The Rise of Food Production Humanity’s Ecological Turning Point

1. The Rise of Food ProductionHumanity’s Ecological Turning Point

2. Effects of Food Production • More AvailableCalories per Person • SupportsLarger Populations • SupportsLarge Domestic Animals • PermitsMore Frequent Births • PermitsStorage of Food Surpluses • IntroducesDiseases of Dense Populations

3. Calories and Population By selecting and growing food humans eat up to 90% of an acre’s calories vs 0.1% Food production increased the number of humans supported by a given territory by orders of magnitude, 10 or even 100 times more people.

4. Livestock Domestic livestock provide: Meat Milk Fertilizer Power • Livestock power greatly expanded the area of cultivatable land. (N. American Plains) • Large mammals become transport modes (horses & chariots)

5. Food Surplus Permits non-food producing vocations: • Kings • Soldiers • Artisans • Priests • Scribes Beginning of social organization (Think Cutting Tools)

6. Most domesticated plants and animals differ from their wild ancestors. Morphological characteristics such as: Smaller (cows and sheep) or Larger (chickens and apples) sizes, smoother and thinner seed coats (peas) are attested to by the remains at numerous known and dated archeological sites.

7. Carbon Dating – A Review • Constant Decay of C14 into N14. • C14 isotope made in atmosphere by cosmic rays. • C14 taken up by plants in constant ratio with C12, 1 to a Million. • C14 half life of 5,700 years • C14/C12 Ratio = Age, up to 40,000

8. Two Problems with Carbon Dating • Until 1980s, the process required a lot of material (few grams) • Solved by Mass Acceleration • Result: re-dating New World food production • Atmospheric C14/C12 Ratio Fluctuates • Solved by calibration with tree rings • Result: re-dating Clovis period events

9. How to Determine Place of Domestication The Problem of Chickpeas • Domestication occurs in area of wild ancestry (Barley) • Plot spread of archeological remains of domesticated variety (Emmer Wheat)

10. How can Hunter Gatherers Respond Adoption Egypt Khosian South Africa Southwestern United States Displacement Northwest U.S. Siberia Australia

11. Was Hunter/Gathering So Bad? Only today do peoples of the developed world raise little or none of their own food. Time budget studies indicate that hunter gatherers may have spent less time obtaining food than farmers. Remains of the first farmers were smaller, less well-nourished, more diseased and died younger than hunter gatherers.

12. Alternative Strategies • No sharp distinction between nomadic hunter/gatherers and sedentary farmers • H/Gs populated world by 13,000 BC • Some H/Gs were sedentary Palestine, Japan, Peru • Some Sedentary H/Gs never adopted food production NW U.S., SE Australia • H/Gs traveled known seasonal routes and partially farmed along the way Apache

13. Alternative Strategies - II • Hunter Gatherers already practiced proto farming both unintentionally (latrines) and intentionally (food selections) • There is a portfolio of collecting and farming activities that took thousands of years to build up before a decisive shift (shelling, threshing, grinding, weeding)

14. Rise of Food Production - 5 Factors • Decline of Wild Foods (exterminations) • Increased Availability of Domesticatable Wild Plants due to Climate Change • Accumulation of Food Processing Methods, Technologies, Implements and Facilities • Two-way Link of Population Density and Food autocatalytic process (farmer paradox) • Geographic Displacement of Hunter/Gatherers

15. What did Farmers Select On? Size – Berries, Peas, Wheat Taste – Almond, Lima Beans, Potatoes Fleshiness/Seedlessness – Squash, Bananas, Pumpkins Oily Seeds – Olives, Sesame, Poppy Long Fibers – Cotton, Flax and Hemp

16. Non-obvious Precursors • Poppable & Shatterable 180-degree evolutionary turn • Seed Germination Inhibitors sow / grow / harvest / sow • Independent Reproduction Dioecious & hermaphrodites

17. 3 Stages of Crop Development • Wheat, Barley, Peas • Already edible • Easy to grow • Fast harvest • Storable • Self-pollinating • Little genetic change required

18. 3 Stages - II 2. Fruit and Nut Trees • Olives, Figs, Dates • Easy to grow from cuttings or seeds • No Harvest for 3 – 10 years • Required True Sedentary Lifestyle

19. 3 Stages - III 3. Fruit Trees • Apples, Pears, Plums • Requires Grafting • Grafting Requires Conscious Experimentation • Requires Cross-Pollination

20. “Thus by Roman times, almost all of today’s leading crops were being cultivated somewhere in the world.” Not another major food plant despite all our technology and power

21. What to Domesticate? • 200,000 flowering plants in the world • Only a few thousand are humanly edible • Only a few hundred were domesticated • Only 12 species accounts for 80% of the world’s tonnage of agricultural products • Only 5 cereals supply 50% of the worlds daily caloric intake

22. Cereal Grasses Wheat Corn Barley Rice Sorghum Pulses, Tubers, Etc… Soybean Potato Manioc Sweet Potato Sugarcane Sugar Beet Banana The Big 12

23. The Fertile Crescent Where it all begins

24. Southwest Asia China Mesoamerica Andes Eastern U.S. ?Sahel ?Tropical W. Africa ?Ethiopia ?New Guinea 8,500 BC by 7,500 BC by 3,500 BC by 3,500 BC 2,500 BC by 5,000 BC by 3,000 BC ? 7,000 BC? Where & When Production Began

25. Fertile Crescent • Applies to crescent shaped region of the highlands above the Tigris and Euphrates valley. • First, not only of food production, but also cities, writing, empires and civilization. • Ancient climate was cooler and wetter than today.

26. Why the Fertile Crescent? • Mediterranean Climate • Wild ancestors of many crops were already abundant and productive • Local flora contain a high % of self-pollinators that occasionally cross-pollinate • First 8 crops were self-pollinators, and the 3 cereals were high in protein

27. But Why this Mediterranean Climate Zone? • Biggest such climate zone on the planet, leading to a higher diversity of wild plants • Has the greatest climatic variation • Wide range of altitudes and topographies • Wealth of big mammals Out of 1,000’s of grasses, 56 species have 10-times median seed size. Of these 32 are found in the Fertile Crescent

28. Cereals Grasses Einkorn Wheat Emmer Wheat Barley Pulses Lentil Pea Chickpea Bitter Vetch Other Flax The 8 Fertile Crescent Founder Crops • Plus, Big 4 domestic Animals • Cow • Pig • Sheep • Goat This is it, the whole nutritious package

29. Getting Specific Tell Abu Hureyra in Euphrates Valley, Syria • Between 10,000 and 9,000 BC • Collected 700 samples of 500 seeds from 70 plant species • Villagers collected 157 seed species from elsewhere, arranged in 3 groups • Many local species were not among the seed inventory. • They were not farmers

30. The Animals

31. Anna Karenina Principle For most things, success actually requires avoiding many separate possible causes of failure. All domesticate animals are alike, all non-domestic animals are not, in their own way.

32. Benefits of Big Mammals • Meat • Milk & Milk Products • Fertilizer • Land transport • Leather & Wool • Military Assault Vehicles • Plow Traction • Germs (?) What is Big? Over 100 pounds Yes, there are others: ducks, geese, chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits

33. What is a Domesticated Animal? “An animal selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors for use by humans, who control breeding and food supply.” It involves human selection of individuals and the automatic evolutionary response to the altered forces of natural selection Domesticated and tamed are not the same thing

34. The Major Five: Cow Sheep Goat Pig Horse The Minor Nine: Arabian Camel Bactrian Camel Llama / Alpaca Donkey Reindeer Water Buffalo Yak Banteng Gaur There are only 14 species of big mammals domesticated before the 20th Century

35. Where do they come from? Continent Candidates Domesticates Eurasia 72 13 Africa 51 0 Americas 24 1 Australia 1 0 148 14

36. When did they join us? Dog 10,000 BC SW Asia, China, N. Am. Sheep 8,000 BC SW Asia Goat 8,000 BC SW Asia Pig 8,000 BC SW Asia, China Cow 6,000 BC SW Asia, India, N. Africa Horse 4,000 BC Ukraine Donkey 4,000 BC Egypt Water Buffalo 4,000 BC China (?) Llama 3,500 BC Andes Bactrn. Camel 2,500 BC Central Asia Arabian Camel2,500 BC Arabia

37. 6 Criteria for Domestication • Diet – 10 to 1 ratio pounds food to meat • Growth Rate – Elephant, Gorilla • Captive Breeding – Cheetah, Vicuňa • Nasty Disposition – Grizzly Bear, Hippos • Don’t Panic – Deer, Antelope, Gazelle!! • Social Structure: Herds Dominance Hierarchy Overlapping Range

38. Meaning?

39. Plant and Animal Domestication provide the basis for human civilization • Plant and Animal Domestication provide the Power to drive civilization • Plant and Animal Domestication provide the basis for mythology and culture

40. Why • Why did SW Asia experience domestication before anywhere else? • Why did SW Asia establish the basic founder package for food production that spread throughout the world? • Why did SW Asia provide the Major Five that powered history? • Why did Pre-historic Americans and Australians exterminate their big candidate mammals before domesticating them? • Why can’t we moderns domesticate anything major despite all or money, science and technology?

41. Are there pre-established limits upon the ecological reach of humans, within which we must sustainably operate?