ANTH 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Aurochs, Social Stratification, Uruk Period

• School: University of Victoria
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 100
• Professor: Erin Mc Guire

Document Summary

Neolithic: first cultural period in region in which first signs of domestication are present, neolithic revolution: transition from hunting/gathering to farming (g. childe, sedentism, village/town life, expansion of trade, development of states. 12,000-10,000 b. p: seminomadic hunting and gathering, dry farming (wheat and barley) and caprine domestication (goats and sheep, domestication of cattle and pigs, new crops, more productive varieties of wheat and barley. 12,500-10,500 b. p: foragers in middle east, collected wild grains & hunted gazelles, needed storage and therefore established villages, hilly flanks zone, became sedentary, began to cultivate grains. The first farmers and herders in the middle east: around 11,000 b. p. Loss of natural seed dispersal mechanisms: higher yield per unit of area, tougher connective tissue (axes) holding seedpods to the stem, more brittle husks. Domestication & niche construction: domestication of plants and animals = niche construction, reproduction of local species is interfered with by human action, human action changes local environmental settings.