Evolution And History

234 CHAPTER 10 | The Neolithic Revolution: The Domestication of Plants and Animals

affluent society.”^8 Farming brings with it a whole new

system of relationships that disturbs an age-old balance

between humans and nature.

In view of what has been said so far, it is puzzling why

any human beings abandoned food foraging in favor of

food production. Several theories have been proposed to

account for this change in human subsistence practices.

One older theory, championed by Australian archaeol-

ogist V. Gordon Childe, is the desiccation (from the Latin

“to dry completely”), or oasis, theory, which is based on

environmental determinism. Its proponents advanced the

idea that the glacial cover over Europe and Asia caused a

shift in rain patterns from Europe to northern Africa and

southwestern Asia. When the glaciers retreated northward,

so did the rain patterns. As a result, formerly lush regions

of northern Africa and southwestern Asia became dryer,

and people were forced to congregate at oases for water.

Because of the relative food scarcity in such an environ-

ment, necessity drove people to collect the wild grasses and

seeds growing around the oases, congregating in a part of

Southwest Asia known as the Fertile Crescent (Figure 10.2).

farmers, by and large, work far longer hours compared to
most food foragers.
Finally, food production is not necessarily a more
secure means of subsistence than food foraging. Seed
crops in particular—of the sort originally domesticated
in Southwest Asia, Central America, and the Andean
highlands—are highly productive but not stable from
an ecological perspective because of low species diver-
sity. Without constant human attention, their produc-
tivity suffers.
For these reasons, it is little wonder that food foragers
do not necessarily regard farming and animal husbandry
as superior to hunting, gathering, or fishing. Thus some
peoples in the world have continued as food foragers
into the present. However, it has become increasingly
difficult for them, because food-producing peoples (in-
cluding postindustrial societies) have deprived them of
more and more of the land base necessary for their way
of life. As long as existing practices work well, there is
no need for food foragers to abandon them, especially
if they provide an eminently satisfactory way of life.
Noting that food foragers have more time for play and
relaxation than food producers, anthropologist Mar-
shall Sahlins has labeled hunter-gatherers “the original

Mureybit

Jericho

CYPRUS

FERTILE

CRESCENT

AREA OF

NATUFIAN

CULTURE

Mediterranean

Sea

Black Sea

Caspian

Sea

Persian

Gulf

Red

Sea

Tigris River

Euphrates RiverMesopotamia

JordanRiver

Nile River

RiverHalys

SYRIAN

DESERT

ARABIA

ARABIAN

DESERT

UPPER

EGYPT

LOWER

EGYPT

Dead

Sea

SINAI

Hacilar

ZAGROS

MOUNTAINS

Çatalhöyük

Cayonu Hallan

Chemi

Zawi Chemi

Shanidar

Jarmo

Lake Van

Lake Urmia

T

AURU

S MOUNTAINS

Abie Hureyra

Fertile regions

in the ancient

Middle East

(^8) Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago: Aldine.
Figure 10.2 The Fertile Crescent
of Southwest Asia and the area of
Natufian culture.