The Agricultural Revolution By: Ryan Simpson & Martin Williamson

Before The Revolution People were nomadic, they moved around finding new shelter and following animals for food. Farming wasn’t around yet because of the lack of sophisticated tools. Did not have language, so the people could not communicate with others.

Origin of Revolution Began in Mesopotamia (the fertile crescent) around 8000-3000 B.C.E.

Impact on Environment Farming villages changed the lay of the land by changing the direction rivers flowed to better suit their needs. As more towns sprung up, roads were built to connect them causing a need to unearth stones. This activity led to a world where resources had to be constantly reconfigured to fit the needs of growing, stable populations.

Metal Use At the beginning of the Neolithic Era, people were sharpening stones to use as farm tools and weapons. People figured out how to mix 2 metals, copper and tin, to make a very hard metal (bronze), that they could use to make weapons and tools. This kick started the latter part of the Neolithic Era, called the Bronze Age.

Effect on Gender Relations Women were treated like they were less then men, but because of specialization of labor, many had jobs in textile production. This was the first example of women being treated as less then men.

Economic Results Specialization of Labor led to a food surplus and opened opportunities for people to create other goods such as pottery and textiles. More wealth was introduced into the environment so more was being used to purchase goods such as textiles, pottery and food.

Social Results This time of agriculture gave people their first chance to gain wealth. People who owned land accumulated wealth. Started causing social distinctions by wealth. Social classes were brought about when people consolidated money into their family and kept it there for generations. (caused clear social classes).

Role of Technology Metal: if it wasn’t used to create weapons and tools, society would not have progressed as quickly. The creation of the plow led to more land being cultivated and then a surplus of food (causes specialization of labor).

Articles “Around 6,000 years ago, farming reached northwestern Europe and quickly reshaped the social landscape. Within a century or two, the farmers' way of life became dominant. Many hunter-gatherers who had long inhabited the region faced a wrenching change as they adopted the strange new culture of agriculture. ."The idea that foragers made a seamless, gradual transition to farming is unrealistic and has no sound evidence to support it," says Harvard University archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef, who contributed to a special supplement of the Aug.-Oct. 2004 Current Anthropology on the topic of agricultural revolutions of Neolithic Europe and the Middle East. Those transformations triggered the growth of complex societies and religious beliefs, Bar-Yosef contends.” An excerpt from “Science News” by Bruce Bowers in February, 2005. Analysis: Ties into the theme of development and interaction of cultures because it shows how the agricultural society is being created but also expresses the idea that the transition from nomadic society to agricultural might have not been as quick as earlier thought. “Is it impossible to imagine something similar between hunters and animals? The first domestication of an animal, the dog, was clearly a sort of love affair (probably the work not of men or women but children). The hunter's magical relation with the game is transformed into a symbiosis, a cross-species solidarity or love, as with the Masai for their cattle or the Sami for their reindeer. Plants and animals are all living beings and living beings eat each other--which scarcely rules out the simultaneous and even necessary element of passion. The Rig Veda is interesting on this point.A great deal of confusion rises out of the unfortunate term "Agricultural Revolution" to describe the early Neolithic. In Fourier's sense of the term, agriculture doesn't appear till the end of the Neolithic and then only in connection with metallurgy and the emergence of the State. The Neolithic itself is horticultural and pre-pastoral. (True nomadic pastoralism of the "barbarian" type can only exist in relation to civilized agriculture as its antithesis, as Ibn Khaldun first pointed out.)” An excerpt from “Fifth Estate” by Peter Wilson, Summer of 2004. Analysis: This article ties into the theme of interactions between humans and environment. It shows that before the Neolithic revolution, how people got along so well with animals and how well life went on for them. It also brings about the idea that the agricultural revolution that we are speaking of, he doesn’t consider the real one. He believes that real agriculture came about later, after the Neolithic era.

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