Origin of Agriculture: Middle East and Mesoamerica - Essay Example

? Origin of Agriculture: middle East and Mesoamerica A Paper Submitted to In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course (Course) By (Name of Student) Introduction Agriculture is the practice of rearing animals and cultivation of plants, fungi as well as other products utilized to sustain life. Actually, agriculture was the major aspect behind the evolution of human civilization (Gopal and Srivastava 2008,p.107). The type of agriculture that was developed at the beginning and still is being practiced by some countries is subsistence farming. This entirely was based on producing plants and animals specifically to be used by the family and not for commercial purpose as it is witnessed to day. This paper therefore will compare and contrast the origin of agriculture. Theories that explain the origin of agriculture Many scholars top day have come up with various explanation that try to unravel the past development of agriculture. According to most suggestions, there must have been an unexpected change from gatherer-hunter to agricultural communities after a time during which particular crops may have been intentionally planted to mitigate for shortages of game as well as other food crops acquired in the wild at that time (Vasey 2002,p.23). Even though localized climate change seem to be the most favored justification for the agricultural origin, the case that domesticated agriculture was 'invented, proposes that social reasons could have been much instrumental. According to the Oasis hypothesis which was popularized in 1908 by Raphael Pumpelly and Vere Gordon Childe in their book titled Man Makes Himself, the hypothesis states that as the climate became drier, many societies contracted to water points where they became shaped into close relationship with wild animals which were later reared together with other useful crops. However this kind of explanation falls short of materiality as climatic data that are available do not seem to support it (Childe 1981,p.13). Alternatively, the Hilly Flanks theory that was in the first time put forward in 1948 by Robert Braidwood, infers that domesticated agriculture initially started in the hilly places of the Zagros and Taurus Mountain. Basing on this proposition, agriculture began as a result of intensive gathering of grain in the region. On the other hand, the Feasting model that has greatly come to be a major point of focus by most popularists, indicate that domesticated agriculture was majorly driven by pretentious power displays, like feast throwing to exercise dominance. Basing on this theory, this aspect called for collection of large amounts of food which again marked the inception agricultural technology (Wadley and Martin 1993,pp.96-105). Moreover, Demographic hypothesis was put forward by Carl Sauer and popularized by Kent Flannery and Lewis Binford. All this persons seem to agree on the fact that a progressively more sedentary human population, escalating beyond the local environments carrying capacity as well as demanding more food than what was available through gathering prompted the domestication of crops and animals for self sufficiency. Also, the intentionality theory which is at times called the evolutionary theory, has been advanced by several scholars as well as David Rindos, revolves around the notion that domesticated agriculture was as a result of a co-evolutionary adjustment of humans and plants. The theory also indicates that this process began with domestication by protecting wild plants, and then followed specialization and finally domestication. Middle East In Middle East domesticated agriculture is said to have first been practiced at Mesopotamia around 7000 BC as this place is believed to have been the most fertile place in the region. About this time rice but wheat was the primary crop and was majorly carried out by the Sumerians (Bellwood 2005,p.42). However as of to date, identifying the precise agricultural origin in the region remains problematic for the reason that the change from gatherer-hunter communities started many years before the discovery of writing. For instance, archaeological and anthropological proof from different sites across North Africa and Southwest Asia depict the utilization of wild grain. Besides, there is some indication of trait selection and planned cultivation: Rye grains which have been found to contain some domestic qualities have been gotten from Epi-Palaeolithic in Syria, though this looks like a much localized observable fact emanating from domestication of wild rye, relative to a definitive stride towards crop domestication. Previously, paleoethnobotanists and archaeobotanists are said to have successfully traced the assortment and domestication of particular crops traits in the process to unravel the agricultural origin. One notable instance is the common semi-tough rachis which traced to the Younger Dryas roughly 9500 BC in the Levent region (Fertile Crescent) during the early Holocene period. Nonetheless, findings have indicated that monophyletic traits achieved without any kind of human intervention, depicting that the things that some people were taking as cultivation amongst rachis crops could have just come naturally. In the actual fact, the timescale relied upon for the domestication of rachis (about. 3000 years ago) has coincidentally been found to correspond with the statistically fashioned timeframe that would be needed for the monophyly to be attained indicating that if human intervention actually took place then the timescale which gives some precise information should definitely shorter relative 3000 years. Mesoamerica In Mesoamerica, agriculture was developed via human selection almost 600 years ago. This aspect the slowly spread across N. America and the major domesticated crop during this time was maize. The striking thing behind the development of agriculture in Mesoamerica was the economy. The people that carried out agriculture were majorly concentrated around Lake Texcoco as it was viewed as the most fertile place though not sizeable enough to produce sufficient food required for its ever enlarging empire. The Aztecs who were the major farmers carried out agriculture through forming of terraced hillsides, developing irrigation systems as well as fertilizing their soil. Though, their fur-reaching agricultural system was known as the artificial islands, or chinampas, also referred to as the floating gardens (Carmack and Gasco 2002,pp.28-107). They were employed to make the flooded areas near the lake to be used as farming grounds. The farmers used to make chinampas by way of digging channels through the marshy shores and islands, after which mud was pilled on massive mats mainly made from reeds. During this process, the mats that were used for holding the heaped mud were fixed by anchoring them to big posts that were always laid into the lake. Besides, the trees were always planted at their corners just in the process of securing the islands permanently. Conclusion Basing on the discussion, the exact origin of agriculture still remains a mystery. That is why the issue has attracted various suggestions from different people which try to explain its origin. This majorly has been attributed to the fact that, at the time agriculture came into existence there were no formal methods of recording data. However, this does not mean the information relied on to day is not dependable. Bibliography Bellwood, Peter. First farmers : the origins of agricultural societies. Malden: Blackwell Publ., 2005. Carmack, Robert, and Janine Gasco. The legacy of Mesoamerica : history and culture of a native American civilization. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2002. Childe, Gordon. Man makes himself. Bradford: Moonraker Press, 1981. Gopal, Lallanji, and V Srivastava. History of agriculture in India, up to c. 1200 A.D. New Delhi : CSC and Concept Pub. , 2008. Vasey, Daniel. An An Ecological History of Agriculture 10,000 BC to AD 10,000. New York: Purdue University Press, 2002. Wadley, Greg, and Angus Martin. The origins of agriculture: a biological perspective and a new hypothesis. Sydney: Australian Biologist, 1993. Read More