ARCH 112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Zagros Mountains, Ain Mallaha, Paleoethnobotany
27 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Required reading Jared Diamond Article (agriculture worst thing that
happened to humans)
Origins of Agriculture
The switch to an agricultural way of life began in the Holocene.
•
The Holocene follows the Pleistocene epoch and began roughly
11,000 years ago.
•
Holocene is the epoch that we are in right now.
•
Domestication
Refers to a relationship between humans, plants, and
animals in which humans play an integral role in the
protection and reproduction of plant and animal species.
○
In order to achieve this relationship humans have had to
alter the make up of these animals and plants--we do this
by selective breeding (artificial selection)
○
Artificial Selection
The process used in the domestication and
refinement of plants and animals whereby human
beings select which members of a species will live
and produce offspring. Humans make such decisions
on the basis of their needs or desires concerning the
form or behaviour of the species.
§
○
•
The Neolithic Revolution
Defined by V. Gordon Childe.
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He used this term to describe the change from hunting and
gathering to agriculture. (more of a gradual process)
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Neolithic means new stone age
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Explanations for the Origin of Food Production
Oasis theory: Childe’s theory of drastic climate change
There was climatic shift at the end of ice age that
brought drought to SW Asia--animals would be
congregated
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Resulted in the domestication of this oasis
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Focuses on climate change
§
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Marginal Zone Hypothesis
Suggests that humans really only switch to
agriculture around 10,000 ya--ecological niche--they
were filled yo capacity
§
Only had territorial success was moving to the
marginal areas--in which they would bring plants
with them
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Really only view people to commit to this way of life
if they didn’t have any other choice1
§
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Theories related to population growth
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Archaeological Evidence of Plant and Animal Domestication
Archaeobotany*** -The analysis and interpretation of the
remains of ancient plants recovered from
the archaeological record.
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Microbotanicals (or microfossils)
Pollen – male gametes in plant sexual reproduction
§
Phytoliths – microscopic, inorganic particles
produced by plants --usually silica structure--
preserve better than pollen--taxonomically unique
(each plant has a different phytoliths)
Phytoliths could be unique from the stem than
to the leaves
□
Chp 2 talks about phytoliths
□
§
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Evidence of Domestication (see Feder Chapter 8--really
long)**only need to read about the areas we talk about in
class
Near East, Europe, and the Americas
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Read about the domestication as well
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Geography:
Plant and animal remains appear abruptly in the
archaeological record at sites located in territories
where the plant and animal species represented are
not known to have grown or lived naturally
§
E.g., crops like wheat and barley, peas, are found
near east--first domesticated--than suddenly found in
Europe (they don’t grow there naturally--introduced
and domesticated)
§
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Mean seed size:
A change in the seed size may also be an indicator of
domestication as people select for plants that produce
larger seeds
§
Domesticated seed are larger and plumper--want to
get the highest yield
§
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Seed morphology:
Where the archaeological record shows the
development of a predominance of non-brittle
attachments (rachis) of seeds in plants harvested by
an ancient people, a kind of unconscious selection
may be at work
§
Domesticated seed coats are often thinner than the
seed coats of wild plants--in nature could be
advantageous of having thicker seed coats
§
Seed is more firmly attached to the plant
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Brittle rachis is an advantage
§
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Osteological change:
Lightly constructed bones of otherwise wild animals
found in archaeological contexts may be interpreted
as resulting from the animals having been penned by
human controllers and protectors throughout their
lives
§
Changes in the bones
§
Bones of animals that are kept in pens will have less
dense bones--reflected in archaeological record
§
Record of humans controlling their lives--
domesticated animals are a bit smaller
§
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Animal population characteristics:
When an overabundance of the bones of subadult
males is found at an archaeological site, this may
indicate that people had a level of control over the
population greater than what would be expected if
they merely had been hunting free-roaming wild
animals
§
Most animals killed will be male and they will be
juveniles
§
Can radiocarbon date
§
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Dogs were the first Domesticated animal
Dogs were domesticated by at least 18,000 years
ago--before people switch to agriculture
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Domesticated dogs come from wolves
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99.9% of their DNA are shared with wolves
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Very beneficial for humans
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Natufian burial – Ain Mallaha, Israel
This site is 12,000 years old
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Burial of woman and dog
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Pre-agriculturalists
□
§
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Cats are more recent (around 4000 ya)--Egypt
DNA cats were domesticated around 10,000 ya
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After agriculture
§
With grains there were a lot of grains--which
beneficial for having cats
§
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Pre-agricultural Developments in the Near East
The Fertile Crescent: A crescent shaped region extending
from the eastern Mediterranean coast of modern Israel,
Lebanon and Syria north into the Zagros Mountains and
then South toward the Persian Gulf in Iran and Iraq.
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Natufian: Collector type hunter gatherers who established
sedentary settlements in parts of the Near East after 15, 000
to 12,000 ya.
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Lunates: Tiny crescent shaped stone tools characteristic of
the Natufian
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Origins of Agriculture (pg. 258-321, 337-340)
Monday, October 23, 2017
10:55 AM
Document Summary
Required reading jared diamond article (agriculture worst thing that happened to humans) The switch to an agricultural way of life began in the holocene. The holocene follows the pleistocene epoch and began roughly. Holocene is the epoch that we are in right now. Refers to a relationship between humans, plants, and animals in which humans play an integral role in the protection and reproduction of plant and animal species. In order to achieve this relationship humans have had to alter the make up of these animals and plants--we do this by selective breeding (artificial selection) The process used in the domestication and refinement of plants and animals whereby human beings select which members of a species will live and produce offspring. Humans make such decisions on the basis of their needs or desires concerning the form or behaviour of the species. He used this term to describe the change from hunting and gathering to agriculture. (more of a gradual process)
