What other factors could have pushed communities in the ‘hilly flanks’ of Mesopotamia to start cultivating anything at this particular moment in human hist
Need a question concerning this week‘s material. I GOT THE QUOTE And respond to question below
What other factors could have pushed communities in the "hilly flanks" of Mesopotamia to start cultivating anything at this particular moment in human history?
( this is a anthropology course )
EARLY AGRICULTURE AND THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION: MODIFYING THE ENVIRONMENT
TO SATISFY HUMAN DEMANDS Chapter 10
Cultivation involves the intentional preparation of fields, planting, harvesting, and storing of seeds, that results in significant changes in technology and subsistence, but does not result in morphological and genetic changes in the plants.
Domestication, intentional or unintentional, results in the change to the genotype and physical characteristics of plants. Domesticates, or the new species that are created from existing or wild populations, are then dependant on humans for their survival.
Agriculture involves a commitment to a relationship with plants that results in changes in social structure and organization, extensive clearing of fields and forests, and the invention and adoption of new techniques and technologies. Agriculture is defined as a diet that is primarily reliant upon (approximately 75 %) domesticated species of plants and animals.
Gardens in Papua New Guinea mostly growing sweet potatoes, which originated in South America
How could these large populations cultivate a crop that did not originate there?
When and how did the changes enabled by sweet potato cultivation happen?
Horticulture in New Guinea (Photos: ©
Jack Golson; inset: © Adrian Arbib/CORBIS)
HOW HEAVILY DID PREHISTORIC PEOPLE DEPEND ON HUNTING?
Anatomically modern humans ate only what they
could hunt, gather, or scavenge
Anthropologists have studied living hunter-
gatherers to find clues about foraging practices
in the past For 99% of human history Hunter/Gatherers were tied to
seasonally abundant plant food resources, movement of game,
and the ebb and flow of aquatic resources
THE HUNTER-GATHERER LIFEWAY
Environment and climate in regions inhabited by hunter-gatherers were unsuitable for agriculture and animal husbandry
Europeans depicted these regions as harsh and inhabitants’ technologies as simple
They assumed the foraging way of life was crude and brutish → the basis for deeply held cultural stereotypes
THE “MAN THE HUNTER” CONFERENCE
Anthropologists gathered to assess:
How difficult was it for early hunter-gatherers to get their food?
How similar were contemporary hunter-gatherers to their prehistoric ancestors?
Dominant anthropological model of hunter-gatherers societies before the conference: they live in patrilocal bands. The assumptions about hunter gatherers:
Hunting was principally undertaken by men
Hunting was more important than gathering
Men’s subsistence activities were more significant than women’s
Conference result: a resounding rejection of the old male-dominated model
GENERALIZED FORAGING MODEL
The generalized foraging model: hunter-gatherer societies have five basic characteristics:
Egalitarianism
Low population density
Lack of territoriality
A minimum of food storage
Flux in band composition
“ORIGINAL AFFLUENT SOCIETY”
Hunter-gatherer lives were not harsh:
They spent hours each day in leisure, socializing, or sleeping
They neither needed nor desired material goods
Did not view their natural environments as scarce and harsh, but as affluent and always providing for their needs
Hence they were called “the original affluent society”
The Amazon Uncontacted
Frontier, a large area on
the Peru-Brazil border that
is home to the highest
concentration of
uncontacted tribes in the
world.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN
More recent research finds considerable variation among hunter-gatherer group
Women spend as much time working as men do
Recent analyses suggest that in most horticultural and agricultural societies, women’s effort is typically greater than that of men.
THE PROBLEM OF SURPLUSES
Why did they not spend an extra hour each day to amass a surplus?
Two proposed answers to this question:
Lorna Marshall: sharing obligations
Example: !Kung women only gathered as much as they needed for their own families; a surplus meant they would be expected to share it with the entire band. If her labor would not help her family, collecting too much was intentionally avoided. Among many hunter-gatherer communities, people place great emphasis on sharing as a moral obligation.
Bruce Winterhalder: threat of depletion of local resources
THE EXCEPTIONS
Not all hunter-gatherer societies avoided accumulating surpluses
Pacific Northwest Indian communities amassed large surpluses
Used to assert superiority at potlatches
The goal of these gift exchanges was not to provide food or material goods to other groups, but to assert political, economic, and social superiority by giving away more than the recipients could pay back at some later potlatch.
Nineteenth-Century Kwakiutl Potlatch
(Photo: © PVDE/Bridgeman Images)
PAST VERSUS PRESENT
Do contemporary hunter-gatherers represent the lifestyles of Paleolithic ancestors?
The two groups are not identical
Contemporaries are linked to sedentary agricultural and industrial societies through trade and other social ties, which did not exist prior to the development of agriculture
Some contemporary groups do have features that are important for understanding the past
First: hunting may make up 10%-100% of diet
Second: anthropological models now see them principally as egalitarian foragers, relying primarily on plant foods, with women’s roles equal in importance to men’s
What led people to shift from a foraging lifestyle in the first place?
WHY DID PEOPLE START DOMESTICATING PLANTS AND ANIMALS?
In the past 10,000 years, ancient societies developed more or less independently in the Middle East, China, India, Meso-America, and South America
Hunter-gatherers didn’t suddenly “discover” how to plant seeds, nor did they abruptly learn that by feeding certain wild animals they could control their behavior. Instead, knowledge of plants and animals long preceded systematic cultivation and domestication
Agriculture was developed independently
in several regions of the world at different
periods during the Holocene. From these
“core areas,” the productive new economy
spread eventually to adjacent regions,
allowing the development of more
populous societies and leading ultimately
to the demise of hunting and gathering in
most areas of the world.
WHY AGRICULTURE?
The origins of agriculture is a complex topic that evolves both empirical (archaeological) and theoretical components
1. The “Oasis Hypothesie” by V. Gordon Childe
• The drying of the climate at the end of the Pleistocene in the Near East created conditions that led to
early domestication. Both humans and animals and plants would have gathered around the few
oases or water resources, and humans would have gradually come to control many of these species
2. The “Hilly Flanks Hypothesis” by Robert J. Braidwood
• Plant and animal species would be domesticated in areas where they first existed in the wild as part
of gradually increasing association with humans
3. Demographic Theories
• Increasing human populations require more food than could be obtained in the wild, which resulted in
intensification of production and eventual domestication of plants and animals
4. Co-Evolutionary Hypothesis
• Humans were adapting to plants and animals as much as plants and animals were adapting to
humans
None of these theories provides an adequate explanation for the origins of agriculture in every region!
REASONS FOR THE CHANGE
V. Gordon Childe: this shift had significant consequences for developing more sophisticated technologies, larger populations, and more complex forms of social organization
V. Gordon Childe (Photo: AP Photo)
THE “FERTILE CRESCENT”
“Hilly flanks” hypothesis:
Most plants first cultivated were indigenous to upland fringes
Once they had been domesticated in the uplands, they spread to groups in the lowlands.
First evidence of early humans actively and
intentionally planting seeds for their own food
comes from excavations in the Middle East
POPULATION GROWTH AND FOOD PRODUCTION
Thomas Malthus: population growth depended on the food supply
Esther Boserup: population growth forced people to work harder to produce more food
Population growth had triggered technological improvements and increased labor inputs throughout recorded history
UNDERSTANDING + POPULATION GROWTH = MANAGEMENT OF FOOD RESOURCES
If hunter-gatherers already understood how plants grew, even a small increase in population could have encouraged them to manage their own food resources
If incipient food production supported the existing population plus a small amount of further growth, population pressure would encourage further food production
To expand this theory some argued that after the last ice age, environmental conditions improved, allowing a small but gradual population increase. Others argue post-glacial populations increased in coastal areas that had favorable wild resources for fisher-foraging groups
BEYOND POPULATION PRESSURES: THREE THEORIES
1.Independent emergence suggests driver was environmental (end of ice age)
• If food production began in diverse parts of the world almost simultaneously, then it likely had to do in part with the more habitable environment following the last ice age
2.Changes in cognitive ability allowed for perception of longer term advantages of regular food production
Social processes were key to the beginning of food production due to changes in cognitive ability that allowed them to perceive some longer term advantages that came with regular food production
3.People and the plants they cultivated began to co-evolve, shaping each other
Irrespective of why people in one region or another began cultivating plants, the people and the plants they cultivated began to co-evolve, shaping each other
HOW DID EARLY HUMANS RAISE THEIR OWN FOOD?
Hunter-gatherers have an extraordinary knowledge of their natural environment
Planting wild grains from locally occurring grasses led to larger plant and seed sizes
Tending and planting wild grass seeds meant selecting the best seeds, improving subsequent planting stock
Examples of domesticated corn from the Tehuacán valley of Mexico
showing how domestication gradually produced larger and larger
cobs. (Photo: © Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips
Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. All Rights Reserved)
MORE THAN JUST WHEAT AND CORN
Humans also domesticated non-food plants
Fiber-bearing plants for basket-making
Similar processes with domesticated animals
Humans may have begun manipulating food sources in subtler ways
Arboriculture occurred much earlier than domestication of other crops in Southeast Asia
MAJOR AREAS OF DOMESTICATION
IMPACT OF RAISING PLANTS AND ANIMALS ON OTHER ASPECTS OF LIFE
Likely that first efforts to raise food changed people relatively little
Groups ranged across large territories, planting and harvesting during annual movement
Herding may have brought a greater change
As the number of livestock animals increased, their needs may have led some food producers to turn to transhumance
TRANSHUMANCE
A fairly simple transformation of the nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers
This led to societies that practice pastoralism.
Transhumance among
the Bachtiari of Iran.
(Photo: AP Photo/Ben
Curtis)
PASTORALISM
Pastoralism tends to lead to larger populations and more complex patterns of social interaction.
Pastoralists are relatively few in number worldwide
Most people in the world are settled, living from agriculture, either directly or indirectly
SEDENTISM
Combination of population growth and sedentism led to the most significant changes that accompany food production
Once settled, populations grew, with greater intensification of food production
More labor for food production resulted in periodic shortages of food, which in turn led to true agriculture
THE END RESULT
Neolithic Revolution was many events in many parts of the world at different times
Cultivation and animal husbandry typically led to sedentism and food surpluses
Growing population pressures together with surpluses led to radical new interactions
This led to the rise of cities and states and introduction of social hierarchies
,
M A T E R I A L I T Y : C O N S T R U C T I N G
S O C I A L R E L A T I O N S H I P S A N D
M E A N I N G S W I T H T H I N G S
C H A P T E R 9
MATERIAL CULTURE
What is the role of objects and material culture in
constructing social relationships and cultural meanings?
– Why is the ownership of artifacts from another culture a
contentious issue?
– How should we look at objects anthropologically?
– Why and how do the meanings of things change over
time?
– What role does material culture play in constructing the
meaning of a community’s past?
Of special interest to both cultural and archaeological anthropologies is the examination of material
culture: the objects made and used in any society; traditionally the term referred to technologically
simple objects made in preindustrial societies, but material culture may refer to all of the objects or
commodities of modern life as well.
WHY IS THE OWNERSHIP OF ARTIFACTS FROM OTHER CULTURES A CONTENTIOUS ISSUE?
• In the United States, Anthropology began in museums
amidst the scramble for collections of cultural,
archaeological, linguistic, and biological data.
• The Smithsonian Institution assembled impressive
anthropological exhibits.
• The 1893 World’s Fair organized anthropological
exhibits to present cultures and prehistory of the
New World. At the closing of the fair, a new museum
appeared: The Field Museum, which purchased the
artifacts and exhibits.
(Image: Photo by Diane Alexander White and
Linda Dorman, courtesy of The Field Museum,
GN85650c)
THE SCRAMBLE FOR ARTIFACTS
• An international scramble by museums for artifacts from societies around the world ensued
• The goal was to document lives, economic activities, and rituals of peoples around the globe
• Possession of more of these exotic objects would set one museum apart from others
• For a long time, nobody was concerned about who owned these objects
– In recent decades, questions of ownership and control over these objects have become a contentious issue
– Shouldn’t the people whose direct ancestors made or used these objects have some rights over these collections?
– Who has the right to sell them to museums?
– Who has the moral right to display and interpret them?
"This belongs to Iraq," reads the poster held
by Iraqi student Zeidoun Alkinani at the
Babylonian Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon
Museum of Berlin.
THE ABSENCE OF LEGAL PROTECTIONS
The U.S. had only a few basic laws to protect archaeological sites, mostly on government lands:
– The Antiquities Act of 1906: requiring permission for excavations on government lands
– The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 which requires government agencies to consider the
effects of development projects on historical or archaeological sites
The “Tragedy of Slack Farm” in Uniontown, Kentucky, led to changes:
• In the autumn of 1987 a group of ten pot hunters from surrounding states paid
the tenants of Slack Farm $10,000 for permission to loot the site while the
fields were lying fallow.
• At least 650 graves were opened by the looters over the course of two months,
some with the help of heavy machinery.
• The looters were arrested and charged by a Union County grand jury with a
crime applicable in the state of Kentucky at the time: that of ‘desecrating
venerated objects’.
• In 1987 ‘desecrating venerated objects’ was a misdemeanor in Kentucky and a
conviction under that charge would only have resulted in a small fine (Hicks
2001). Four of the ten men were residents of Illinois or Indiana and could not
be extradited for a misdemeanor. The misdemeanor charges were dismissed in
March of 1990 for lack of prosecution.
NAGPRA
• The Slack Farm episode led to a bill in the Kentucky
legislature making it a felony to disturb burial sites
• The incident was offensive to American Indian
groups, leading them to lobby the federal
government
• The following year (1990), the US government
passed the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act or NAGPRA
– This law established the ownership of human remains,
grave goods, and important cultural objects as
belonging to the Native Americans whose ancestors
once owned them
Reburial ceremony in 2014 for a young boy
who lived during the Clovis period some
13,000 years ago. His remains were first
discovered in 1968.
A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM
• Many countries have legislation and programs
• Most governments support UNESCO’s World
Heritage Site program
– Provides financial support to maintain sites of
importance to humanity
– Most of the 802 currently recognized cultural
sites have played a key role in human history
• UNESCO cannot force countries to protect
these sites, but it can formally delist a site if the
host countries fail to protect it from any
destruction
WHO OWNS THE OBJECT?
• Who had a moral right to examine, study, and possess artifacts and bones recovered
from archaeological sites?
– Many archaeologists felt they had the moral right to excavate, while pot hunters did not
because they were simply out to make money
• Laws governing excavations of human remains were highly discriminatory, treating
Native Americans differently than Euro-Americans
– Activists protested treatment of Indian remains, asserting that such treatment was part of a
larger pattern of disrespect for Indian cultures.
– Many were part of AIM, the American Indian Movement: the most prominent and one of the
earliest Native American activist groups, founded in 1968.
REPATRIATING ARTIFACTS
• Their efforts led to demands for repatriation: the return of human
remains or cultural artifacts to the communities of descendants of
the people to whom they originally belonged
– Became a material symbol of Indian identity itself
• Archaeologists have a range of views on the study of prehistoric
bones
– Studied scientifically, reburied after examination, reburied without
being studied, or never excavated at all.
• Some Indian groups took more radical positions
– Asserted the right to rebury all Indian bones found in any museum,
regardless of any connection to their own tribe.
DID NAGPRA WORK?
• Since NAGPA, repatriation has proceeded reasonably
well, helping clarify that American Indians own the
bones of their ancestors as well as any grave goods
found with those remains, but…
– Some museums have taken too long to comply
– Regulations weren’t always clear about which objects
are covered by NAGPRA and which groups can submit
repatriation requests
• Rights of indigenous peoples to their cultural
resources is an ongoing issue at the international level
as well
See “Anthropologist as Problem Solver: John Terrell, Repatriation, and
the Maori House at the Field Museum” on page 249 for another
example about how native communities and scholars can work
together to find solutions
CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (CRM)
• Cultural Resource Management: research and planning aimed
at identifying, interpreting, and protecting sites and artifacts of
historic or prehistoric significance
• Many Indian groups criticize archaeologists as doing little to
help their communities and disturbing the bones of their
ancestors
– An increasing number of Indians with postgrad degrees use
CRM techniques in preservation
• Nearly all tribes that use CRM view heritage management
differently than most federal government agencies
– Non-Indian agencies nearly always see heritage resources as
tangible places and things, and scientific study as a way of finding
a middle ground between the heritage resource and some other
use.
– Tribes tend to prefer avoiding the disturbance of the heritage
resource altogether, including scientific investigation,
emphasizing their spiritual connections to the past
Members of federal- recognized Indian
tribes participated in the fieldwork on
Hiwassee Island. Left: Gano Perez of the Muscogee (Creek)
Nation and archaeologist Shawn Patch of New South Associates collect
magnetometer data. Below: the field crew
Credit : TVA
HOW SHOULD WE LOOK AT OBJECTS ANTHROPOLOGICALLY?
• Until the 1980s anthropologists looked at objects as evidence of cultural
distinctiveness
– Approached objects as expressions of a society’s environmental adaptation,
aesthetic sensibilities, or as markers of ethnic identity
– Arts and craftwares were considered an expression of a particular tradition,
time, or place, an expression of the individual creativity of the artist or
craftperson.
• In the mid-1980s anthropologists started to recognize that objects were
capable of conveying meaning in many different ways simultaneously
OBJECTS ARE MULTIDIMENSIONAL
To understand them, we must recognize and understand not just
their three basic physical dimensions—height, width, depth—but four
others as well, among them:
– Time – objects in museums came from somewhere and each had an
individual history.
– Power – relations of inequality are reflected in objects
– Wealth – people use objects to establish and demonstrate who has
wealth and social status.
– Aesthetics – each culture brings with it its own system or patterns of
recognizing what is pleasing or attractive, which configurations of
colors and textures are appealing, and which are not.
(Images: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge; David Rumsey Map
Collection via Wikipedia (p
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