ANT201H5 Lecture 11: Agriculture in Middle East
Document Summary
At least eight different regions where food-producing societies emerged independently from one another following the last ice age. A ribbon of mediterranean climate arcing across middle. East with sufficient precipitation to support woodlands, grasslands and wild ancestors of domesticated species. In 1928, gordon childe put forward his oasis hypothesis, arguing that climate change had forced humans, plants, animals into the nile and euphrates river valleys where humans took an active role in their domestication. Childe envisioned humans taking control over food production, and the subsequent increases in food supply leading to larger populations, settled life in villages, new technologies such as pottery and ultimately, so-called civilizations. Subsequent pollen analyses from the middle east has disproved childe"s hypothesis, and shown that the early. Holocene was not an arid period, but one of warm and wet climatic conditions But childe was also astute in realizing that his neolithic.
