Lecture 21 Unintended consequences - Environment Flashcards
GLOBALIZATION
Process of international integration,
and interconnectedness
* Trade and transactions
* Capital and investment movement
* Migration and movement of people
* Dissemination of knowledge
FOOD MILES
Food mile: distance food is transported from its production until it reaches the consumer (or measurement of the fuel used to transport it).
One factor used when testing the
environmental impact of food –CO2 emissions involved in transport
Doesn’t consider environment impact of production
FOOD MILES
Our total food miles: 785,716 (n=25)
Average food miles: 30,200
Number of times around the earth: 19.6
Number of times to the moon in a year: 106.3
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT DOMESTICATION?
Food security relates to
the supply of food, and
individuals’ access to it.
Incorporates measure of
resiliences to future
disruption or unavailability of critical
food supply due to various risk factors (e.g., droughts, shipping
disruptions, fuel shortages, economic
instability, wars…)[7] &
Covid-19!
WHEN DO WE DATE
THE BEGINNING OF
GLOBALIZATION?
SPREAD OF
AGRICULTURE
INTO EUROPE
Farming introduced from Anatolia ca. 6,500 BC
1st settled in Balkans
Spread in 2 routes: Aegean and Danube
MODELS FOR THE SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE
- Demic Model (wave of advance)
- Cultural Diffisuion
Demic model
(Wave of Advance)
Progressive dispersal of Neolithic farmers into Europe
Admixture/replacement of incoming
farmers with local Mesolithic hunter-
gatherers
Cultural Diffusion
Agricultural knowledge and
technologies diffused from Fertile
Crescent into Europe
Little demographic expansion of
farmers
INSIGHTS FROM ANCIENT GENETICS
Support for ‘demic’ migration of
Anatolians into Europe
H-G and earliest farmers genetically
distinct (10% admixture?)
Greater H-G contribution in
Scandinavia, and later Neolithic
Bronze age movement of
Yamnaya Steppe herders into
Europe
EVIDENCE FOR TRACING
GLOBALIZATION
Archaeological:
New material culture (pots, plows, grinding stones)
Osteological:
Domestication syndrome; plastic responses
Change in disease prevalence
Biomolecular:
Stable isotope analysis: C3/C4 plants, terrestrial/marine
DNA analysis: new populations of humans or animals
Residue analysis: new domestic foods, secondary products
EVIDENCE FOR TRACING GLOBALIZATION
Iconography:
Imagery of imported products
Botanical records
Historical evidence:
Diaries, literary sources, recipe books
Legal documents, tax records
Oral histories:
Linguistic evidence
EVIDENCE FOR TRANSPORTING
LANDSCAPES
1) Reduction in diversity with
movement away from the origin;
2) Collapse or transformation of
the original agricultural package;
3) Emergence of culinary frontiers
REDUCTION IN CROP
DIVERSITY
Diversity of crops and weeds
decline as human transport
landscapes
Agriculture may expand more
quickly than adaptation to new
ecological conditions can occur
(northern margins)
Cultural adaptations – social
preferences may inhibit the
adoption or spread of crops
COLLAPSE OR
TRANSFORMATION
Human brings crops into new areas to which they are not adapted:
- Collapse – agricultural systems abandoned;
- Transformation – new ecological systems of food productions.
Cereal farming introduced(4000BC) > Farming declines, wild foods persist (3300BC) > Cereal farming abandoned(2000BC)
1st package:
emmer
barley,
flax
Farming reintroduced(2500 BC) >Wild foods abandoned(1600BC)
2nd package:
spelt,
summer
wheat &
barley, pea,
broad bean
Pollen shows re-forestation
Collapse and Transformation
TRANSFORMATION IN EUROPE
Alteration of genetic control of
seasonality especially flowering and
length of growing season.
* Short day plants (fall flowering)
* Long-day plants (spring flowering)
Secondary domestication or adoption of local crops
* Oats and rye – secondarily
domesticated in Bronze and Iron age
in Europe – hardier
when a population of plants or microbes is domesticated again after an initial domestication event
CULINARY FRONTIERS
Cooking traditions
* Western Eurasia- breads, ovens, roasting
* Eastern Asia – boiling and steaming
Selection for ‘sticky’ rice and grains in
the East, selection against sticky
varietals in western Eurasia
Adoption of porridges and bread wheat varieties in Europe
SPICE TRADE & SILK ROAD
Spice trade began in Bronze age (3000 BC)
Economically important
* Form of currency
Silk trade (200 BC)
Old World connections
COLUMBIAN
EXCHANGE
Widespread transfer of plants, animals,
technology, diseases, and ideas between the New World (Americas)
and the Old World (Africa, Asia, Europe) in the 15th and 16th
ECOLOGICAL
CONSEQUENCES OF
GLOBALIZATION
Global expansion of favoured plants and animals
Spread of agriculturally associated pathogens
Changes in biodiversity (weedy/commensal species,
native floral/faunal extinctions)
Ecological/climate changes (deforestation, erosion,
eutrophication, increased methane/CO2)
Increased carrying capacity (intensification, managed landscapes, increased diet breath)
Significant prehistoric and historic
range expansion with major ecological impacts, such as deforestation, spread of invasive weedy species, increased soil erosion and CO2
Biomass of wild vertebrates is now
vanishingly small compared with
that of domestic animals;
spread of
commensal animals associated with
disease (rats=plague)
EXTINCTION OF LOCAL
FAUNA
Extinction of thylacine and Tasmanian devil in Mainland Australia ca. 3,200 BP
Dingo arrived ca. 4,000 BP; not in
Tasmania
High-quality fossil dates support a synchronous, Late Holocene extinction of devils and thylacines in mainland Australia. Biol. Lett. 14.
