SOCIAL FORMATIONS HOME

ASSIGNMENT

NAME- YASHASVI VERMA

ROLL NUMBER – 644
CLASS - 1B

QUESTION – What are the factors that led to the emergence

of agriculture and animal husbandry? Do you think it was
increase in population or climate change that facilitated the
emergence of agriculture?
ANSWER -:
Neolithic is the period where, plant cultivation and animal
domestication started on a much larger scale which then
completely changes the lifestyle of the human beings. Not
only this but we see other changes coming up with this
period too such as sedentary lifestyle , more complex social
relations such as emergence of concepts such as family and
relationships being more strictly define , exchanges between
different groups or clans , more emotionally attached with
animals , coming up of some king of authority or status ,
which can be known through looking at the burials for
example : the graves of Catal Huyuk show that some people
were buried alongside objects which could be regarded as
superior than others where as we also see other graves
which does not have such objects , religious beliefs and
rituals too become more important as we do see some clay
and plaster figures , mostly depicting women as they
wanted to promote fertility of both women and soil . There
are many other changes too which started in the Neolithic
period . But most important of all is the ones we will focus
more upon that is coming up of agriculture and
domestication of animals . All the other changes discussed
above are somewhat inter-related with these two changes.
There are many scholars who have different opinions about
how agriculture and animal husbandry actually emerged,
some believe that it emerged because of the increase in
population such as Mark Cohen, Lewis Binford etc. There
are scholars such as Gordon Childe, Joy McCoriston and
Frank Hole etc who believed that it was the role of climate
because of which agriculture emerged. Then there are other
scholars too who had different theories regarding this such
as Jack Harlen , Robert Braidwood , Kent Flannery , Barbara
Bender and Bruce Trigger . We are going to be looking at all
these theories in detail and conclude all of them at last while
also giving my opinion regarding the same.
To some scholars the fact that people changed from hunting
and gathering to farming didn’t seem like a logical choice ,
according to them hunting and gathering in a place where
there is a limited population and plentiful resources is less of
a hard work than performing agriculture as it requires
cooperation , hard work like plowing , settling down at one
place to keep a check etc . These scholars didn’t believe that
humans would change their life’s until they are forced to do
so . The famous archaeologist Gordon Childe defined the
theory of Oases in this book , ‘The Most Ancient Near East” .
The Oasis theory is a concept in archaeology , which refers to
one of the main hypotheses about the origins of agriculture
and that people started to domesticate plants and animals
because they were forced to so because of climate change .
He argued that at the end of ice age , North Africa and the
Near East started drying up and there were increased
occurrence of drought , higher temperatures , and decreased
rainfall . That aridity according to him drove both people and
animals to gather at oases and river valleys which led to
both population growth and a closer familiarity with plants
and animals. The people were hence forced to learn how to
raise crops and animals. Robert Braidwood critiqued
Childe’s theory, and said that humans have experienced
previous interglacial periods that created oases of habitation
during dry spells and yet these did not result in the advent
agriculture as a means of food production. Braidwood’s team
found that paleoclimate conditions among the Hilly Flanks
was not at all dry but favorable to agriculture with annual
rainfall in the late Pleistocene that produced an “open
deciduous forest, with oaks predominating but with
occasional evergreens” .
Even though this theory is quite believable, it does not
explain why agriculture was not invented before this time.
Certainly many major climate changes have occurred since
the appearance of Homo sapiens. Another shortcoming of
this theory is that in the Near-East there is no evidence of
major climate change for the period considered by Childe.
McCoriston and Frank Hole too supported the theory that
agriculture was the result of climate change.
Lewis Binford suggested that demographic factors were
responsible for the shift to agriculture. His theory is that the
pattern of adaptation would change if the equilibrium
between population and environment is disturbed it could
be disturbed by either drastic climate change or due to
increase in population. There is no evidence of a drastic
change in the environment of west asia at the end of the ice
age . Binford focused on population growth as the main
reason for the advent of agriculture. Population growth
occurred in those areas where favorable conditions
encouraged people to settle down for longer period of time
and thus with the coming up of sedentism , population
increased . He describes two types of habitat: optimal and
marginal habitat. The optimal habitat were main centers of
population growth, they also had a greater ‘carrying
capacity’ which means that these areas had sufficient
resources to support a large population. But the population
growth exceeded the capacity of the area and the
equilibrium was hence disturbed. Because of which some
groups (daughter groups) moved away to the neighbouring
marginal habitats which did not have a high carrying
capacity as a result of this they were forced to look for new
ways to survive. Mark cohen also supports population being
the major factor underlying the origin of agriculture, he sees
population growth as a long term process. The population
was expanding and it was necessary to experiment with new
ways of procuring food. Cohen points that agriculture helps
in greater density of population . Critics of the demographic
theories raise doubts on the evidence of tremendous
population growth in the Post-Pleistocene period . S.J. De
Laet has argued that there is no evidence of population
explosion among the Pre-Neolithic communities. Citing
evidence from ethno-graphic studies of modern hunter-
gatherer societies . De Laet opines that the latter tend to
practice birth control and large population is to be expected
more among farmers where addition to labour force is
welcomed. Robert J. Wenke has also pointed out that most of
the earlier agricultural communities in southeast asia have
been found in negev desert where it is difficult to imagine
any form of population ‘pressure’ . However whatever be the
role of demographic factors in transition towards farming , it
has enlarged the ambit of factors from climate factors alone
in the process leading to the growth of agriculture.
Barbara bender has been very critical of theories which
centre around population growth, she has argued that
increase in population cannot by itself be a prime mover.
Population growth is linked to various other factors : the
manner in which a society is organized , its subsistence
pattern, level of technology , integration with the
environment etc are some of such factors . She says
‘demography is the result of hierarchy of causes, of which
the most important are relations of production’. According
to her strategies change because social relations changes
and hence we should look at social relations as a whole
rather than segregating parts of it such as population or
environment as causes of change .
Like her there were other scholars too who had totally
different opinions. One being Robert braidwood, states that
agriculture was the natural outcome from social and cultural
complexities. Using a cultural approach, Braidwood suggests
that agriculture was not possible before because the human
cognition wasn’t fully developed and complex enough to
suggest any such type of food gathering methods.
Agriculture requires a lot of coordination and management
controlled by the elites, therefore, it could be said that with
the presence of social hierarchies, sedentism was also
established. The favorable environment of the “hilly flanks”
as well as the presence of the ancestral or wild strains of the
now domesticated plants offered foragers the option to
settle down. With settling down in the optimal zones, as well
as the accumulation of knowledge about the physical
environment, Braidwood suggests that over time, foragers
would “eventually realize the potential inherent in the local
flora and fauna and would exploit that potential by
domesticating appropriate species” . Braidwood argues
agriculture appears only when the human culture was
mature. Another such opinion was by Kent Flannery his view
was that there were other ways too by which the
equilibrium could be disturbed. he said that the shift to
agriculture wasn’t drastic . The hunting gathering economy
was disturbed by upper Paleolithic people who started
paying more attention to certain type of plants . according to
him there might have been accidental mutations in some of
the species , these mutations brought changes as increasing
their growth as people started paying more heed to these
species and encouraging their growth . Flannery’s theory
was based on evidence of origins of agriculture in the
American continent example of maize which grew in
abundance naturally which encouraged people to collect
them to a greater extent as dependence on these species
grew the next stage was to intervene in nature by
domesticating these mutant forms . The broad spectrum
revolution as Flannery calls it, took place in marginal areas
like West Asia, in these areas it was necessary to look for all
the ways to procure food and because of which people living
in these areas were more open to experimentation. The
drawback of his theory is that he only focused upon one
region and related it to the origin of agriculture for the entire
world. Brian Hayden in his study, ‘models of domestication’,
he argues that in a hunter-gatherer society living in
fluctuating environment , food is shared and therefore there
is no need to produce extra , but in a stable environment
with plenty food resources and food sharing is not being
followed , competition among ambitious individuals may led
to competitive feast to gain control over labour and loyalty .
There is a need to generate large amount of food .
Jack Harlan proposed three centers , designating the other
centers with large diffuse regions as non centers . He states
“Agriculture in Africa is basically non-centers … When all
this began is still a matter of conjecture” . Harlan believes
that people may have invented agriculture not out of
necessity , but for convenience , fun , or various ethno-
religious motives: “Agriculture is not due to an idea, a
discovery, an invention, a revelation , nor even a goddess”.
“Domestication is not as difficult as one thinks”. “Man knows
what he needs to know or learns what he must or else he
dies”. According to him agricultural economies developed
not so much for food supply but for help in building great
civilizations, with their splendor, wealth, power, and
mystiques.

My own opinion is to recognize the fact that human beings

are very much different and their motivations are always
complex and never simple so it’s difficult to just choose one
single aspect as the reason for the advent of agriculture .
What happened in Southeast Asia may not have happened in
Southwest Asia at all. The patterns in Africa may not be the
same as the patterns in Mexico. A search for a single cause
for human behavior is likely to be inadequate. But as a more
possible factor which could have resulted in domestication
of plant and animals could be the role of climate change . It’s
because of climate change that people had to change there
existing patterns of living , and not only this all the other
factors are a result of this huge change in the atmosphere
such as change in social relations , population growth ,
sedentism, exchanges between groups etc all these factors
are inter-related and helped each other to develop further.
Population growth according to me is not the only prime
mover , it no doubts helps in evolving the human society .
Climate change took place and then all these factors started
to take form gradually such as people started settling at
some favorable areas which then resulted in increase in
population and side by side people started finding new ways
to subsist which further resulted in coming up of surplus ,
coming of an authority , societies becoming more and more
complex than before. All these processes were not sudden
or drastic rather they were more gradual and long term.