Lecture 25: The Origins of Agriculture
may also explain why some foragers settled down, for improved climates
would have stimulated plant growth, creating regions of great abundance,
or “Gardens of Eden.” Modern anthropological studies suggest that in such
environments, foragers often become more sedentary. (Sedentary foragers
are often described as “afÀ uent foragers,” because they are found in regions
of exceptional abundance, such as the northwestern coast of North America.)
But for foragers sedentism can be a trap, because it may encourage population
growth, making it necessary within just a few generations to start intensifying
food production. As populations grew, sedentary foragers would soon ¿ nd it
necessary to tend their crops more carefully, to water them and weed around
them—in short, they would have to become farmers! In this roundabout way,
pressure may have played as powerful a role in the appearance of agriculture
as it did in the appearance of the ¿ rst stars!Arguments like these work well in the Fertile Crescent. Natu¿ ans
almost certainly had a good understanding of natural plants and how
they reproduced. They lived in a region with many promising potential
domesticates such as wheat. We know from archaeological evidence that,
as they became sedentary, populations grew rapidly. We know that warming
climates may have encouraged them to become more sedentary by increasing
the abundance of domesticable grains such as emmer. Finally, we know that
farming villages appeared quite rapidly after a period of cooler climates
(the “Younger Dryas,” c. 13,000–11,500 BP) forced sedentary foragers to
start intensifying. When climates warmed again, farming villages appeared
rapidly. Elsewhere, the mix of elements was different. In Mesoamerica,
nomadic foragers probably cultivated crops such as early forms of maize
before they became fully sedentary. There are also tantalizing hints that root
crops were farmed early in coastal regions in the tropics, but we know little
of these regions because most coastal sites were À ooded as sea levels rose.
So, though we lack a complete explanation of agricultural origins, we know
many of the factors involved, even if they may have interacted in slightly
different ways in different regions. Ŷ