Abstract
This article reviews the main theories about the Neolithic Revolution and domestication of plants and animals and assesses some hypothesizes about the topic of this article. At the primary stage of the evolution of human civilization, the rise of agriculture in the later part of stone age, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, was ultimately necessary to keep pace with the change and transposition both in the social variables and the climate. It was needed to establish the foundation (domestication) of agriculture for a more carefree and comfortable life of which the life of a vagabond devoids. Certainly climatic change through time and over places is one of the significant factors that played their role to develop modern agriculture. The temper of climate changes both geographically and chronologically. History of agriculture shows that man’s quest for comfort has forced him to change his mode of agriculture and to opt for a newer one but it is climate that man has had to, and still has to confront and it always determines his mode of domestication of plants and animals. In this assignment our discussion will be thyoroughly on Neolithic revolution, climatic change, domestication of plants and animals, and finally we will end it up showing an correlation between the rise of agriculture and the change of climate.
Introduction to the Neolithic Revolution
The concept “Neolithic Revolution” is very much related with history of introduction of new farming tools, methods and modes of in the field of tillage and husbandry. Several estimation asserts that “Neolithic Revolution” held about (I did not understand it. 12000 and 8000 years) ago. But it is assumed that the revolution in agriculture was not brought about overnight. The beginning of Neolithic agricultural revolution was inevitable and then one of the most important events in human cultural history (Weisdorf, 2005, p.561). At first this revolution started its onward progress in the Fertile Crescent around present day in Iraq and gradually it spreaded over the Middle East. Stone Age was at the end and man learnt to apply his knowledge of stone-made tools in the field of agriculture. Indeed man’s growing knowledge of handmade tools contributes a lot to end the stone age up. The term “Neolithic Revolution” is defined as “[t]he period is the old world where humans first learned to tend and eventually plant crops is known as the Neolithic period” (Archaeology About.com., n.d.).
Neolithic Revolution is one of the necessary steps of mankind towards modern age. The rise of agriculture is closely connected with Neolithic Revolution. In its development, the mode of agriculture has largely been affected and determined by several factors such as climate, geographical features of land, mode of life etc. Ancient man’s life that is usually known as of a vagabond was arduous, laborious ans full of uncertainty. This uncertain life style did not ensure him the guarante of food, shelter and other needs of life. As a result this uncertainty forced him to seek for a safer mode of life that would promise him the needs of life. This impulse and the knowledge of stone tools, gained from stone age, forced him to domesticate plants and animal as a safer means of life. Revolution in man’s agricultural life began and the settlement around their farming area led to the formation of village, town, city etc. Gradually people came to know how to cultivate plants and how to domesticate the wild animals. In course of time they learnt some farming related climatology.
Correlation between Neolithic Revolution and Climatic Change
Neolithic revolution is not a matter of few days’ change, rather it took place through years after years. Indeed at the later part of the stone age the rise of agriculture was partly contributed to by the gradual transition in the climate. Man was learning to domesticate plants and animal for his easy access to cope with the change. “Domestication involves both culture and biology” (Clutton-Brock, 1992). The process of domestication of plants and animals at first began in the Middle East between the periods 8500 to 7000 BC. These climate shifts promoted the migration of many big game animals to new pasturelands in northern areas. They also left a dwindling supply of game for human hunters in areas such as the Middle East, where agriculture first arose and many animals were first domesticated.’ At the first step, horse, sheep, dog, goat, pig etc. were domesticated for meet, wool and milk. At the same time, coconuts, rice, bananas, wheat etc, were started to cultivate. Now let clear the idea what domestication actually is: “[d]omestication means altering the behaviors, size and genetic of animals and plants” (Archaeology About.com., n.d.). The following graph upholds the relationship between the rise of agriculture and the changes in climate:
Domestication of Plants and animals in Neolithic Revolution
The development of agriculture did not come naturally (OECD, 2003). The cultivation of plants needed more labour and gathering than hunting as a means of life. But the change in climate confronted man to a large extent. It is said that at the later part of Stone Age human being left their previous means of life reluctantly and slowly to cope with the change context. About 7000 B.C people grew dependence on their farming skill. At about 8000 and 3500 B.C. the increasing number of people changed their dependency to cultivated crops and domestication of animals for their survival by use of tools for cultivation.
All the factors -the trend to a parmanent or semi-parmanent lifesyle, the increasing labour and uncertainty in nomadic life, the growing painstaking nature of hunting, chronological changes in nature and an overall modification in natural environment, growth population contributed simultaenionsly to the development of the plants. It was the growing dependence of man on vegetable and cereal foods. But how much the change in climate and natural phenomena contirbuted to the emergence of the other factors is hypothetical. It is more safe to assign an interrelated relationship between the factors behind the Neolithic Revolution.
The Changes and its Impacts on the Domestication of Plants and Animals
About the beginning of Neolithic Revolution climate began to be drier. As a result there occurred a gradual change in the production of various plants that supplied food value to both man and widlife surviving about the period. Both man and wildlife drew near the oasis for survival. Therefore a trend of settlement was initiated in the hunters’ lifestyle. They were incresingly gathering arund the creeks, pools and oasis of the land. But this hypothesis has not been vindicated by enough archaic evidences. (Gordon Childe (1936). Man Makes Himself. Oxford university press.) But as chronlogical changes in the climate has played critical role in the evolution of bio-world, the hypothesis is strong enough to a render supportable picture of the development of agriculture in the later part of stone age. So it can be assumed that climatic change is precedent to all other factors.
The growing occurrence of drastic natural changes led to the alteration of ecological landscape and at same time to the adaptation to faunal adaptation.
The changes began to occur about 27000 years ago. As some recent archaeological research on Yana River, Siberia, asserts: humans adapted to the harsh, frigid climate of the arctic during the late Pleistocene about 27,000 year ago’. (3. Pitulko, V. V. et al., The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum. Science, 2004, 303, 52–56.)
Adaptability and migratory features were adopted by human being in response to severe climate changes. This is the case almost for all the known areas of human history. “Climatic changes associated with the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age (about 12000 B.C.) may have played an important role. These climate shifts promoted the migration of many big game animals to new pasturelands in northern areas.’ (Guisepi, n.d.). In Sahara the features and the impact of climatic are visible. The form of life existing around the area adapted in Sahara Deserts in the late Holocene.’ (4. Enzel, Y. et al., High-resolution Holocene environmental changes in the Thar Desert, Northwestern India. Science, 1999, 284, 125–128.) The downfall of some examples of civilizations such as of the Akkadian, Classic Maya, Tiwanaku and Mochica was due to this climate changes. (7. Haug, G. H. et al., Climate and the collapse of Maya civilization. Science, 2003, 299, 1731–1735.) The events of their perishing prove the persistent multi-century shifts in climate during the Neolithic revolution.
The rise and fall of human civilizations in South Asia have also been climatically mediated8. The effect of persistentabrupt climate changes has been equally drastic on the without human intervention’. (Origin of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration).
However to cope with these drastic changes the surviving human societies had to grow there dependence on vegetation, fruit etc. that led them to the culture of domestication. As the climate ameliorated, there was an increase in vegetation and peoplechanged their food habits and lifestyle.’(Origin of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration).
Mode of Agriculture and Domestication in response to the Climate in Different Areas
It is remarkable that the changes in climate varied from place to place according to its geographical position on the globe. There were some geographical factors that contributed to these variations. Due to the geo-climatic changes different types of vegetation and plants dominated the other types. As a result various animals living on the respective plants prevail over others. The mode of change and its impact on the ecology of a particular area had determined the mode of agriculture. For example, where there was the plentiful production of less potential plants, the domestication of animals that lived on those plentiful plants, proved to be more profitable. Again the adaptation power of a particular species of plants or animals helped societies to adopt different types of domestication.
Climate shifts also led to changes in the distribution and growing pattern of wild grains and other crops on which hunters and gatherers depended” (Guisepi, n.d.).
The following table renders an overall picture of domestication:
Table 1. Areas and minimum ages for domestication of selected animals and plants around the world (from Simmons12; Allchin and Allchin11):
Domestication of animals and plants in Different part of the world
In the Fertile Crescent of Middle East is closely connected with the Neolithic revolution. It is the end of the Ice Age affected the pattern of their lifestyle. People began to depend on agriculture as a means of life. They started to cultivate food crops and vegetable. The dwindling number of the wild animal forced them to domesticate wild animal to sustain the supply of meat. They started to domesticate the animals and plants sustainable in the prevailing environment.
Domestication of Plants
During their peril due to the climatic change in the Ice Age the people here started to cultivate the wild seeds of cereal, wheat, barley, etc manually. These types of crops were suitable for the Mediterranean Climate that was naturally drier and hot. These crops were suitable with a little rain. Again the remnants after being harvested were widely used to feed their cattle. By about 10000 years ago, wheat was first domesticated in Turkey. Wheat is one of the earliest crops of domestication by the ancestors of the Middle East.
Domestication of Rice
There are many questions about the place and time of domestication of Rice. But the researcher findings shows, rice was first cultivated in Asia before about 10000 B.C… The people who first cultivation cereals grains had long observed them growing is the wild and gleaned their seeds as they gathered other plants for their leaves and roots. Among the people who first cultivation cereals grains had long observed them growing is the wild and gleaned their seeds as they gathered other plants for their leaves and roots day Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel (Guisepi, n.d.).
Domestication of Goats
Goats belong to that type of animals which first or domesticated at the very earlier time of domestication p. By about 10500-10800 years ago, Neolithic farmer began keeping small hands of goats for their milk, meat, dung, as well as for materials for clothing and building: hair bone and sinew. (About.com archaeology).
Camel was first domesticated in the Middle Eastern region. The sustainability of camel in hot weather allowed the people here to domesticate the animal widely. Besides, the people also started to pet the sheep, goats and other sustainable animals. Horse and donkey were domesticated as beasts of burden.
None can exactly say where and when first chicken became domesticated. But it is said, it was most likely 8000 years ago when chicken domesticated in Thailand.
The cattle herding for domestication begins when animals are incorporated into the social structure of a human community and become objects of ownership, inheritance, purchase and exchange (Clutton-Brock, 1992). “Most of the archeologist agrees on the point that the cattle herding was first domesticated in the Western Asia by about 6000 B.C. and in the Eastern Sahara Desert about 1000 years earlier” (About.com: Archaeology).
Conclusion
The purpose of this article was to acquaint the reader with the main theories and evidence on the origin the Neolithic Revolution and the impact of climate change on it. The main part of the study has provided a brief historical survey of the leading hypotheses for the factors of the Neolithic Revolution and the process of domestication culture that initiate the period, while last part of the study was to acquaint the reader with the showing the comparative discussion of in how process the environment is changing and the rise of agriculture (Neolithic Revolution) is going up. The change in climate has strong effects of domestication process of plants and animals. The rise of agriculture and climate change is closely connected to each other. In some cases, they are positively correlated and in some cases, they are negative. But the climate change in recent time is now shown as the threat to mankind even to the survival to this civilization.
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