of agriculture is dated around the end of the Younger Dryas.
The Earth's climate began shifting from a glaciated state to warmer temperatures
around 14,500 years ago. However, just as the ice was retreating in the northern
hemisphere, temperatures reverted back to near-glacial conditions and remained cool
for another 3,000 years. Some researchers believe the Younger Dryas occurred
because the rapidly melting ice sheets added a great deal of freshwater to the North
Atlantic and reduced the salinity levels of the ocean. This slowed down the ocean's
currents, which warmed the southern hemisphere and cooled the northern regions
.The great ocean conveyor
belt is a vital component
of the global ocean
nutrient
and
carbon
dioxide cycles. Warm
surface
waters
are
depleted of nutrients and
carbon dioxide, but they
are enriched again as they
travel
through
the
conveyor belt as deep or
bottom layers. The base of the world’s food chain depends on the cool, nutrient-rich
waters that support the Some researchers believe the Younger Dryas occurred
because the rapidly melting ice sheets added a great deal of freshwater to the North
Atlantic and reduced the salinity levels of the ocean. This slowed down the ocean's
currents, which warmed the southern hemisphere and cooled the northern regions.
Fourteen thousand years ago, the Ice Age was coming to an end and temperatures
were warming very quickly. Food became available in relative abundance for the
first time in thousands of years. Instead of having to travel long distances to find
food, some groups were able to live in the same place all year round. People started
to build permanent dwellings. By 10,000 BC, the end of the Younger Dryas period,
they were discovering that certain animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle and pigs, had
temperaments and dispositions that made them easy to manage within close
proximity to their dwellings. They selected and cultivated certain grains, such as
oats, wheat and barley, which provided nourishment to larger groups of people and
would last for long periods without spoiling.
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Domestication
The domestication revolution was the transformation of human society brought
about by the domestication of plants and animals for food production, leading to
horticultural and pastoral societies. The domestication revolution was the first
dramatic transformation in the nature of human societies. While this revolution
took place over a very long period of time, it marked a dramatic change in the
nature of societies. The domestication revolution marked the first successful
effort by people to use social organization to gain greater control over the
production of food and improve their lives. The availability for the first time in
human history of a dependable food supply unleashed a whole chain of events
that changed society forever.
Horticulture
The peoples who first cultivated cereal grains had long observed them growing in
the wild and gleaned their seeds as they
gathered other plants for their leaves and roots.
In Late Paleolithic times both wild barley and
wheat (see chart left) grew over large areas in
present-day Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan,
Lebanon, and Israel. Hunting-and-gathering
bands in these areas may have consciously
experimented with planting and nurturing
seeds taken from the wilds or they may have
accidentally discovered the principles of
domestication by observing the growth of
seeds dropped near their campsites.
Cultivation
Gardening
73
Cultivation of plants on a small scale may have been practiced for many
thousands of years. The protection and encouragement of the growth of wild food
plants through weeding, pruning, irrigation, and pest control, along with the
simple propagation of seeds or cuttings, most likely constituted some of the first
human horticulture. The use of fire to remove dead vegetation and promote the
new growth of desirable plants is another example of how ancient humans
engaged in plant cultivation. Repeated harvestings engaged collector and
collected in a positive feedback-natural selection process that changed the
domesticate species genetically to favor its selection and reproduction. Over time,
passive gathering became active planting, tending and harvesting. A garden,
being a more or less permanent location, forces those who tend and harvest the
garden to remain in the same place for longer periods of time.
Because garden produce has value, a group of humans must cooperate to the
extent that they can protect themselves and their produce from those who would
rather steal it. Many of the earliest horticulturalists also lived in fortified
communities. There is safety in numbers, and there is safety in walls. An
important element is having the wherewithal to store food for future
consumption, trade or ceremonies. Gardens were outside the village walls and
people came into the village at night for protection from animals and bandits.
Storage
Transition
to Farming
Climatic
Shifts
The evolution of agriculture can also be traced through the evolution of containers,
essential for storing surplus harvests.
Nomads favored portable leather or straw
baskets and also dug underground storage
pits. When people began to live in permanent
settlements, they built heavier but more
functional storage containers from clay that
they dried in the sun. Sharing food remains a
crucial element of many, if not most, human
ceremonies. Settling down in a community
does not lead to gardening -- gardening leads
to settling down in communities.
Because there are no written records of the transition period between 8000 and
5000 B.C. when many animals were first domesticated and plants were cultivated
on a regular basis, we cannot be certain why and how some peoples adopted these
new ways of producing food and other necessities of life. Climatic changes
associated with the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age (about
12,000 B.C.), may have played an important role. These climatic shifts prompted
the migration of many big game animals to new pasturelands in northern areas.
They also left a dwindling supply of game for human hunters in areas such as the
Middle East, where agriculture first arose and many animals were first
domesticated.
Climatic shifts also led to changes in the distribution and growing patterns of wild
grains and other crops on which hunters and gatherers depended. In addition, it is
likely that the shift to sedentary farming was prompted in part by an increase in
human populations in certain areas. It is possible that the population growth was
caused by changes in the climate and plant and animal life, forcing hunting bands
to move into the territories where these shifts had been minimal. It is also possible
that population growth occurred within these unaffected regions, because the
hunting-and-gathering pattern reached higher levels of productivity. Peoples like
the Natufians found their human communities could grow significantly by
intensively harvesting grains that grew in the wild. As the population grew, more
and more attention was given to the grain harvest, which eventually led to the
conscious and systematic cultivation of plants and thus the agrarian revolution.
74
It is probable that the earliest farmers broadcast wild seeds, a practice that cut down
on labor but sharply reduced the potential yield. Over the centuries, more and more
care was taken to select the best grain for seed and to mix different strains in ways
that improved both crop yields and resistance to plant diseases. As the time required
tending to growing plants and the dependence on agricultural production for
subsistence increased, some roving bands chose to settle down while others practiced
a mix of hunting and shifting cultivation that allowed them to continue to move about.
Pastoralism
Nomads vs.
Sednetary
During the Ice Age, vast areas of the Earth were covered by grasslands grazed by
huge herds of animals such as bison and reindeer. However, as it began to some to an
end between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the climate became warmer and wetter,
and the forests started to spread. Herds of large animals became scarcer, and in many
places people were forced to find new sources of food, hunting small game such as
deer or wild sheep, catching birds and fish and gathering shellfish and edible plants.
To ensure a reliable source of food, some people began to manage herds of wild
animals by keeping some in pens until needed. The domestication of animals gave
rise to pastoralism which has proven the strongest competitor to sedentary agriculture
throughout most of the world. Pastoralism has thrived in semiarid areas such as
central Asia, the Sudanic belt south of the Sahara desert in Africa, and the savanna
zone of East and South Africa. These areas were incapable of supporting dense or
large populations.
The nomadic, herding way of life has tended to produce
independent and hardy peoples, well-versed in the military
skills needed not only for their survival but also to challenge
more heavily populated agrarian societies. Horse-riding
nomads who herd sheep or cattle have destroyed powerful
kingdoms and laid the foundations for vast empires. The
camel nomads of Arabia played critical roles in the rise of Islamic civilization. The
cattle-herding peoples of central, East, and South Africa produced some of the most
formidable preindustrial military organizations. Only with the rather recent period of
the Industrial Revolution has the power of nomadic peoples been irreparably broken
and the continuation of their cultures threatened by the steady encroachment of
sedentary peoples.
Though several animals may have been
domesticated before the discovery of agriculture,
the two processes combined to make up the critical
transformation in human culture called the
Neolithic (New Stone Age) revolution. Different
animal species were tamed in different ways that
reflected both their own natures and the ways in
which they interacted with humans. Dogs, for
example, were originally wolves that hunted
humans or scavenged at their campsites. As early
as 12,000 B.C., Stone Age peoples found that wolf
pups could be tamed and trained to track and corner
game. The strains of dogs that gradually developed proved adept at controlling herd
animals like sheep.
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Relatively docile and defenseless herds of sheep could be controlled once their leaders
had been captured and tamed. Sheep, goats, and pigs (which also were scavengers at
human campsites) were first domesticated in the Middle East between 11,000 and
9,000 B.C. Horned cattle, which were faster and better able to defend themselves than
wild sheep, were not tamed until about 10,000 B.C.
Why
domesticate?
Role of Women
The central place of bull and cattle symbolism in the
sacrificial and fertility cults of many early peoples has
led some archeologists to argue that their domestication
was originally motivated by religious sentiments rather
than a desire for new sources of food and clothing.
Domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep provided
New Stone Age humans with additional sources of
protein-rich meat and in some cases milk. Animal hides
and wool greatly expanded the materials from which
clothes, containers, shelters, and crude boats could be
crafted.
The central role of women in horticultural societies had political and sociological
consequences. Even in Paleolithic times, nature was seen as feminine. Woman was
the vehicle of nature which gave and nourished life. It was the women who owned
and managed their garden plots and passed them on to the next generation. It was the
women who decided when their soil was
depleted and where the village should move.
One of the interesting aspects of horticultural
societies is that it is often women who exercise
political power and authority in their society.
Horticulture was the critical intermediate step
between hunting and gathering and fully
developed agriculture.
Shift to mixed
Farming
Effects
A later shift from small plot horticulture to large field crop agriculture occurred with
the introduction of domestic animal power as well as metal working technologies. It
was at this stage that agriculturalists could afford to abandon their former hunting
ranges altogether and to settle permanently in the prime agricultural lands of river
valleys with their rich alluvial soils. It was also at this stage, with its heavier field
work and animal husbandry, that men took control of the land and animals and
resumed their dominant position in society over women. The importance of the slow
Why Change?
technological and economic development that led many societies from hunting and gathering
economy to plant cultivation and animal husbandry is indeed enormous. I t permitted a vast
transformation of human life and activity, involving both a demographic increase and the rise
of more complex human settlements and communities. Agriculture required an increasingly
greater specialization differentiation and stratification within societies, and made possible,
and indeed necessary, the "urban revolution" that was to follow within three or four millennia
in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
In the case of agriculture, necessity was not the mother of invention. It was huntergatherers who already had enough to eat that made the shift to farming. Permanent
homes and stockpiles of wild cereals gave them enough time and energy to
experiment with cultivating seeds and breeding animals without the risk of starvation.
As food was grown and stored more efficiently, populations increased and
settlements grew larger, creating both the incentive and the means to produce
even more food on more land.
Spread of
Agriculture
Agriculture spread at different rates, depending on climate and geography. From
the Fertile Crescent, it moved west through Europe and Egypt and east through
Iran and India, reaching the Atlantic Coast of Ireland and the Pacific Coast of
Japan by the beginning of the Christian era.
From its origins in China, agriculture moved south, eventually spreading across
the Polynesian islands. In contrast, agriculture passed either slowly or not at all
through the tropical and desert climates surrounding early agricultural sites in
Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and the Andes. Domesticated
animals did not reach South Africa until around A.D. 200, the same time corn
reached the eastern United States. It was therefore the plants, animals, and farmrelated technologies of the Fertile Crescent and China that had the greatest impact
on future civilizations.
Role of
technology
Iron
The hunter-gatherers of the Fertile Crescent and China had been making tools
from stone, wood, bone, and woven grass for thousands of years. Once farming
took hold, people improved their tools so
they could plant, harvest, and store crops
more efficiently. One of the earliest tools was
a pointed digging stick, used to scratch
furrows into the soil. Eventually handles were
attached to make a simple plow (see picture
right), sometimes known as an ard. Around
3000 B.C. Sumerian farmers yoked oxen to
plows, wagons, and sledges, a practice that
spread through Asia, India, Egypt, and
Europe.
After iron metallurgy was invented in the Fertile Crescent around 900 B.C., iron
tips and blades were added to farming implements. The combination of irontipped plows and animals to pull them opened previously unusable land to
cultivation. Although seeds were most often simply thrown into furrows, some
farmers in Egypt and Babylonia dropped seeds through a funnel attached to the
end of the plow. The seeds were then trampled into the ground by a person or a
herd of sheep or pigs. Grains were harvested with wooden-handled sickles, with
either stone or iron blades.
Much time elapsed between the development of agriculture and the rise of
civilization in the Middle East and many other places. The successful agricultural
communities that formed were based primarily on very localized production,
which normally sustained a population despite recurrent disasters caused by bad
weather or harvest problems. Localized agriculture did not consistently yield the
kind of surplus that would allow specializations among the population, and
therefore it could not generate civilization.
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Why
Agriculture?
There was nothing natural or inevitable about the development of agriculture.
Because cultivation of plants requires more labor than hunting and gathering, we
can assume that Stone Age humans gave up their former ways of life reluctantly
and slowly. In fact, peoples such as the Bushmen of Southwest Africa still follow
them today. But between about 8000 and 3500 B.C., increasing numbers of
humans shifted to dependence on cultivated crops and domesticated animals for
their subsistence. By about 7000 B.C., their tools and skills had advanced
sufficiently for cultivating peoples to support towns with over one thousand
people, such as Jericho in the
valley of the Jordan River and
Catal Huyuk in present-day
Turkey. By 3500 B.C.,
agricultural peoples in the
Middle East could support
sufficient numbers of noncultivating specialists to give
rise to the first civilizations.
As this pattern spread to or
developed independently in
other centers across the globe,
the character of most human
lives and the history of the
species as a whole were
fundamentally transformed.
The greater labor involved in
cultivation and the fact that it did not at first greatly enhance the peoples' security
or living standards caused many bands to stay with long-tested subsistence
strategies. Through most of the Neolithic period, sedentary agricultural
communities coexisted with more numerous bands of hunters and gatherers,
migratory cultivators, and hunters and fishers. Even after sedentary agriculture
became the basis for the livelihood of the majority of humans, hunters and
gatherers and shifting cultivators held out in many areas of the globe. For
example, due to the absence of the horse and most herd animals in the Americas,
nomadic hunting cultures became the main alternatives there.
Results of
agriculture
In transforming H. sapiens from a mere consumer of natural goods into a
producer, the development of agriculture drastically changed the role of humanity
within its environment, and thus the very nature of humankind. Moreover, it
permitted a vast transformation of human life and activity, involving both a
demographic increase and the rise of more complex human settlements and
communities. Agriculture required an increasingly greater specialization
differentiation and stratification within societies, and made possible, and indeed
necessary, the "urban revolution" that was to follow within three or four millennia
in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
78
One reason that civilization first appeared in the Middle East was because
agriculture had taken hold in this region. The river valleys provided people with
fertile soil due to their floods. These floods, combined with the new-found
knowledge of farming and animal domestication, allowed for a stable food supply
and so the Neolithic people settled down
around these rivers.
But localized agriculture did not
consistently yield the kind of surplus that
would allow specializations among the
population, and therefore it could not
generate civilization. Even the formation
of small regional centers, such as Jericho or
Catal Huyuk, did not assure a rapid pace of
change. Their economic range remained
localized, with little trade or specialization.
It was important that more and more regions in the Middle East were pulled into
the orbit of agriculture as the Neolithic revolution gained ground.
Social
Organization
The needs of irrigation, plus protection from marauders, help explain why most
early agricultural peoples settled in village communities, rather than isolated
farms. Some big rivers encouraged elaborate irrigation projects that could
channel water, virtually assured quantities to vast stretches of land. To create
larger irrigation projects along major rivers such as Tigris-Euphrates or the Nile,
large gangs of laborers had to be assembled. This required some sort of central
authority. Further, regulations had to assure that users along the river and in the
villages near the river's source would have equal access to the water supply. This
implied an increase in the scale of political and economic organization. A key
link between the advantages of irrigation and the gradual emergence of
civilization was that irrigated land produced surpluses with greater certainty and
required new kinds of organization.
Social
Stratification
79
The problems of these new, complex societies were many and varied: Dramatic
increases in population with pressing demands on housing and food supply;
disputes flaring up regularly due to the close proximity of families to each other;
crime and threats from both within and without, made strong leadership and
organizational skills absolutely necessary to the survival of a community. A new
political class emerged, specializing in the skills of governance. These people
were in a position to enforce laws, punish law-breakers, rule over internal
disputes, fight wars, and commission public works. They surrounded themselves
with close groups of advisors and experts to help maintain their position of
privilege. They raised finance for their endeavors by demanding tribute, or taxes,
from their subjects. Myths were often invented to guarantee their exalted position
over many generations. The art of kingship was born.
Property
Settled agriculture, as opposed to slash-and-burn varieties, usually implied some
forms of property so that land could be identified as belonging to a family, a
village, or a landlord. Only with property was there incentive to introduce
improvements, such as wells or irrigation measures that could be monopolized by
those who created them or left to their heirs. But property meant the need for new
kinds of laws and enforcement mechanisms, which in turn implied more
extensive government. Here agriculture could create some possibilities for trade
and could spur innovation.
Security
All this wealth, prosperity, and stability had a downside. There were lots of
people around who greatly coveted it and would stop at nothing to get hold of it.
New security measures were required to keep unwanted people away from other
peoples' possessions. Barriers and walls were constructed, leading in time to forts
and citadels. Yet another group of specialists, soldiers, emerged, either to defend
the property of the rich, or to attack others in order to achieve greater enrichment.
Rules governing the rights of property ownership had to be devised and enforced,
leading much later to the legal system.
Disease
Division of
Labor
The new sedentary lifestyle brought with it an unprecedented and enduring threat.
For the first time in history, large groups of humans, animals, waste material, and
rubbish were concentrated together in the same households. This close proximity
conferred advantages to select organisms that were quickly able to jump species,
infecting the human population in large numbers for the very first time. Examples
included smallpox, tuberculosis and measles, influenza and malaria. It was
around this time also that the rat attached itself to human societies and has
prospered ever since. Although medicine has played a major role in quelling
many diseases in modern society, many of them continue to kill millions of
people each year.
Another effect of the food surplus was that not
everybody needed to be involved almost solely in
the activity of finding and preparing food. People
now had more time to do other things and some
people were at liberty to dedicate themselves
entirely to other pursuits. New skilled professions
were born such as tool-making, milling (see picture
left), pottery, weaving, and carpentry, to name a few.
Thus, the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to rapid technological progress that
continues unabated to the present day.
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Trade
Material
Culture
Population
Growth
Trade was always a feature of hunter-gatherer societies; however, with the
development of farming it increased greatly in scope and scale. With excess food
and newly created specialist crafts available, societies had a greater capacity to
produce goods of value to others. A new class of specialists emerged to facilitate
the exchange of goods: the merchants. In many cases these people became
enormously wealthy and powerful. Inequality had arrived, and a whole new set of
systems and structures would be required to deal with this.
This material culture includes products of human manufacture, such as
technology. This system is commonly known as an economy. Anthropologists
look at several aspects of people’s material culture. These include the methods by
which people obtain or produce food, known as a pattern of subsistence; the ways
in which people exchange goods and services; the kinds of technologies and other
objects people make and use; the effects of people’s economy on the natural
environment.
Contemporary industrial societies have organized markets for land, labor, and
money, and virtually everything is a commodity. People buy and sell goods and
services using money. This form of economy, known as capitalism, disconnects
the value of goods and services from the goods and services themselves and the
people who produce or provide them. Thus, the exchange of goods and services
for currency is not particularly important for creating social bonds.
In hunter-gatherer societies, women need a gap of at least three to four years
between children, as multiple, highly dependent babies are incompatible with a
mobile lifestyle. No such limitation existed when people lived in permanent
settlements, and so it became possible for women to have children much more
frequently. Additionally, as the techniques of plant cultivation and animal
husbandry became more refined, it was possible to feed entire groups of people
from relatively small numbers of food-sources, and still have food left over for
storage during the winter months. People in agricultural communities were less
subject to the whims of nature than hunter gatherers and thus had a higher chance
of survival. Thus, a population explosion occurred, and over time villages, then
towns, and eventually cities, took shape.
81
DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION (DBQ)
A “turning point” is defined as a period in history when a significant change occurs.
Question: Using information from the documents and your knowledge of history, answer the following
question in one well-written paragraph.
“Explain why the Neolithic Revolution is considered a turning point in human history.”
Guidelines:
In your paragraph, be sure to:
• have a thesis statement that includes the restated question and three main points you will
use to support your thesis.
• cited all three sources using Chicago Advanced footnotes.
• use relevant outside information
• prove your thesis with relevant facts, examples, and details
• have a logical and clear plan of organization
Part A - Short-Answer Questions
Document 1
Bringing home the harvest: the origins of agriculture
The Economist, November 15, 1997
From World History in Context
COPYRIGHT 1997 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated.
http://store.eiu.com/
THE agricultural revolution of the Neolithic era, some 10,000 years ago, was the most important
event in human history. Before it, Homo sapiens was just another large mammal. A little more
omnivorous than most large mammals, it is true. Armed with a more sophisticated tool kit and
blessed with a more impressive means of communication than contemporary beasts of equivalent
size, but, in the essentials of making a living by finding and eating what nature provides, people
then were no different from lions or wolves or antelopes.
All that human civilization has produced in those ten intervening millennia is underpinned by
agriculture. The deliberate modification of ecosystems so that they will yield plants and animals
that mankind can eat (and also use in other ways) has caused a hundred-fold increase in the
82
human population and allowed large numbers of individuals to specialize in tasks not directly
related to feeding themselves. That it happened first in the broad area now called the Middle East
has been known for decades. But the Middle East is a big place, and the spotlight has darted all
over it as older and older sites showing evidence of agriculture have been turned up by the
archaeologist's trowel. Nor is it clear just how rapidly the revolution happened. Some researchers
believe that different plants and animals were domesticated at different times and in different
places, and that the final mixture was assembled by cross-cultural exchange. Others think that it
truly was a revolution, brought about over a short period by a small group of people and then
exported more or less intact to the rest of the region and, ultimately, the world.
Those who subscribe to the short, sharp shock theory of agriculture point to what is now southeastern Turkey as the place where it probably occurred. Two things support their idea. The
earliest known agricultural settlements are located here, and the area also supports-or, at least,
supported-possible wild ancestors of pretty well every important Middle Eastern crop and
domesticated animal. However, neither piece of evidence is conclusive. For one thing, earlier
settlements could be lurking undiscovered elsewhere. For another, the same ancestral
populations are found, though not necessarily together, in other parts of the Middle East as well.
Although later superseded as a crop by modern "bread wheat" (a hybrid of einkorn and two other
wild species, known as goat grasses), einkorn was one of the most important crops of early
Middle Eastern agriculture-indeed, it is still cultivated in marginal habitats in the Balkan
peninsula where bread wheat will not grow. Crucially, wild einkorn-the presumptive ancestor of
the crop-also still grows plentifully in the Middle East.
The results built up by the researchers showed that all the strains of cultivated einkorn they
examined could be traced back to a single, common ancestor among the wild forms. This more
or less proves that the domestication of einkorn happened only once, and thus strengthens the
case that the agricultural revolution started as a local event. They also showed that this common
ancestor was the ancestor of 11 strains of wild einkorn from the Karacadag Mountains, but of no
other wild strains (except for a few from the Balkans that are feral versions of domesticated
einkorn).
This is an exciting discovery, for the very oldest known archaeological sites that show evidence
of agriculture are not merely in south-eastern Turkey; they are located within a few kilometers of
the Karacadag Mountains. The team's work suggests that these sites really are the earliest
evidence of agriculture, rather than merely the earliest that archaeologists have yet discovered. It
also suggests that the people who built them were the most important inventors in history.
Directions: Analyze the documents and answer the short-answer questions that follow each
document in the space provided
1.___________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
83
Document 2:
Neolithic Revolution
by Jeffery Watkins
Copyright © 1999-2003 Oswego City School District Regents Exam Prep Center
During the Paleolithic Period, which lasts from the beginnings of human life until about 10,000
BCE, people were nomads. They lived in groups of 20 -30, and spent most of their time hunting
and gathering. In these groups, work was divided between men and women, with the men
hunting game animals, and women gathering fruits, berries, and other edibles. These early
peoples developed simple tools such as, spears and axes made from bone, wood, and
stone. Human beings lived in this manner from earliest times until about 10,000 BCE, when
they started to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. This is known as the Neolithic
Revolution.
The Neolithic Revolution was a fundamental change in the way people lived. The shift from
hunting & gathering to agriculture led to permanent settlements, and the establishment of a
traditional economy. A traditional economy is generally based on agriculture, with others in
society working in simple crafts, such as the manufacturing of cloth or pottery.
About 10,000 BCE, humans began to cultivate crops and domesticate certain animals. This was
a change from the system of hunting and gathering that had sustained humans from earliest
times. As a result, permanent settlements were established. Neolithic villages continued to
divide work between men and women. However, women's status declined as men took the lead
in in most areas of these early societies.
The economic factor of scarcity influenced early village life in the areas of government and
social classes structure. Wars caused by scarcity were frequent. During these wars, some men
gained stature as great warriors. This usually transferred over to village life with these warriors
becoming the leaders in society. Early social class divisions developed as a result. A person's
social class was usually determined by the work they did, such as farmer, craftsman, priest, and
warrior. Depending on the society, priests and warriors were usually at the top, with farmers and
craftsman at the bottom.
New technologies developed in response to the need for better tools and weapons to go along
with the new way of living. Neolithic farmers created a simple calendar to keep track of planting
and harvesting. They also developed simple metal tools such as plows, to help with their
work. Some groups even may have used animals to pull these plows, again making work
easier. Metal weapons were developed as villages needed to protect their valuable resources
Name three changes that occurred because of the Neolithic Revolution.
1.____________________________________________________________________________
2.____________________________________________________________________________
3.____________________________________________________________________________
Add any additional information you think is helpful
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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Document 3:
Origins of Agriculture
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, 2003 From World History in Context
The last thirty years have seen a revolution in our understanding of the origins of agriculture.
What was once seen as a pattern of unilateral human exploitation of domesticated crops and
animals has now been described as a pattern of coevolution and mutual domestication between
human beings and their various domesticates. What was once seen as a technological
breakthrough, a new concept, or "invention" (the so-called Neolithic revolution) is now
commonly viewed as the adoption of techniques and ultimately an economy long known to
foragers in which "invention" played little or no role. Since many domesticates are plants that in
the wild naturally accumulate around human habitation and garbage, and thrive in disturbed
habitats, it seems very likely that the awareness of their growth patterns and the concepts of
planting and tending would have been clear to any observant forager; thus, the techniques were
not "new." They simply waited use, not discovery. In fact, the concept of domestication may
have been practiced first on nonfood crops such as the bottle gourd or other crops chosen for
their utility long before the domestication of food plants and the ultimate adoption of food
economies based on domesticates (farming).
The question then becomes not how domestication was "invented" but why it was adopted. What
was once assumed to depend on cultural diffusion of ideas and/or crops is now seen by most
scholars as processes of independent local adoption of various crops.
The domestication of the various crops was geographically a very widespread series of parallel
events. Some scholars now recognize from seven to twelve independent or "pristine" centers in
which agriculture was undertaken prior to the diffusion of other crops or crop complexes
(although many of these are disputed) scattered throughout Southwest, South, Southeast, and
East Asia; North Africa and New Guinea; North, Central, and South America; and possibly
North America. As the earliest dates for the first appearance of cultigens are pushed back; as
individual "centers" of domestication are found to contain more than one "hearth" where
cultivation of different crops first occurred; as different strains of a crop, for example, maize or
rice, are found to have been domesticated independently in two or more regions; as an increasing
range of crops are studied; and, as little-known local domestic crops are identified in various
regions in periods before major crops were disseminated, the number of possible independent or
"pristine" centers of domestication is increasing, and the increase seems likely to continue.
Domestication (genetic manipulation of plants) and the adoption of agricultural economies
(primary dependence on domestics as food), once seen as an "event," are now viewed as distinct
from one another, each a long process in its own right. There is often a substantial time lag
between incipient domestication of a crop and actual dependence on it. That is, the adoption of
farming was a gradual quantitative process more than a revolutionary rapid adoption—a pattern
of gradually increasing interaction, and degrees of domestication and economic interdependence.
Moreover, the adoption of agriculture was, by all accounts, the coalescence of a long, gradual
series of distinctive and often independent behaviors. Techniques used by hunter-gatherers to
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increase food supplies, long before farming, included the use of fire to stimulate new growth; the
protection of favorite plants; sowing seeds or parts of tubers without domestication; preparing
soils; eliminating competitors; fertilizing; irrigating; concentration of plants; controlling of
growth cycles; expansion of ranges; and ultimately domestication. By this definition,
domestication means altering plants genetically to live in proximity to human settlements,
enlarging desired parts, breeding out toxins, unpleasant tastes, and physical barriers to
exploitation—in short, getting plants to respond to human rather than natural selection.
This sequence of events commonly first involved a focus on a shift from economies focused on
comparatively scarce but otherwise valuable large animals and high-quality vegetable resources
to one in which new resources or different emphases included smaller game, greater reliance on
fish and shellfish, and a focus on low-quality starchy seeds. There is a clear and widespread
appearance of an increase in apparatus (grindstones for processing small seeds, fishing
equipment, small projectile points) in most parts of the world before agriculture, Agriculture,
therefore, may not have been "invented" so much as adopted and dropped repeatedly as a
consequence of the availability or scarcity of higher-ranked resources. This pattern may in fact
be visible among Natufian, or Mesolithic, populations in the Middle East whose patterns of
exploitation sometimes appear to defy any attempt to recognize, naively, a simple sequence of
the type described above.
Domestication, sedentism, and storage appear to have evened out potential seasonal shortages in
resources, but they may also have reduced the reliability of the food supply by decreasing the
variety of foods consumed; by preventing groups from moving in response to shortages; by
creating new vulnerability of plants selected for human rather than natural needs; by moving
resources beyond their natural habitats to which they are adapted for survival; and by the
increase in post-harvest food loss through storage—not only because stored resources are
vulnerable to rot, or theft by animals, but stores are subject to expropriation by human enemies.
One possible biological clue to the resolution of this problem is that signs of episodic stress
(enamel hypoplasia and microdefects in teeth in skeletal populations) generally become more
common after agriculture was adopted. Since health and nutrition seem to have declined, the
primary advantage to farmers seems to have been both political and military because of the
ability to concentrate population and raise larger armies. This would have conferred a
considerable advantage in power at a time when few if any weapons were available that were
capable of offsetting numerical superiority.
Based on this document, identify two important facts about the Neolithic Revolution.
1.____________________________________________________________________________
2.____________________________________________________________________________
Add additional information which you think is important
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
86
Essential Questions
Answer these questions using information from manual, notes, etc. to be answered before DBQ.

What defines a turning point?

To what extent is life a constant struggle between continuity and change?

How does technological change affect people, places, and regions?
Focus Questions for thinking about your essay

Why is the Neolithic Revolution considered a turning point in human history?

What was the relationship between the Neolithic Revolution and the development of
early civilizations?
87

What led to the rise of cities?

What political systems developed in early civilizations?

What is a traditional economy?
Part B – Open response
This writing is based on the accompanying documents (1–3). The question is designed to test
your ability to work with historical documents. As you analyze the documents, take into account
the source of each document and any point of view that may be presented in the document. You
must cite each article using footnotes set up on Noodletools Use Chicago Advanced.
Open Response:
Thesis (DBQ question restated + 3 main points)
___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Main point #1 __________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Support for main point #1
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Main point #2 _________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Support for main point #2
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
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Main point #3 _________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Support for main point #3
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion (reverse and restate thesis)
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
89
Grading Criteria Sheet
Excellent Essay 90’s
• Offers a clear answer or thesis explicitly addressing all aspects of the essay question.
• Does a careful job of interpreting many or most of the documents and relating them
clearly to the thesis and the DBQ. Deals with conflicting documents effectively.
• Uses details and examples effectively to support the thesis and other main ideas.
Explains the significance of those details and examples well.
• Uses background knowledge and the documents in a balanced way.
• Is well written; clear transitions make the essay easy to follow from point to point.
Good Essay 80’s
• Offers a reasonable thesis addressing the essential points of the essay question.
• Adequately interprets at least some of the documents and relates them to the thesis and
the DBQ.
• Usually relates details and examples meaningfully to the thesis or other main ideas.
• Includes some relevant background knowledge.
• May have some writing errors or errors of fact, as long as these do not invalidate the
essay’s overall argument or point of view.
Fair Essay 70’s
• Offers at least a partly developed thesis addressing the essay question.
• Adequately interprets at least a few of the documents.
• Relates only a few of the details and examples to the thesis or other main ideas.
• Includes some background knowledge.
• Has several writing errors or errors of fact that make it harder to understand the essay’s
overall argument or point of view.
Poor Essay 60’s
• Offers no clear thesis or answer addressing the DBQ.
• Uses few documents effectively other than referring to them in “laundry list” style, with no
meaningful relationship to a thesis or any main point.
• Uses details and examples unrelated to the thesis or other main ideas. Does not explain
the significance of these details and examples.
• Is not clearly written, with some major writing errors or errors of fact.
Failure to meet the most of the criteria above will result in a 55.
90
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“command economy” InvestorWords.com. Web Finance, Inc. June 15, 2008
http://www.investorwords.com/951/command_ec
“The Domestic Revolution.” Ideaworks, Inc. 10 July 1995. University of Missouri. 13 March
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Elsworth, Stephany. "What Is the Younger Dryas?" e-How. Demand Media Inc.,
2014. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. <http://www.ehow.com/ acts_7860099_younger-dryas.html>.
Evans, Lindsay. “Early Agriculture and the Rise of Civilization.” Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil
Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 1: 2,000 B.C. to A.D. 699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 309-312.
Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Oct. 2010.
Fitzgerald, Richard D. “Water Management in the Ancient World.” Science and Its Times.
Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 1: 2,000 B.C. to A.D. 699. Detroit: Gale, 2001.
332-334. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Oct. 2010.
Hunter, Erica. First Civilizations. New York: Facts on File, 1994.
Mazour, Anatole G. and John M. Peoples. World History: Peoples and Nations. United States:
Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1993
“The Middle East By 4000 B.C.: The Causes Of Civilization.” World History From The
Pre-Sumerian Period To The Present. 2007.International World History Project.
3April 2008< http://history-world.org/neolothic2.htm>.
“The Neolithic Revolution – How Farming Changed the World.” The Guide to Life, the
Universe, and Everything. 5 March 2004. BBC. 13March 2008
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2054675.
“Origins of Civilization.” A Project by World History International. Copyright © 1995 –
2006[World History Project, USA] All rights reserved. Updated January
2007*http://history-world.org/22eolithic.htm
Schultz, Emily A, and Robert H. Lavenda. “The Consequences of Domesticatio and
Sedentism.” Primitivism. N.p., 3 Nov. 2002. Web. 22 Dec. 2009.
Scullin, Michael. "What Is Horticulture." Archaeology. About.com, 2014. Web. 28
Mar. 2014. <http://archaeology.about.com/od/hterms/g/ horticulture.htm>.
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