Sse 102 Handouts

Where Did Agriculture Originate?
The origins of agriculture cannot be documented with certainty because it began before recorded history. Scholars
try to reconstruct a logical sequence of events based on fragments of information about ancient agricultural practices
and historical environmental conditions. Improvements in cultivating plants and domesticating animals evolved over
thousands of years.
Agriculture is deliberate modification of Earth’s surface through cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to
obtain sustenance or economic gain. Agriculture originated when humans domesticated plants and animals for their
use. The word cultivate means “to care for,” and a crop is any plant cultivated by people.
Hunters and Gatherers

Before the invention of agriculture, all humans probably obtained the food they needed for survival through hunting
for animals, fishing, or gathering plants (including berries, nuts, fruits, and roots). Hunters and gatherers lived in
small groups, of usually fewer than 50 persons, because a larger number would quickly exhaust the available
resources within walking distance. The men hunted game or fished, and the women collected berries, nuts, and
roots. This division of labor sounds like a stereotype but is based on evidence from archaeology and anthropology.
They collected food often, perhaps daily. The food search might take only a short time or much of the day,
depending on local conditions. The group traveled frequently, establishing new home bases or camps. The direction
and frequency of migration depended on the movement of game and the seasonal growth of plants at various
locations. We can assume that groups communicated with each other concerning hunting rights, intermarriage, and
other specific subjects. For the most part, they kept the peace by steering clear of each other’s territory. Today,
perhaps a quarter-million people, or less than 0.005 percent of the world’s population, still survive by hunting and
gathering rather than by agriculture. Examples include the Spinifex (also known as Pila Nguru) people, who live in
Australia’s Great Victorian Desert; the Sentinelese people, who live in India’s Andaman Islands; and the Bushmen,
who live in Botswana and Namibia. Contemporary hunting and gathering societies are isolated groups living on the
periphery of world settlement, but they provide insight into human customs that prevailed in prehistoric times,
before the invention of agriculture.
Invention of Agriculture
Why did most nomadic groups convert from hunting, gathering, and fishing to agriculture? Geographers and other
scientists agree that agriculture originated in multiple hearths around the world. They do not agree on when
agriculture originated and diffused, or why. Southwest Asia was an early center of crop domestication. The earliest
crops domesticated in Southwest Asia are thought to have been barley and wheat, around 10,000 years ago. Lentil
and olive were also early domestications in Southwest Asia. From this hearth, cultivation diffused west to Europe
and east to Central Asia. Rice is now thought to have been domesticated in East Asia more than 10,000 years ago,
along the Yangtze River in eastern China. Millet was cultivated at an early date along the Yellow River. Sorghum
was domesticated in central Africa around 8,000 years ago. Yams may have been domesticated even earlier. Millet
and rice may have been domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa independently of the hearth in East Asia. From central
Africa, domestication of crops probably diffused further south in Africa. In Latin America, two important hearths of
crop domestication are thought to have emerged in Mexico and Peru around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Mexico is
considered a hearth for beans and cotton, and Peru for potato. Squashes may have been first domesticated in a third
hearth in the Americas, in southeastern present-day United States, as well as in Mexico. The most important
contribution of the Americas to crop domestication, maize (corn), may have emerged in the two hearths
independently around the same time. From these two hearths, cultivation of maize and other crops diffused
northward into North America and southward into tropical South America. Animals were also domesticated in
multiple hearths on various dates. Southwest Asia is thought to have been the heart for the domestication of the
largest number of animals that would prove to be most important for agriculture, including cattle, goats, pigs, and
sheep, between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago. Domestication of the dog is thought to date from around 12,000 years
ago, also in Southwest Asia. The horse is considered to have been domesticated in Central Asia; diffusion of the
domesticated horse is thought to be associated with the diffusion of the Indo-European language. Inhabitants of
Southwest Asia may have been the first to integrate cultivation of crops with domestication of herd animals such as
cattle, sheep, and goats. These animals were used to prepare the land before planting seeds and, in turn, were fed
part of the harvested crop. Other animal products, such as milk, meat, and skins, may have been exploited later. This
integration of plants and animals is a fundamental element of modern agriculture. Scientists do not agree on whether
agriculture originated primarily because of environmental factors or cultural factors. Probably a combination of both
factors contributed. Those favoring environmental reasons point to the coinciding of the first domestication of crops
and animals with climate change around 10,000 years ago. This marked the end of the last ice age, when permanent
ice cover receded from Earth’s midlatitudes to polar regions, resulting in a massive redistribution of humans, other
animals, and plants at that time. Alternatively, human behavior may be primarily responsible for the origin of
agriculture. A preference for living in a fixed place rather than as nomads may have led hunters and gatherers to
build permanent settlements and to store surplus vegetation there. In gathering wild vegetation, people inevitably cut
plants and dropped berries, fruits, and seeds. These hunters probably observed that, over time, damaged or discarded
food produced new plants. They may have deliberately cut plants or dropped berries on the ground to see if they
would produce new plants. Subsequent generations learned to pour water over the site and to introduce manure and
other soil improvements. Over thousands of years, plant cultivation apparently evolved from a combination of
accident and deliberate experiment. That agriculture had multiple origins means that, from earliest times, people
have produced food in distinctive ways in different regions. This diversity derives from a unique legacy of wild
plants, climatic conditions, and cultural preferences in each region. Improved communications in recent centuries
have encouraged the diffusion of some plants to varied locations around the world. Many plants and animals thrive
across a wide portion of Earth’s surface, not just in their place of original domestication. Only after 1500, for
example, were wheat, oats, and barley introduced to the Western Hemisphere and maize to the Eastern Hemisphere.

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Where Did Agriculture Originate?

Hunters and Gatherers

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