The Big History of Civilizations Origins of Agriculture: Video Analysis

What was a foraging economy and way of life like?

Foraging was the leading way of lifestyle for the oldest communities across the globe. This economy did not imply a controlled source of sustenance, meaning that people had to cover great territories. Hunting and gathering were the primary activities of foragers, which ensured the survival of early communities (The Great Courses Selects, 2016). This period was characterized by the low density of the population, as well, because tribes had to disperse across their territories far in order to prevent competition over limited resources.

Comparison of foragers and farmers

The main difference between foragers and farmers lies in the organization of their communities sustenance. The former merely collected whatever was available in nature and proceeded to the next area. On the other hand, farmers are more progressive in terms of labor instruments. They use tools and advanced techniques in order to maximize their gain and achieve the first semblance of sustainability within human civilization.

Definition of extensification, intensification, and symbiosis

Extensification means finding new sources of energy by spreading into new environmental niches, and it is characteristic of the foraging economy. Farmers relied on the opposite process of intensification or finding ways to extract more energy from the available land. Symbiosis is another important concept, which refers to species codependence (The Great Courses Selects, 2016). In the case of farming, the purpose of symbiosis is to create a codependent, self-supporting chain of animal and plant varieties.

The first domesticated species. When and where this happened and its importantance

The process of domestication is, in fact, a form of symbiosis between humans and wild species. In this case, the former offers better living conditions for the latter in exchange for specific profits, such as food, wool, or security. Archaeology struggles to identify the first successful cases of domestication with precision. However, the expert community assures that it took place in the Paleolithic era when humans successfully domesticated a dog. It happened about 10.000 years ago and became a major breakthrough for the development of farming societies, symbolizing the new era of civilization.

The difficulties that came with farming

Along with considerable benefits, agriculture introduced specific challenges, which prevented it from gaining the status of a superior alternative by default. First of all, agriculture is more demanding than foraging in both physical and mental terms (The Great Courses Selects, 2016). It required more effort to cultivate the land and extract the maximum of its resources. It also took more planning and knowledge to make farming effective. The narrower selection of nutrients and repetitive physical activities had an adverse impact on farmers health. Finally, the domestication of animals entailed the emergence of new diseases within communities.

The two main forces that led to the origins of agriculture

The transition to farming was not an exclusively positive process, but it was conditioned by certain factors. Climate change introduced new variables for humanity to consider, limiting the number of resources available. At the same time, the population grew rapidly, which increase the need for more efficient resource consumption and distribution. As a result, people had to seek new ways of utilizing the soil and its products.

The five-steps in the model explaining the origins of agriculture

The five-step model is proposed to explain the origins of agriculture. Step 1: acquire sufficient pre-existing knowledge. Step 2: certain animal and plant species are to be pre-adapted to potential domestication. Step 3: communities gradually refrain from the nomadic lifestyle. Step 4: affluent foraging pushed humanity to settle in smaller territories (The Great Courses Selects, 2016). Step 5: alternative lifestyles became ineffective and even dangerous, resulting in farming as the only alternative.

What are affluent foragers?

Climate change forced some communities to abandon nomadism and settle in specific territories while still resorting to hunting and gathering for sustenance. The term affluent foragers are used to describe such groups. Generally, they had access to sufficient resources, which allowed them to hunt and gather with a sedent lifestyle.

Does the model for the origins of agriculture presented for SW Asia also apply to in other places where agriculture was invented?

One of the most interesting features of agriculture is that its adoption and evolution occurred in isolation in various parts of the world. Accordingly, the methods, factors, and timelines vary across regions. As such, the particularities of the model presented for the agriculture origins in Southwest Asia are exclusive for this part of the world.