This document discusses different patterns of subsistence including food collection, horticulture, pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and industrial agriculture. It notes that the Neolithic Revolution around 10,000 years ago involved the domestication of plants and animals in many regions independently. This enabled more control over food production. Key early domesticates included various grains, rice, potatoes, squash, maize, bananas, and animals like dogs, sheep, pigs, and cows. The document outlines trends associated with food production like increased sedentism, population growth, and risks, as well as social impacts. Horticulture involves small-scale subsistence farming without machinery. Pastoralism relies on animal products. Intensive agriculture permanently uses plots of land

1. Subsistence Patterns:
Food Production
Uqa Farming, Terraced Fields,
Isla del Sol, Bolivia

2. Food Production
• Subsistence based on domesticated
plants and animals:
– Neolithic Revolution
• Occurred around10,000 years ago
– Domestication happened independently in
many regions at different times
• Middle East, Near East, China, North/South
America, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa
– Domestication enabled control of production,
a potentially more secure food base

3. Earliest Domesticates: Plants
Teosinte, left
Maize, right
• Neolithic Founder Crops
– Fertile Crescent, Near East, 11,000-9,000 BC
– Emmer wheat, Einkorn wheat, Barley, Lentil, Pea,
Chickpea, Bitter vetch, Flax
• More key crops
– Rice, Asia, 8,000 BC
– Potato, Beans, South America, 8,000 BC
– Squash, Maize, Central America, 8,000-7,000 BC
– Banana, South East Asia, 5,000 BC
– Chili Peppers, South America, 4,000 BC
– Olives, Near East, 4,000 BC
– Millet, Africa, 2,500 BC
– Sorghum, Africa, 2,000 BC

4. Earliest Domesticates: Animals
Species Where When
Dog East-Central Asia 33,000 BP
Sheep South-West Asia 10,000 BC
Pig China, Near East, Germany 9,000 BC
Goat Iran 8,000 BC
Cow India, Middle East, North Africa 8,000 BC
Cat Middle East 8,000 BC
Chicken India, South-East Asia 6,000 BC
Guinea Pig Peru 5,000 BC
Horse Eurasia 4,000 BC
Llama Peru 3,500 BC
Yak Tibet 2,500 BC
Reindeer Siberia 1,000 BC
Turkey Mexico 500 BC
Mummified
Cat, Egypt

5. Food Production
• General Trends/Consequences:
– Increased sedentism (living in one place) and
population size
– Increased labor demands, higher overall risk if
crops fail or animals die
– Decreased variation in diet, decreased nutrition
– Decreased health, increased disease (humans
actually become shorter due to domestication)
– Rise of private property, surplus, specialization
– Decline of social egalitarianism, increased
environmental degradation

6. Horticulture
• Horticulture: subsistence-level
agriculture
– Production for consumption, not for sale
– Small-scale, low-yield
– Simple technology, using human labor, no
irrigation or plows pulled by animals
– Example: shifting agriculture, also called
swidden cycle
– Still practiced in mainly tropical areas with low
population densities

7. Stages of the Swidden Cycle
– Clear plot of land of brush and low
trees, then burn cleared materials,
creating a nutrient-rich ash layer
(“slash and burn”)
– Plant seeds by hand using simple
tools, no irrigation; ash or mulch helps
keep away ‘weeds’
– Harvest crops by hand; labor
intensive
– Fallow: most important step, allow
fields to regenerate naturally by
abandoning them to nature for a
lengthy period; move your plot to a
new place, begin the process again
Planting maize, using
digging stick, under mulch of
previously harvested beans,
Kekchi Maya, Honduras

8. Pastoralism
• Pastoralism: Animal husbandry
– Arose where domesticated plants not easily
grown but animals can still feed
– Based on animal products (often milk products
and wool as much as or more than meat)
– Often trade with agriculturalists
– Wide variation in practices based on different
needs of animals
• Transhumance: seasonal movements between
winter and summer pastures/sources of water
• Nomadic: moving animals frequently as needed

9. Intensive Agriculture
• Intensive Agriculture:
– First intensive form of production
• Use of same plot of land over and over
– Began c. 5,000 years ago, along with rise of
earliest cities (concentrated populations)
– Increased use of technology:
• Plows, draft animals, fertilizers, irrigation
– Surpluses produced
• Above subsistence needs, rest sold at market
• Created new economic opportunities

10. Intensive Agriculture
Terraced Farming , Indonesia

11. Intensive Agriculture
• Intensive Agriculture: consequences
– More labor needed
– More capital (funds/resources) invested
• Permitted complex societies, “civilization”:
– Labor specialization
– Surplus production promotes market exchange
– Cities can be supported
– Social stratification emerges (inequality)
– Peasant class (rural food producers)

12. Industrial Agriculture
• Industrial Agriculture:
– Intensive techniques enhanced by industrial
revolution
• Mechanization; more recently, biotechnology
• Very high yields, export market exchange, often in
processed forms
• Effects today:
– Monocropping agribusinesses replacing family
farms; dependence on mobile, low wage laborers,
increased energy; high costs to environment

13. Adaptation
• Reminder: Food Production is a form of
Adaptation
– Indigenous knowledge can lead to sustainable
environmental practice
– But maladaptive practices have contributed to
the decline of several civilizations
• Rapa Nui (Easter Island): rapid deforestation and
introduction of non-native species contributes to
society’s decline
• Classic Period Maya: collapse of political system
coincided with series of droughts, it is said that political
power lost in part due to poor water management

14. Summary of Subsistence
• Food Collectors
– Foragers
• Food Producers
– Horticulturalists (subsistence agriculture)
– Pastoralists (animal herders)
– Intensive Agriculture (first intensive technique)
– Industrial Agriculture (modern agribusiness)
• Extensive techniques (foraging, horticulture, pastoralism)
require a lot of land, but land is treated well, techniques more
sustainable
• Intensive techniques (intensive/industrial agriculture) use
land over and over again, often depleting resources over
time, often not sustainable