The Ecology of Seasonal Stress and the Origins of Agriculture in the Near East

Abstract

The time, place, and reasons for thejrst domestication of cereals and legumes in the Near East can now be securely identzjed using combined evidence from paleoenvironmental studies, models of ecosystem dynamics, and regional archeology. The heartland of domestication was the Jordan Val19 and surrounding region in the Southern Levant. Approximately 10,000 years ago, people began planting crops where the wild ancestral species had proliferated over two millenia. Impetus for domestication camejom the synergistic effects of climatic change, anthropogenic environmental change, technological change, and social innovation. A t the end of the Pleistocene, after a long period of climatic instabilio, a mediterranean climate more strongly seasonal than any today emerged with hyper-arid summers that selected f o r annual species of cereals and legumes. This occurred long after people had invented tools suitable for grinding hard seeds, but the new, lengthy dry season and consequent need to use storedfoods encouraged sedentism among human groups who subsequently depleted their immediate environments of wild resources. These preconditions facilitated the development of agriculture. The scenario developed here is speczjic to the Near East, for such case studies of spec@ factors in independent regions of domestication are essential before we attempt to explain cases all over the world with reference to global causes. ESPITE 50 YEARS OF ARCHEOLOGICAL ATTENTION to the earliest village sites and D traces of domesticated plants and animals in the Near East, doubts remain about whether the origins of agriculture (a) constituted a rapid shift or slow change (Bar-Yosef and Kislev 1989; Moore 1982; Perrot 1968), (b) lie earlier in time than heretofore documented (Braidwood and Braidwood 1986; Garrod 1957;Moore 1982Moore , 1985 Moore , 1989, (c) occurred across the broad arc of the Fertile Crescent (Braidwood and Howe 1960; Flannery 1969; Maisels 1987;Moore 1982 Moore , 1989, or (d) occurred in regions as yet little explored (Hole 1984). Now for the first time, patterns of data in the context of ecological models allow us to place the origins of domestication in a specific geographic region and in a time frame of no more than a few hundred radiocarbon years. The location of plant domestication was the Southern Levant, specifically around the margins of evaporating lakes in the Jordan Valley.' The time of this event was the end of the Natufian cultural period, around 10,000 years ago.Several lines of evidence support these assertions. Most prehistorians agree that there had to be opportunity (that is, sufficient populations of the prerequisite plants), technology to use the plants effectively, a social organization that could cope with "delayed return" economies (Hole 1984), and need before people would alter their habits of acquiring food. Available evidence and theories indicate that these conditions were simultaneously present in the Jordan River basin earlier during the early Holocene, while the absence of any one of these critical ...

A natural adaptive syndrome as a model for the origins of cereal agriculture

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The Evolution ofCampylobacter jejuniandCampylobacter coli

“…Agriculture originated in the Middle East (12,000 BC) and spread across Europe between 5000 and 3000 BC, accompanied by the establishment of the first major urban centers (Ammerman and Cavalii-Sforza 1984;McCorriston and Hole 1991;Zvelebil and Dolukhanov 1991). As with other important human diseases, such as plague (Achtman et al 2004), the availability of a novel niche and enhanced opportunities for transmission between humans and animals can have a major effect on pathogen biology.…”

Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant

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