MMW 11 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fertile Crescent

• School: UCSD
• Department: Making of the Modern World
• Course: MMW 11
• Professor: Edmond Chang

Document Summary

Outline lecture four roots of urbanization and social stratification in the neolithic. Reluctant shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the agricultural revolution. Horticulture (9000 bce): using hoes to poke holes in the ground, throwing seeds in the ground; cultivating food on a small scales. Agriculture (6000 bce): tilling the ground with plows and spreading the seeds in the crevices created. Revolution first tinkering with the domesticated wild wheat and barley. Fertile crescent: floodplains of the tigris and euphrates river. Shift began by having agriculture be a supplement to the hunter-gathering lifestyle. This experimentation allowed the human population to grow in size. Increased as much as 16 times as much as the original numbers. Move or produce more food to sustain the new lifestyle. Co-dependent domestication: humans became utterly dependent on farming. Water theory: the emergence of towns and cities have to do with irrigation. Combined resources and labor to have a better chance at civilization.