1 / 12

Food Production

This exploration delves into the transformation of human food production from hunting large game to the establishment of sedentary agricultural societies. We examine the impact of climate change, changing landscapes, and the emergence of new tools and techniques that shaped dietary practices. The progression from broad-spectrum collecting to domestication of plants and animals is highlighted through the Lens of key prehistoric cultures such as the Natufians and Catalhüyük. The ramifications on population growth, societal stratification, and resource management are also discussed, illustrating the complexities of early food production.

inga
Download Presentation

Food Production

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Food Production When roaming piles of meat just aren’t good enough

  2. Pre-Ag Developments: Europe • Melting glaciers change habits • Following herds of large game in tundra (specifically what do you think?) • As forests grow, either hunting becomes more difficult, or more readily available foodstuffs appear, or both • Maglemosian culture (Northern Europe, ~12,000 yrs ago) • Evidence of use of many new tools • Utilize wood, fishing, hunting • Kitchen middens, remains of equipment suggest much more fishing

  3. Pre-Ag: Near East • Also increasing use of stationary food • Broad spectrum collecting • Wild wheat presumably harvested in surplus • Necessitates sedentarism • Natufians (Eastern Mediterranean [Levant], ~15,000 years ago) • Pit-house dwellers (diagram) • Plastered “cellars” • Sickles appear to show evidence of intensive grain harvest

  4. Why Broad Spectrum Collect? • Shift occurs fairly commonly around the globe; why? • Climate change – food supply changes • New foods become more prevalent, others less • Over-killing of large herd animals? • More people necessitates dietary creativity

  5. Sedentarism • Natural step so long as the spectrum you collect is localized • Sedentarism doesn’t occur everywhere with collecting • Populations grow because they can • Change in stress from raising nomadic child versus sedentary one • More digestible foods for babies (animal milk in addition to mothers’ as well as cereal grain mush, yum!), earlier weaning, earlier possible next birth

  6. Domestication of Plants and Animals • Look for differences between wild species (and cultivated) and what we suspect are domesticated • Wild grains – weak rachis (seed bearing part of the plant) • Cultivated – tougher rachis [these seeds could survive the wild harvesting process] • Similar differences in domesticated animals ~10,000 years ago (some disagreement as to goats, pigs, or sheep) • Article coming tomorrow…

  7. Dogs (YAY!) and Cats (BOO!) • Dogs probably first animals domesticated • Humans have uses for dogs • Track prey, alert to danger, scavenge/cleanup • Did they domesticate themselves? New forests provide convenient food for humans, perhaps humans provide consistent food for wild-but-taming wolves? • Ditto on cats – notorious rodent hunters – when humans store grains, attracts rodents, and also those that eat them – ta-da! Friendly kitties!

  8. Some important early sites • Ali Kosh • SW Iran ~7500 BCE • Consume mostly wild plants and animals for 2000 years – then agriculture and herding increase • Goats are common, outside their normal range  Domestication! • Many flint tools, but obsidian tools also show trade with Turkey • 6750-6000 BCE – large increase in consumption of cultivated grains • Further evidence of trade: seashells (Persian Gulf), copper (Central Iran), turquoise (Iran/Afghanistan border) • Pop. Explosion – 5500-4500 BCE, irrigation, plows, domestic cattle – more sophisticated food production

  9. Sites cont’d • Catal Hüyük • Southern Turkey ~5600 BCE • Bull shrines • Advanced farming – surplus of ag. Goods • Much fine handicrafts, appear to come from all over the place outside of CatalHüyük • Little raw material in Catal Hüyük; relied on trade with neighbors

  10. Why Domesticate? • Climate change giveth, climate change can taketh away – in areas where wild crops started to lag behind pop growth • Cultivation/domestication ensues • Cultural readiness – simply waiting for humans to develop – natural occurrence • Desire to reproduce most bountiful conditions • Pop. growth forces a move from ideal resource areas to less ideal – try to recreate the optimal situation • Population pressures favor broad spectrum collecting and its descendants

  11. Consequences of food production • Accelerated population growth • Diminishing birth spacing; desire for more kids to work • Declining health • Bone and tooth evidence • Reliance on unideal food crops • Developing stratification/might limit access to foods to lower classes • Elaboration of material possessions • Time to produce them • Stratified society lends self to expression • Value in trading economy

  12. Settlement Game 3.1 Debrief • Which sites were most successful? • Important keys: • Diversity of foods  Population explosion • Help from neighbors? • Help from nature/luck • Trading – risk/reward

More Related