Modern humans originated in Africa and migrated to Europe and Asia around 135,000 years ago, eventually replacing Neanderthals in Europe. The development of agriculture began around 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, as people began cultivating plants and domesticating animals. This Neolithic Revolution then spread to other parts of Eurasia and independently developed in at least three areas of the Americas. While agriculture provided benefits like increased population and new technologies, it also resulted in greater social inequality and environmental degradation compared to foraging societies.

1. SOC 111
Int. to Anthropology
THE FIRST FARMERS

2. Scientists found enough evidence to claim
that modern human are originated in Africa
and then spread into Europe and Asia.
‘Eve Theory’ homo sapien’s
descendants left Africa no more than 135000
years ago.
They eventually displaced the Neandertals in
Europe and went on to colonize the rest of the
world.

3. What is Nandertal?
• Primitive Person.
• The ancestor of human who lived in Middle
Europe on Stone Age duration.
• Neandertal Y chromosome differs significantly
from that of modern humans, means there
was little interbreeding between the two
groups.
• In Western Europe, Neandertals may have
survived until about 28000 years BP.

4. • 2.6 million years ago hominins were still in
Africa making stone tools.
• 1.7 million years ago they had spread from
Africa to Asia and Europe
• 200.000 years ago anatomically modern
humans evolved from ancestors who had
remained in Africa.
• Eventually anatomically modern humans replaced
nonmodern human types such as Neandertals in
Europe.

5. • Tool making and the qualification of tools
determine Paleolithic Age.
• Knives, Pins, Needles with eyes, Fishhooks
– Upper Paleolithic Bone Tools
With increasing technological
differentiation, specialization and
efficiency, humans have become
increasingly adaptable.

6. • ‘The Wurm Glaciel’ Ice Age
• Tundra and Step Veggitation
• Humans moving to North for hunting.
• Seas rose.
• Edible species of marine life.
• Birds migrated across Europe.
• New resources such as migratory birds and
springtime fish.
• Evidence from the arts of Upper Paleolithic
people. Ex: the cave paintings.

7. • With glacial retreat, foragers pursued a
more generalized economy, focusing less
on large animals. This is the beginning of
broad-spectrum revolution.
• Wider range of plant and animal life hunted,
gathered, caught, collected, fished.
• Revolutionary because it led to food
production – human control over the
reproduction of plants and animals.

8. The Mesolithic
• Mesolithic followed Upper Paleolithic
• Microliths: small stone tools
typical of Mesolithic technology
– New hunting techniques
– New kinds of axes, chisels, and gouges
• The process of preserving fish and meat by
smoking and salting grew important.
• Dogs were domesticated.
• Woodworking

9. • Broad-spectrum economies lasted
5,000 years longer in Europe than in
the Middle East. Whereas Middle
Easterners had begun to cultivate
plants and animal breeds by
10,000BP, food production reached
Western Europe only around
5,000BP.

10. The Neolithic
• Neolithic: refers to new techniques of
grinding and polishing stone tools
–The transition from Mesolithic to
Neolithic occurred when groups
became dependent on domesticated
foods
–Shift toward the Neolithic was under
way in the Middle East by 12,000 BP

11. • Neolithic Revolution refers to the origin and
impact of food production (plant cultivation
and animal domestication).
• By 12.000 BP in the Middle East (Turkey, Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel) people started
intervening in the reproductive cycles of
plants and animals.
• No longer just harvesting nature’s bounty,
they grew their own food.

12. The Neolithic
• The primary significance of the Neolithic
was the new total economy rather than
just its characteristic artifacts (pottery).
• Cultivation
• Sedentary life
• Use of ceramic vessels

13. • Food production did not start in alluvial
desert which relied on irrigation systems to
sustain cultivation. Instead, plant cultivation
and animal domestication started in areas
with reliable rainfall (re. dry farming)
• Scientists proposed that in certain areas of
the Middle East, local environments were
so rich in respurces so people could adapt
sedentism- settled life in villages.

14. • The Middle East had a vertical economy,
as had Mesoamerica, including Mexico,
Guatemala, Peru.
– Exploited environmental zones that were
close but contrasted with one another in
altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and
vegetation. Allowed the use of different
resources in different seasons.
–Movement of people, animals, and
products between zones was a precondition
for the emergence of food production.

15. Food Production and the State
• The shift from foraging to food production
was gradual.
– Middle Eastern economies became geared more
exclusively toward crops and herds.
– In the hilly flanks areas, people began
to intensify production by cultivating.
– Farming colonies spread down into drier areas
with the invention of better irrigation techniques.

16. • In Mesopotamia, a new economy
based on irrigation and trade fueled
the growth of an entirely new form
of society: the state.
• The state: a social and political unit
featuring a central government,
contrasts in wealth, and social
classes.

17. Other Old World Producers
• The path from foraging to food production
was followed independently in at least
seven world areas:
– Three in the Americas
– Four in the Old World
• Food production spread, through
– Trade
– Diffusion
– Migration

18. The Neolithic in Europe and Asia
• 8,000 BP: Communities on Europe’s
Mediterranean shores were
shifting from foraging to farming.
• 6,000 BP: Thousands of farming villages
grew up, from Russia to northern France.
– Domestication and Neolithic economies
spread rapidly across Eurasia.

19. Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was
Independently Invented

20. The First Farmers in the Americas
• The most significant contrast between
Old and New World food production
involved animal domestication.
– Large game animals were not
domesticated in the New World.
– Three caloric staples were domesticated
by Native American farmers:
• Maize: corn
• Potatoes
• Manioc: cassava

21. The Tropical Origins of
New World Domestication
• New World farming began in the
lowlands of South America
and spread to Central America,
Mexico, and the Caribbean
Islands.

22. Explaining the Neolithic
• Domestication rested on a combination of
conditions and resources that had not come
together previously.
• Several factors converged
to make domestication happen:
– Development of a full-fledged Neolithic economy
required settling down.
– Sedentism became especially attractive
when several species of plants and animals were
available locally.

23. • Eventually, with climate
change, population growth,
and the need for people to
sustain themselves in the
marginal zones, hunter-gatherers
started cultivating.

24. Geography and the
Spread of Food Production
– In Eurasia, plants and animals
could spread more easily east–west than
north–south.
– The spread of Middle Eastern crops
southward into Africa was eventually
halted by climatic contrasts.
– By contrast, less diffusion in America.

25. Major Axes of the Continents

26. Costs and Benefits
• Food production brought the advantages
of discovery and invention.
– Spinning and weaving
– Pottery and brickmaking, arched masonry
– Smelting and casting metals
– Trade and commerce
• By 5,500 BP, Middle Easterners were living in
vibrant cities with markets, streets, temples
and palaces.

27. Costs and Benefits
• The new economy also brought hardship:
– Food producers typically work harder
than foragers.
– Herds, fields, and irrigation systems need care.
– Trade takes men and women away.
– Producers have more children.
– Public health declines
– Social inequality and poverty increase
– The rate at which human beings degrade their
environments increases with food production.
• Deforestation in the Middle East.

28. The Benefits and Costs of Food
Production (Compared with Foraging)