Food: Gatherer-hunter and Agricultural Economies

*Paleolithic "Old Stone Age"

2 million to 12,000 BP

*Gatherer-hunter economy

*Neolithic: "New Stone Age"

9,000-4,000 BCE

Agricultural economy

Transition to agriculture

*Fertile Crescent

*Natufian culture

12,500 to 7,000 BCE

Highlands of Israel and Lebanon

Theories why humans settled down

1) Agriculture easier/more nutritious than hunting & gathering

Work load

Hunter gatherer 800-1,000 hours/year

Primitive farmers 1,000-1,300 hrs/yr

Nutrition

Hunter gatherer skeletons larger than primitive farmers

2) Ecological Crisis

Human population growth and climate change

1 square kilometer of tropical forest

9 hunter gatherers

200-400 farmers

Neolithic town life

*Catalhoyuk (Çatalhöyük)

Modern Turkey

7000-5000 BCE

32 acres (largest known Neolithic site in the Near East)

1,000 houses

5-6,000 inhabitants

Staple crops: emmer wheat and barley

    Irrigation

Domesticated animals: Cattle and dogs

Stone tools

Pottery (6500 BCE)

Obsidian trade

Study Questions: Lecture

1. In the video, The Making of Mankind: A Human Way of Life, what methods do the !Kung use to obtain food? How is their society organized to obtain food? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the gatherer-hunter economy and society?

• The Making of Mankind DVD is on reserve at the library front desk (call number: GN281 .M36 1989). Watch vol. 3 ( A Human Way of Life) from 31:00-45:00.

2. What tools and other archaeological finds demonstrate that Natufians experienced a transition from a mainly gatherer-hunter to agricultural economy?

3. Why has agriculture become the crucial foundation of the vast majority of human societies for the past 5,000 years? What theories have been proposed to explain the beginning of agriculture? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these theories?

Reading Study Questions:

Hansen, et al., 16-23

1. How and where did humans begin to cultivate plants?

2. How did the Natufians learn to plant seeds and harvest crops and domesticate wild animals over several thousand years? Why did Natufian harvesting of wild wheat and planting of seeds encourage new varieties of wheat that were easier to harvest and winnow?

3. What new types of architecture developed when people began to live in large settlements depending on agriculture?

Supplementary Reading on D2L>Content:

03) “Women and Men at Çatalhöyük”

1. What types of analysis ot teeth and bones have been carried out on human remains excavated at Çatalhöyük (Catalhoyuk)? What does each type of analysis reveal about the relative power of males and females at Çatalhöyük (Catalhoyuk)?

2. How does the artistic evidence create a somewhat conflicting picture of the relative power of males and females at Çatalhöyük (Catalhoyuk)?