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The African Origins of Agriculture
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Evergreen: [QB] Excerpt from Africa: A Biography of the Continent By John Reader “The human populations of Africa which have survived the bad times of the last glacial maximum were well adapted to take advantage of the good times that followed. Their archaeological visibility increased rapidly, and a steady proliferation of rock engraving, painting, and decorative items in the record points to cultural systems of heightening sophistication. As for food-production systems underpinning this population growth and burgeoning cultural sophistication, two innovations are particularly relevant, in that each represents an important stage of technological development and both are clues to the future of humanity.” “The first is the digging-stick weight, which is simply a large stone with a hole bored through the middle. The stone fits on the stick and its weight lends added force as the point is thrust into the ground. Digging-stick weights appear in the African archaeological record during the last glacial maximum, and their invention suggests that food-gathering technology had been improved in response to the greater importance of subterranean foods-roots, tubers, and corms- during the period of climatic stress. The second innovation is the projectile point, made for use on the spear or the bow and arrow…..the evidence of projectile-point technology in Africa pre-dates that from any other part of the world…..and there can be no doubt that the spear and the bow would have made hunting a more reliable source of protein and fat during bad times.” “The digging-stick represents the beginnings of agriculture and the trend towards a sedentary way of life. The projectile point represents a refinement of human capacity for taking life.” “Agriculture supported life, and the projectile point denied it. Both factors were evident during the millennia which followed the last glacial maximum. In climatic terms, the good times continued uninterruptedly, and the human population increased exponentially. The attempts to manipulate food production which mark the beginnings of agriculture encouraged extended use of areas that previously would have been visited only temporarily. Successful attempts raised population size above the carrying capacity of the land. “ “In the course of the 2,000 years immediately prior to the last glacial maximum 18,000 years ago, the number of sites in the Nile valley increased four-fold; during the following 2,000 years (18,000 to 16,000 years ago) the number almost doubled again, and it increased by yet another one-third between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago. By 12,000 years ago, the number of occupation sites along the Nile valley was more than ten times the number known from before the last glacial maximum, 6,000 years earlier.” “Throughout this period the majority of sites had covered an area about 400 m (the home base for a group of perhaps forty people), but the size of the largest rose from 800 m 18,000 years ago to more than 10,000 m 6,000 years later – large enough to constitute a village.” “During the 1960’s, an international team of archaeologists discovered a burial ground about three kilometers north of Wadi Halfa in the Sudan….Excavations uncovered the skeletons of fifty-nine men, women and children, who had been buried in shallow graves under thin slabs of sandstones sometime between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago….Points were found wedged in the spine, and embedded in the skull, the pelvis, and the limb bons” “Violence on this scale, at this period, is not known from anywhere else in the world. It was almost certainly the consequence of a collapse in the proto-agricultural system which had developed in that section of the Nile valley during the last glacial maximum. The mainstays of the system were catfish and wetland (and possible wild grass grains), which were abundantly available at certain times of the year – catfish in summer, wetland tubers in winter – when surpluses were harvested and stored for consumption during the months of the year when food was less readily available.” “Harvesting and storage mark the beginning of organized food production: agriculture. But at that stage of its development in the Nile valley organized food production was a high-risk strategy. Output was likely to vary unpredictably, and any increase in population size resulting from a succession of good years would inevitably lead to competition in less favorable times. The burials at Jebel Sahaba (Wadi Halfa) probably record one such episode of violent competition, or warfare, for limited resources of a less than luxuriant Nile valley that was surrounded by an utterly inhospitable desert.” “The adoption of this broad adaptive strategy provided the large food supply needed by a growing population, but achieving maximum production called for a good deal of planning and the management of labour. This marks the beginning of an organized food-producing system: agriculture.” “Dating from more than 15,000 years ago, the evidence from the Nile valley is arguably the earliest comprehensive instance of an organized food-producing system known anywhere on Earth. Given time, this pioneering system might have developed into the stupendous civilizations that ruled ancient Egypt for two and a half millennia from about 5,000 years ago. But it could never be. Disaster struck the Nile valley as its population reached a peak, and by 10,000 years ago occupation density had plunged to a level only slighltly above that known for the time of the Wadi Kubbaniya site.” [/QB][/QUOTE]
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