Historical Theories about the
Origins of Agriculture
•Alphonse de Candolle
•Nikolai Vavilov
•Carl Sauer
•Gordon Childe
•Robert Braidwood
Few topics in prehistory have engendered so much
discussion and resulted in so few satisfying answers as
the attempt to explain why hunter/gatherers began to
cultivate plants and raise animals. Climatic change,
population pressure, sedentism, resource
concentration from desertification, girls‟ hormones, land
ownership, geniuses, rituals, scheduling conflicts,
random genetic kicks, natural selection, broad
spectrum adaptation and multicausal retreats from
explanation have all been proffered to explain
domestication. All have major flaws…the data do not
“accord well with any one of these models.” (Hayden,
„Nomads, Piscators, Pluckers, and Planters: the
emergence of food production,” Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 9:31-69 (1990).
Alphonse de Candolle
•Origin of Cultivated Plants (1884)
•Conditions: 1) productive and easy, 2)
climate OK, 3) should be drought in hot lands,
4) must be security at settlements, 5) must be
pressing necessity owing to insufficient
resources
•Sources of knowledge: 1) botany, 2)
archaeology and paleontology, 3) history, 4)
philology-study of common names of plants
•Could identify 72/247 places of origin
Alphonse de Candolle
Nikolai Vavilov
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Geographic Origins of Cultivated Plants
Sought geographic centers of domestication through extensive
fieldwork
Centers are where variant forms of species are in greatest
numbers.
Look where traditional agriculture is being practiced
Look in mountains where natural conditions vary, giving rise to
genetic variation. 20% of earth‟s surface
He found 8 centers: China, Indian, CentralAsia, Near East,
Mediterranean, Abyssinia, Mexico and Central America, South
America
Found home of maize and potato (America), oats (N. Spain),
some wheat (Central Asia)
Nikolai
Vavilov
Carl Sauer
• Cultural geographer
• Agricultural Origins and Dispersals (1952)
• Believed in and then disavowed geographic
determinism
• Sought agricultural origins in 1) vegetative
reproduction, 2) areas of marked diversity in terrain
and climate, 3) not in flood areas along large rivers,
4) began in forested land, easy to dig, 5) pre-adapted
skills, 6) people were sedentary
• Fishing tribes were the most likely, especially in
Southeast Asia
• Sauer is much better known among geographers for
other studies
Carl Sauer
V. Gordon Childe
•Marxist evolutionist
•Savagery- hunting and collecting
•Barbarism - cultivation and
husbandry
•Civilization - surplus production
•Coined term “Neolithic
Revolution”
•Desiccation hypothesis
The Oasis hypothesis
• Precipitating cause is post-glacial desiccation
• Wet lands recede to rivers and oases where
people and animals take refuge
• “The huntsman and his prey thus find
themselves united in an effort to circumvent
the dreadful power of drought.”
• In propinquity the species learn to co-exist for
mutual benefit
David Harris
• Cultural Geographer, UCL
• Fieldwork in Australia, Great Britain, Near
East and Central Asia
• Many books, including Origins and Spread of
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
• Well-known for syntheses of theories and
data and for his diagrams of the evolution of
agricultural economies
David
Harris
David Harris‟s evolutionary sequence of agriculture
David Harris‟s evolution of agricultural origins diagram
Robert Braidwood
•Professor at the University of Chicago
•Dismissed “Neo-grecisms” and defined
“eras” of human development ending with
food production
•Reasoned that origins were within the
geographic boundaries of the important
species
•Organized a multi-disciplinary team to guide
work and interpret the results
•Excavated Jarmo, a classic example of a
“primary village farming community”
Braidwood‟s Eras
•Sub-era of Intensified HuntingCollecting aka Terminal Level of
Food Collecting, e.g., Epipaleolithic
•Sub-era of Incipient Cultivation and
Domestication, e.g., PPNA
•Sub-era of The Primary Village
Farming Community, e.g., PPNB
Braidwood‟s reasons for not using neogrecisms
Braidwood‟s “Droop Chart”
Patty Jo Watson and Robert Braidwood on Tigris
Newer Theories
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George Willcox
Roger Byrne
Jared Diamond
Greg Wadley and Angus Martin
Mordechai Kislev, E. Weiss and A. Hartmann
Marc Verhoeven (see article)
Trevor Watkins (see article and video
www.socantscot.org
George Willcox
•Archaeobotanist and
experimental cultivator at Jalès
•Careful evaluation of evidence for
domestication through
morphology of seeds
•Many domestication episodes
•Prolonged process
David Willcox in experimental field at Jalès
George
Willcox
Science
316:1830
(2007)
Dated evidence for earliest cereal remains from Near East
Modern distributions of wild cereals, and sites with early
morphological evidence of domestication
Eleven centers of original domestication
Roger Byrne
•Key is climate with extreme
seasonality of precipitation
•Mediterranean climate favors
annuals, not perennials
•Increased seasonality after
Pleistocene led to proliferation of
species in the diverse Levantine
terrain
CO2 Increase
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Rowan Sage and Richerson
CO2 between 30-15 ka was <200 ppm
15-12 ka, 200-270 ppm, a 33% increase
CO2 affects photosynthesis, enhances
growth, inhibits water loss
• 50% greater plant production after 12 ka
• Was it possible to have agriculture earlier?
Jared Diamond
• Best-known book, Guns, Germs and Steel
• Location, location, location
• DNA evidence puts domestication of einkorn
wheat, chickpea, and bitter vetch in Eastern
Turkey
• All other economically important cereals, as
well as lentils, peas and flax, sheep, goats,
pigs, cattle are found in same region
• Together provided total nutrition and
secondary products
Ground Collecting
• Theory of Kislev, Weiss and Hartmann, PNAS
101/9:2692-2695 (2004)
• Wild wheat and barley can be harvested for
only short time before seeds fall
• Use of sickles and hand harvest will also
shatter seed heads
• Seeds are easy to collect on ground and can
be harvested until next rains
• See as precursor to planting
Psychoactive Attraction
• Cereals and milk have psychoactive
substances (exorphins)
• Activate pleasure sensation
• Wheat and milk are not natural human foods
and many people do not tolerate them
• Evolution of tolerance was related to
“addictive” qualities
• http://www.acnem.org/journal/191_april_2000/origins_of_agriculture.htm
Goat DNA groups and sites where found