The Neolithic Revolution WHAP/Napp

The Reading:

“The spread of agricultural peoples was a great demographic takeover. Not a biological evolution, like the appearance and spread of homo erectus and homo sapiens sapiens, it was a cultural adaptation, humans applying their intelligence as a survival mechanism. Agriculture, however, created a new kind of relationship with the ecosystem, a cultural adaptation almost equivalent to biological evolution. It created a disequilibrium that resulted in a demographic explosion, a plague of people. A sharp upward surge of population occurred after about 8000 B.C.E., which continues into the modern age, driven almost entirely by the increase of agricultural peoples.

Populations did not grow because agricultural peoples were better nourished or healthier or somehow lived easier. Disease actually increased, in part because population densities rose and because many diseases of livestock transferred to humans. Living together, people and animals thickened the web of infectious connections. Agricultural villages were ten or twenty times larger than foraging camps. They multiplied and formed clusters over the landscape, interacting through trade and social contacts. Rivers, streams, and wells became contaminated. Dysentery and other intestinal disorders were especially debilitating for young children and contributed to their malnutrition. In warmer climates, agriculturally rich river valleys and estuaries developed malaria and schistosomiasis, caused by a blood fluke transmitted in water. In short, mortality and malnutrition increased, and life expectancies fell.

But agricultural populations increased because birthrates rose. The settled life permitted women to have more children during their reproductive age by shortening the intervals between births. Given the natural urge to sexuality, a sedentary living pattern meant that cultural restraints against multiple children relaxed. The duration of breast-feeding periods shortened for each infant; porridges of grain that served as milk substitutes caused malnutrition but also a rise in birthrates. Large families meant that siblings and old people could care for young children. Older children gardened and herded livestock and farmyard animals. More labor readily produced more food, particularly where cultivation could be extended to more land.” ~ Experiencing World History

Main Points of Passage:

Notes:
I.The Neolithic Revolution
A.Beginning around 12,000 years ago
B.Definition: Domestication of plants and animals
  1. Effects
A.Permanent settlements
B.New diseases from close proximity to animals
C.Cities, states, and sometimes empires
D.Increased impact on environment
E.More food and resources from much smaller areas
  1. Factors that Encouraged Agriculture
  1. Global warming that began 16,000 years ago
  2. Around 11,000 years ago, Ice Age was over
  3. Migration of Homo sapiens across planet
  4. New conditions for agriculture
  1. Natural flourishing of wild plants, especially cereal grasses
  1. Extinction of some large mammals
  2. Locations: occurring separately and independently
  1. Fertile Crescent
  1. Present-day Iraq, Syria, Israel, and southern Turkey
  2. After 9,000 BCE, figs, wheat, barley, rye, peas, lentils, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle domesticated
  3. Use of sun-dried mud bricks

  1. Eastern part of Sahara, present-day Sudan
  1. Between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, Sahara desert did not exist
  2. Cattle and donkey domesticated
D. Widely scattered farming practices
1- Sorghum, teff, yams, oil palm trees, okra, and kola nuts
  1. Americas
  1. Coastal Andean regions, Mesoamerica, Mississippi Valley, Amazon basin
  2. Absence of animals that could be domesticated
1-Only one (llama/alpaca) large mammal
  1. Lacked sources of protein, manure, and power that domesticated animals provided
  2. Lacked rich cereal grains
1-Had maize or corn, first domesticated in southern Mexico by 4000 to 3000 BCE
  1. North/South Orientation of Americas impacted progress of Agricultural Revolution
1-Distinct climatic and vegetation zones
  1. Spread of Agriculture
  1. Through gradual spread of agricultural techniques or colonization
1-Bantu migration
2-Austronesian expansion
  1. Culture of Agriculture
  1. Increase in population
  2. New diseases due to closer proximity to animals
  3. Permanent Settlements
  4. Technological explosion
  5. Soil erosion and deforestation
  6. Class divisions and patriarchal systems
  1. Variations
  1. Pastoral societies  dependent on animals
  2. Agricultural village societies without kings
  3. Chiefdoms inherited positions of power

Write Ten Essential Questions from the Notes:

Craft an Argument:

What will you prove about the Neolithic Age?

Write a Thesis Statement:

  1. Which of the following was NOT a common trait of early civilizations?
(A)Writing
(B)Formal state structures
(C)Urban life
(D)Monument building
(E)Nomadism
3. Based on the preponderance of archaeological evidence, which region of the world saw the development of the earliest civilizations?
(A)Northern Eurasia
(B)South America
(C)Indonesia
(D)The Middle East
(E)North America
  1. Which of the following was true for ALL of the early agricultural systems?
(A)Domestication of perennial plants in each region
(B)Wheat and barley cultivation
(C)Economic activity based on raising a combination of domesticated plants and draft animals
(D)Primary reliance on pastoral forms of social organization
(E)Abandonment of sedentary agriculture /
  1. River valley civilizations, such as the Egyptians or Sumerians, developed all of the following EXCEPT
(A)Craft specialization
(B)Social stratification
(C)Constitutional monarchy
(D)Long-distance trade
(E)Complex religious rituals
  1. Compared to other revolutions in world history, which feature of the Neolithic Revolution is most unusual?
(A)Altered gender roles and relations
(B)Attenuated unfolding over thousands of years in diverse locales
(C)Impact on population growth
(D)Transformation of class relations
(E)Abandonment of previously held patterns of religious worship
  1. Surplus production
(A)Is caused by poor cultivation methods
(B)Prevents specialization of labor
(C)Gives rise to specialization and stratification of society
(D)Can never occur in modern societies
(E)None of the above

Strayer Questions:

  • What accounts for the emergence of agriculture after countless millennia of human life without it?
  • In what different ways did the Agricultural Revolution take shape in various parts of the world?
  • In what ways did agriculture spread? Where and why was it sometimes resisted?
  • What was revolutionary about the Agricultural Revolution?
  • What different kinds of societies emerged out of the Agricultural Revolution?