Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

genetic analyses show that modern strains of wheat, peas, and lentils all
came from a small sample of wild varieties. Domestication of plants fundamental
to our modern diet occurred in just a few places and times when
people began to more intensively exploit what had until then been secondary
resources.
The earliest known semiagricultural people lived on the slopes of the
Zagros Mountains between Iraq and Iran about 11,000 to 9000 bc (or thirteen
thousand to eleven thousand years ago). Surviving by hunting
gazelles, sheep, and goats and gathering wild cereals and legumes, these
people occupied small villages but made extensive use of seasonal hunting
camps and caves. By 7500 bc herding and cultivation replaced hunting and
gathering as the mainstay of their diet and settled villages of up to twentyfive
households kept sheep and goats and grew wheat, barley, and peas. By
then hunting accounted for only about 5 percent of their food. Why the
big change, and why then and there?
The earliest evidence for systematic cultivation of grains comes from
Abu Hureyra in the headwaters of the Euphrates River in modern Syria.
The archaeological record from this site shows that cultivation began in
response to a period when the drier conditions of glacial times abruptly
returned after thousands of years of climatic amelioration. Abu Hureyra
provides a unique record of the transition from the hunter-gathering
lifestyle of the last glacial era to cereal-based agriculture. Moreover, evidence
from the site helps explain why people adopted the labor-intensive
business of agriculture. They were forced into it.
As glaciation ended, the Levant gradually warmed and received increasing
rainfall. From about 13,000 to 11,000 bc open oak forest gradually
replaced the grasslands of the glacial steppe. A core drilled from the bed of
Lake Huleh in northeastern Israel shows that tree pollen increased from a
fifth to three-quarters of all the pollen during this period. Abundant game
and wild grains (especially rye and wheat) made for an edenic landscape
with few people and lots of resources. Sedentary communities of huntergatherers
began to take root in locations where resources were particularly
abundant.
Then the world’s climate reverted to almost full glacial conditions for a
thousand years, from about 10,000 to 9000 bc, a period known as the
Younger Dryas. Arboreal pollen dropped back to less than a quarter of the
total amount of pollen, indicating a sharp decline in precipitation and a
return to the steppelike conditions of the glacial climate. The forest retreated
northward, away from the world’s first settled community.
rivers of life 31