The Agricultural Revolution

Question 1

What were humans 15k years ago?

Answer 1

Foragers and Hunters

Question 2

Define Foraging

Answer 2

Gathering fruits, nuts, wild grains and grasses

Question 3

What was the best hunting ‘gig’? Why?

Answer 3

Fishing; Fish were abundant and relatively unlikely to eat you.

Question 4

How does fishing shape our settlements?

Answer 4

Because of fishing people generally settled towards the shores (ie. lower Mediterranean, UK, Egypt, India, Mexico, South America, China)

Question 5

How was the workload for a Neanderthal?

Answer 5

Relatively short - They were healthy (strong skeletal system), and the light workload gave them more time for art and music, storytelling, and reproducing.

Question 6

How did the Agricultural Revolution start?

Answer 6

Over the course of millennia, many settlements independently chose to shift to agriculture after they grew/harvested the crops found around their settlements: West Africa (yams), China (rice), Mexico (Corn), Andes region (potatoes), Fertile Crescent (wheat)

Question 7

Advantages of Agriculture

Answer 7

1. Controllable food supply (better chance of not starving)
2. Can create a food surplus, making cities and the specialization of labor possible since you don’t need jobs directly linked to getting food like in Neolithic Era
3. Agriculture can be practiced worldwide (although it may need radical manipulation of the environment, like irrigation controlled flooding, and terracing)

Question 8

Disadvantages of Agriculture

Answer 8

1. Must radically change the environment to meet the demand for food
2. Cities that agriculture creates can be damaging to the environment
3. Farming is hard, so it lead to slavery

Question 9

Define Herding

Answer 9

Alternative to foraging and agriculture: you domesticate animals and then bring them on the road with you

Question 10

Advantages of Herding

Answer 10

1. You get to be a cowboy

2. The animals can provide wool and leather

Question 11

Disadvantages of Herding

Answer 11

1. Since your herd always needs new grass, you need to move around a lot so it’s hard to build cities

Question 12

Why did herding not catch on everywhere in the world?

Answer 12

There aren’t that many animals that end themselves to domestication: Sheep, goats, cattle, pig, horses, camels, donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks - all of which aren’t Native to the Americas - only the llama, which isn’t that useful.

Question 13

Animals that don’t work with domestication:

Answer 13

Grizzly bears, hippos, zebras (ornery), elephants (22 month pregnancy for 1 kid)

Question 14

What’s the greatest evolutionary advantage for an animal?

Answer 14

Being useful to humans

Question 15

Why did the agricultural revolution occur?

Answer 15

No records, but historians can hypothesize that:
1. Population pressure necessitated agriculture even though it’s more work
2. Abundance gave people leisure to experiment with domestication
3. Planting originated as a fertility rite
or
4. People needed to produce more grains in order to make more alcohol
5. The knowledge that seeds germinate when planted fueled our evolutionary desire to eat more so we planted more seeds