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The same dynamics of growing populations crowded into restricted territories developed in the Nile valley as a result of Holocene climate change. During the late Ice Age¸ the valley was a rich¸ diverse habitat¸ abounding in game¸ fish¸ wild plant foods. Wild cereal grasses were important in human diet from at least 15¸ 000 years ago.

The Nile valley is unusual in that its water supply depend not on local rains but on floods from rainfall gathered far upstream in Ethiopia. The fluctuations in these years in – undations had a profound effect on the pattern of human settlement downstream. The ir–regular cycles of higher and lower rainfall may have caused people to manage wild flood resources very carefully. Like their southwest Asian counterparts¸ they turned to the deliberate cultivation. of wild barley and wheat.

By 6¸000 B.C.E.¸ dozens of farming villages flourished in the Nile Valley¸ settlements that are now buried beneath deep layers of sand and gravel laid down by thousands of years of river floods. Only 1500 years later¸ the inhabitants of the valley were subsisting almost entirely off agriculture¸ living in small villages like Merimda Beni Salama near the Nile valley. Merimda was a cluster of oval houses and shelters¸ built half underground and roofed with mud and sticks. The farmers planted barley and wheat as the annual floods receded¸ while their animals grazed in flat river grasslands. Population densities were still low¸ so the average Nile flood allowed early Egyptian farmers to harvest grain over perhaps two–thirds of the river flood plan Thus¸ there was no need for irrigation works¸ which appear in about 3000 B.C.E.¸ when Egypt became a unified state.

After 6000 B.C.E.¸ cattle herders ranged widely over the semi–arid grasslands of what is now the Sahara Desert. These nomads left superb well paintings of their beasts in the caves and rock shelters of the Saharan highlands¸ grazing their herds along the shores of shallow lakes like a much larger Lake Chad on the southern edge of the desert. The Sahara dried up rapidly after 6000 B.C.E.¸ forcing its cattle–herding population into permanent oases or to the fringes of the desert. However¸ it was not until much later¸ around 1000 B.C.E.¸ that herders moved onto sub–Saharan East Africa– and that West Africans domesticated such tropical cereals as sorghum and millet.

European Farmers ¦ 6500 to 3000 B.C.E.

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The new economies were so successful that they spread rapidly from southwestern Asia into contiguous areas¸ especially as forager populations rose and natural food supplies were longer sufficient to support increasingly sedentary forager groups. Many of them turned to food production to supplement their age–old game¸ plant¸ and fish diet. By using mosaic of key sites and radiocarbon dates¸ we can trace the spread of farming over wide areas of Europe and southern Asia.

Agriculture and animal domestication spread rapidly north into Turkey after 10¸000 B.C.E.¸ and from there into Greece¸ the Balkans¸ and temperate Europe. Between 9500 and 6000 B.C.E.¸ long distance exchange¸ especially of obsidian for ornaments and tool making¸ became a major factor in daily life. From Turkey´s Lake Van it traveled to the Levant and as far afield as the Persian Gulf. A few settlements like CatalhÖyÜk prospered by controlling the trade. In about 7000 B.C.E.¸ CatalhÖyÜk covered 32 acres (13 hectares)¸ a settlement of numerous small mud–brick houses backed onto one another¸ the outside walls serving as a convenient defense wall. However¸ the large village never became a full–fledged city. There were no powerful leaders who monopolized trade and production. It was a community of individual households and families that lacked the elaborate¸ centralized organization of a city.

At the time CatalhÖyÜk was a bustling village¸ farming was already well established on the Aegean Islands¸ in Greece¸ and in parts of southeastern Europe. Since the end of the Ice Age¸ Europe had been the home of numerous¸ scattered forager groups who lived off forest game¸ plant foods¸ and sea and freshwater fish and mollusks. As in Asia¸ these populations were pre–adapted to cultivation and animal domestication¸ especially in areas where short–term population shifts and local environmental change may have required new subsistence strategies.

Domesticated animals and grains were probably introduced into southeast Europe from Asia by local bartering. The plants were cereals like emmer and bread wheat¸ which were demanding crops that extracted large quantities of nutrients from the soil. The farmers had to husband their land carefully¸ rotating cereals with nitrogen–fixing legumes and revitalizing their fields with animal manure. Thus was born the European farming system the carefully integrated cultivation and animal rearing into a close–knit subsistence strategy based on individual households supplying their own food needs. Temperate Europe has year–round rainfall and marked contrasts between summer and winter seasons. With plentiful wood and cooler temperatures¸ timber and thatch therefore replaced the mud–brick architecture of southwestern Asia.

The expansion of farming society into central and western Europe coincided with a cycle of higher rainfall and warmer winters around 5500 B.C.E. Within a thousand years¸ farming based on cattle herding combined with spring–sown crops developed over an enormous area of continental Europe. As farming groups spread across lighter soils¸ clearing forest for fields and grazing their animals in once–forested lands¸ many indigenous forager bands adopted the new economies. The best–known early European farming culture is named the Bandkearmik complex after its distinctive¸ line–decorated pottery. It first appeared in the Middle Danube valley in about 5500 B.C.E.¸ then spread rapidly along sheltered river valleys far west to southern Holland and east into parts of the Ukraine. Bandkearmik (Danubian) communities were well spaced¸ each with territories of some 500 acres (202 hectares). The people lived in long¸ rectangular timber–and–thatch houses¸ from 18 to 46 feet (5.4 to 14 meters) long¸ presumably sheltering families¸ their grain and their animals. Between 40 to 60 people lived in Bandleramik villages.

As the centuries passed¸ the population rose rapidly and the gaps between individual settlements filled in. In time¸ villages territories became more circumscribed¸ their settlements protected by earthen enclosures. This was a time when communal tombs came into fashion¸ among them the celebrated megaliths (Greek mega – lithos ¦ big stone) of western Europe. These were sepulchers fashioned from large boulders and buried under earthen mounds. Such corporate burial places may have been locations where revered kin leaders were buried; people with genealogical ties with the ancestors were of paramount importance to a group of farming communities with strong attachments to fertile lands. Judging from modern analogies¸ the ancestors were seen as the guardians of the land¸ the links between the living and the forces of the spiritual world that control human destiny.

Somewhat later¸ between about 2800 and 2300 B.C.E.¸ individual graves as well as communal sepulchers appeared. These may have been burial sites of individual leaders¸ prominent men who were laid to rest with their elaborate regalia of rank. They may have been the sole male ancestor of the group¸ the source of authority over land ownership. Chieftainship ¸ inheritance of land and wealth¸ was now legitimized ¸ as the character of European agriculture changed rapidly¸ partly as a result of the introduction of the plow by about 2800 B.C.E.

Early Agriculture in Asia
(before 6000 B.C.E.)

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A second major center of plant domestication developed in eastern Asia¸ where food production began almost as early as it did in southwestern Asia.

Rice Cultivation in Southern China

Rice was the staple of ancient agriculture over an enormous area of southern and southeastern Asia¸ and southern China. Today¸ rice accounts for half the food eaten by 1.7 billion people and 21 percent of the total calories consumed by humankind. Unfortunately¸ we still know almost nothing about the origins of this most important of domesticated crops.

Rice was one of the earliest plants to be domesticated in the northern parts of Southeast Asia and southern China. Botanists believe that the rices and Asian millets ancestral to be the present domesticated radiated from perennial ancestors around the eastern borders of the Himalaya Mountains at the end of the Ice Age. The initial cultivation of wild rice is thought to have taken place in an alluvial swamp area¸ where there was plenty of water to stimulate cereal growth. The first form to be domesticated may have flourished in shallow water¸ where seasonal flooding dispersed the seed on the border zone between permanently dry an permanently inundated lands. Perhaps this cultivation occurred in which seasonal flooding made field preparation a far from burdensome task. Such conditions could have been found on the Ganges Plain in India and along the rich coastal habitats of Southeast Asia and southern China with their dense mangrove swamps.

Perhaps the first efforts to cultivate rice resulted from deliberate efforts to expand seasonally inundated habitats by constructing encircling dams to trap runoff. The dams could then be breached´ flooding dry land that could be used for rice planting´ thereby creating additional stands of wild rice´ (paddies). Most likely´ a sedentary life–way based on the gathering of wild rice developed in low–lying¸ seasonally flooded areas at the beginning of the Holocene. Systematic cultivation resulted from a response to population growth¸ climatic change¸ or some other stress.

During the early Holocene¸ warmer conditions may have allowed wild rice to colonize the lakes and marshes of the middle and lower Yangtze Valley of southern China¸ when hunter– gatherer societies throughout China were exploiting a broad spectrum of animal and plant resources. An international team of researchers led by Richard MacNeish and Yan Wenming have excavated the important Xianredong and Wangdong cave sites¸ where they identify four phases of occupation going back deep into the late Ice Age¸ when the inhabitants ate wild rice. Between 9200 and 7550 B.C.E. the inhabitants may have begun cultivating rice since a wider range of artifacts possibly used for cultivation appear¸ as well as phytoliths (minute particles of silica from plant cells) of domesticated rice. They also made some of the earliest pottery in the world. Climatic data reveals a long period of warming conditions¸ followed by a cooler interval¸ during which rice cultivation may have begun¸ just as food production took hold in northern China during the same cooler interval.

By 300 B.C.E.¸ much more sophisticated agricultural societies were flourishing on the Yangtze River and father afield. The archaeology of these traditions is known primarily from cemetery excavations that show slow changes in grave goods. The earliest graves indicate few social differentiations ¸ but later sepulchers show not only a much wider variety of artifacts – pottery ¸ bone and stone tools ¸ jade objects ¸ and other ornaments – but also an increase in the number of elaborately adorned burials. China specialist Richard Person ¸ who has analyzed several cemeteries ¸ argues that they demonstrate an increase in the concentration wealth ¸ a trend toward ranked societies ¸ and a shift in the relative importance of males at the expense of females ; the last trend may be associated with the development of more intensive agriculture ¸ an activity in which males are valued for their major roles in cultivation.

First Farmers in Northern China

A second great center of early Chinese agriculture lies nearly 400 miles (650 Kilometers) north of the Yangtze ¸ where the Huang Ho River flows out of mountainous terrain into the low–lying plains of northern China. Northern Chinese agriculture was based on millet¸ whereas the southern staple was rice. The first northern agriculture communities were sited in the central regions of the Huang Ho River Valley. The area is a small basin¸ forming a border between the wooden western highland and the swampy lowlands to the east. As in the south¸ the early Holocene saw a warming trend¸ followed by a cooler interval¸ then a more prolonged period of climatic amelioration. It was during the cooler period¸ dating after 6500 B.C.E.¸ that the first sedentary farming villages appear in the Huang Ho Valley.

The fine¸ soft–textured earth of the valley was both homogeneous and porous and could be tilled by simple digging sticks. Because of the concentrated summer rainfall¸ cereal crops¸ the key to agriculture in the region¸ could be grown successfully. The indigenous plants available for domestication included the wild ancestors of foxtail millet ¸ broom– corn millet¸ sorghum¸ hemp¸ and the mulberry. Many villages lay near small streams on lower river terraces¸ along foothills and plains. Ancient Chinese farmers developed their own cultivation techniques¸ which persisted for thousands of years. By far the best known of China´s early farming cultures is the Yangshao ¸ which flourished over much of the Huang Ho River Basin¸ an area as large as the early centers of agriculture in Egypt or Mesopotamia ¸ from between 4800 B.C.E to about 3200 B.C.E.

Each Yangshao village was a self–contained community¸ built on a terrace overlooking fertile river valleys¸ situated to avoid flooding or to allow maximal use of floodplain soils. Using hoes and digging sticks¸ the farmers cultivated foxtail millet as a staple¸ mainly in riverside gardens that were flooded every spring. By 3000 B.C.E.¸ Yangshao was a characteristic¸ and thoroughly Chinese culture¸ with its own naturalistic art style¸ and expert potters who made cooking pots for steaming¸ the technique that forms the basis of much Chinese cuisine to this day. The Chinese language may have its roots in Yangshao as well. Many regional variations of peasant farming culture developed throughout China. Agriculture developed over wide areas at about the same time¸ with people adapting their crops and farming techniques to local conditions. In time¸ the success of the new economies led to local population increases¸ more complex cultures¸ and the concentration of wealth in privileged hands.

Site

Easton Down and the Avebury Landscape¸ England

The great earthworks and megalithic monuments of Western Europe did not stand alone. For example¸ the famous sacred circles at Avebury and Stonehenge in southern England lay at the center of vast¸ long vanished sacred landscaped, which were marked by burial mounds¸ enclosures¸ charnel houses¸ and other sites commemorating the ancestors. Avebury¸ north of Stonehenge and less well known¸ was built around 2550 B.C.E. in a natural amphitheater ideal for a large stone circle. In its final form¸ its earthwork and ditch dug into the underlying ideal white chalk encompassed 28.5 acres (11.5 hectares) and measured about 1150 feet (350 meters) across. Four causewayed entrances divide the monument into four unequal arcs. Ninety–eight standing stones set up inside the ditch once adorned the interior¸ some of them up to 46 feet (14 meters) high. Two inner circles stood within the outer circle. The staggering construction was built by farming communities with no wheeled carts and only the simplest levers¸ rollers¸ and stone¸ antler¸ and wooden tools. When new¸ the white earthworks with their exposed subsurface chalk must have stood out for miles. Generations of archaeologists have excavated Avebury, but only recently have they paid close attention to its now–invisible landscape¸ very different from the rolling farmland of today. Obtaining evidence of ancient landscapes requires careful excavation and sample collection, most often of the original land surfaces under burial mounds and earthworks. When archaeologist Alisdair Whittle excavated some test trenches into a long burial mound at Easton Down in southern England¸ he exposed the original land surface¸ also the core of stacked turves¸ chalk¸ and topsoil under the mound¸ which gave him an unusual opportunity to obtain a portrait of the local vegetation in about 3200 B.C.E. First¸ he turned to pollen analysis. Small amounts of pollen grains from the land surface were predominantly from grasses¸ showing that no woodland grew close to the tumulus when it was built. A well–sealed section of the pre–mound soil yielded 11 mollusk samples, which chronicled a dramatic change from woodland to open grassland forms over a short period time. Whittle located an ancient tree hollow under the mound¸ which hardly surprisingly¸ contained woodland mollusks. A sudden increase in open-country mollusks followed, a change so rapid that human clearance of the land seems the only logical explanation. Interestingly¸ soil scientists found signs of lateral movement of the spoil below the mound¸ which can have resulted only form cultivation before the mound was built. Excavations such as Easton Down can only give us snapshots of the complex mosaic of cleared and un – cleared land that characterizes any agriculture landscape. For example¸ mollusks and soil samples under nearby Avebury itself tell us that the great temple of 2550 B.C. rose on long–established¸ but little–grazed natural grassland close to a forest that had generated after being cleared for farming. This kind of environment archaeology is now so precise that we can fix the exact seasons when monuments were built or buildings erected. For example¸ soil samples from carefully cut sod laid under the original ground surface of 130 foot (40 meter) Silbury Hill, built in about 2200 B.C.E.¸ also close to Easton Down¸ show that the builders started work in the late summer¸ most likely after the harvest when people had time for construction work. We known this because the well– preserved sods contain ants and anthills. The ants were beginning to grow wings and fly away from their anthills¸ as they do in the late summer. As environmental and landscape studies continue, we will learn a surprising amount about the setting¸ and perhaps the meaning¸ of major religious sites like Avebury and Stonehehge.