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Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. Some of the earliest known domestications were of animals. Domestic pigs had multiple centres of origin in Eurasia, including Europe, East Asia and Southwest Asia, where wild boar were first domesticated about 10,500 years ago. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 11,000 BC and 9000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan around 8500 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3000 BC. Centres of origin identified by Nikolai Vavilov in the 1930s. Area 3 (grey) is no longer recognised as a centre of origin, and Papua New Guinea (red, 'P') was identified more recently.[16]
It was not until after 9500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax. These eight crops occur more or less simultaneously on Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) sites in the Levant, although wheat was the first to be grown and harvested on a significant scale. At around the same time (9400 BC), parthenocarpic fig trees were domesticated.
In the highlands of south-central Chile, potatoes were collected as early as 11,000 bp. By 5000 bp the domesticated potato is found in desert coastal sites; it was apparently domesticated well before that time. Between 11,000 and 8000 bp the cavy, or guinea pig, was economically important; it was probably domesticated by 7000 bp. Wild camelids were hunted as early as 10,000 bp; by 7500–6000 bp llama and alpaca remains are so common in archaeological sites that they had probably been domesticated as well. Quinoa was harvested by 7500 bp and cotton by 6000 bp in northern Peru.
Highland sites have also yielded squash (c. 10,400–10,000 bp) and peanuts (c. 8500 bp). However, these cultigens were introduced to the Andes in fully domesticated form, indicating they were important in the lowlands at the same time or earlier.
The origins of agriculture in North-West Africa: macro-botanical remains from Epipalaeolithic and Early Neolithic levels of Ifri Oudadane (Morocco) Jacob Morale
Abstract
This research aims to shed light on the early stages of agricultural development in Northern Africa through the analysis of the rich macro-botanical assemblages obtained from Ifri Oudadane, an Epipalaeolithic–Early Neolithic site from North-East Morocco. Results indicate the presence of domesticated plants, cereals (Hordeum vulgare, Triticum monococcum/dicoccum, Triticum durum and Triticum aestivum/durum) and pulses (Lens culinaris and Pisum sativum) in the Early Neolithic. One lentil has been dated to 7611 ± 37 cal BP representing the oldest direct date of a domesticated plant seed in Morocco and, by extension, in North Africa. Similarities in both radiocarbon dates and crop assemblages from Early Neolithic sites in Northern Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula suggest a simultaneous East to West maritime spread of agriculture along the shores of the Western Mediterranean. Wild plants were abundantly collected in both the Epipalaeolithic and the Early Neolithic periods pointing to the important role of these resources during the two periods. In addition to fruits and seeds that could have been consumed by both humans and domesticated animals, fragments of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) rhizomes have been identified. This is a western Mediterranean native plant that may have been used as a source of fibres for basketry. Highlights
► We studied seed remains from the Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic site of Ifri Oudadane, Morocco. ► Lentil, wheat, barley and pea are identified in Early Neolithic levels. ► A lentil is dated to c. 7600 BP, the earliest date for a crop in northern Africa. ► Wild plants are abundant in both the Epipalaeolithic and the Neolithic levels. ► Wild plants were probably used as food, for fodder and for basketry.
So far, these data suggest that the Ifri Oudadane plant remains are the oldest cultivated plant remains not only from North of Africa but also, most likely, from the entire African continent.
results from Ifri Oudadane have shed light on the spread of agriculture to Morocco, and by extension, to North Africa, providing data that indicates an early arrival of the Neolithic crop assemblage to this region. The similarity in radio- carbon dates on domesticated plant species from Neolithic sites in Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula suggests a more or less syn- chronous spread of agriculture along both shores of the Western Mediterranean.
Comparison between dates carried out on seeds from northern Africa (Ifri Oudadane and Kaf Taht El-Ghar) and the Iberian Peninsula attributed to the middle-late 8th millennium BP supports the hypothesis that the spread of agriculture on both sides of the Western Mediterranean coasts could have been a more or less simultaneous process
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So one has to wonder if the Agricultural revolution came about at different times independently to different peoples, then maybe the industrial revolution would have been similar.
Edit: the industrial revolution would've had global impacts so we would really never know, but its still a good question to ponder.
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History of North African date palm Origins found in hybridization between Middle East cultivated date palm and a wild telative native to the island of Crete Date: January 14, 2019 Source: New York University Summary: Genome analysis reveals that North African date palms are a hybrid between cultivated date palms from the Middle East and a different, wild species of palm that grows on the island of Crete and in small areas of Southern Turkey. These findings shed new light on the evolutionary history of one of the crop.
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Tukuler is right. The neolithic was not a "revolution" but rather a process that took centuries if not millennia to achieve, and I am referring to here the domestication process. Since men were the hunters and women were the gatherers during the Paleolithic it was men who domesticated animals and women who domesticated plants respectively and the archaeology supports this. These founding women were not only able to take control of the planting process themselves but were to selectively breed the plant species they procured via crossbreeding and grafting thus producing certain quality vegetation and fruits. The founding men were able to selectively breed their wild and dangerous game animals into the more docile and productive kinds we know today.
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While we're on the subject of agriculture's origins, a book I've begun reading is The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs. She offers a cogent argument that agriculture might have developed as a result of urbanization rather than preceding it as most people assume. Her argument goes that plant and animal domestication began when people starting bringing in seeds and animals to raise in their gardens within the city limits, and only later was this gardening work transplanted to the surrounding countryside. In other words, urban agriculture may have been the first form of agriculture to appear.
quote:In her classic book The Economy of Cities, urban theorist Jane Jacobs argues convincingly that agriculture likely began in dense tool-making and trading settlements that evolved into cities.
In that book, Jacobs exploded the long-held assumption that people first established agriculture, then established cities — the “myth of agricultural primacy,” as she calls it. Jacobs shows that in pre-historic Europe and the Near East, pre-agricultural settlements of hunters have been identified, some of them quite dense in population. As the settled people began to exploit resources like obsidian to create tools for hunting, a robust trade between settlements began to flow.
Eventually, edible wild seeds and animals joined obsidian and tools as tradeable commodities within settlements, and the long process of animal and seed domestication began, right within the boundaries of these proto-cities. And when organized agriculture began to flourish, cities grew dramatically, both in population and complexity. Eventually, some (but not all) agriculture work migrated to land surrounding the emerging cities — and the urban/rural divide was born. (More rigorous scholarship, especially that of the Danish economist Ester Boserup, confirms that dense settlements preceded agriculture.)
It does make you wonder about how agriculture might have developed on the African continent. I don't remember the appearance of agriculture in Egypt coinciding with a growth in cities along the Nile---instead the earliest Egyptian farmers seem to have remained semi-nomadic IIRC. On the other hand, since West African agriculture seems to have developed on its own, maybe there are way more Neolithic cities waiting to be discovered over there?
UPDATE: Having read the first couple of chapters of Jacobs's book, I will say that even though I find her general argument compelling, I don't agree with her proposal that nomadic herding began when farmers who moved out of the city for more pasture became detached from their home cities. My own belief is that nomadic pastoralists would have begun as hunter-gatherers who acquired domesticated animals from farming cultures, since herding animals is more compatible with a nomadic lifestyle than growing crops. I don't think it's a coincidence that nomadic herding in the Middle East is associated with Semitic-speakers whose language descended from that of Afrasan hunter-gatherers. It would also explain why many early herders in Northeast Africa had domesticated animals but not plant cultivation.
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^ Interesting hypothesis, though I have heard of it before. I think it also depends on what one means by 'urban'. The word means city, but of course the first settlements were not cities but simple villages. I first heard of the hypothesis of sedentarism preceding agriculture when it pertained to the Jomon Culture of Japan. There is evidence that the Jomon domesticated certain plants including trees but only after they settled certain areas and I think the same may have been true for the Natufians of the Levant. As the hypothesis goes, the sedentarism itself which wasn't complete but more so semi-sedentary or semi-nomadic was itself the result of broad-spectrum foraging. This is when a foraging population lives in an environment with multiple food sources and utilizes these sources in a way where each one is not depleted and the population only hunts wild game in seasons when the game enters its territory. This was the case in Jomon Japan with seafood from the shores to wild game and vegetation in the forests etc. I think it was the same with the Natufians in the Levant who also had access to seafood in the shores, and other food sources from the hills to the Jordan River Valley and prehistoric cedar forests that once existed.
This was probably true with the foragers who created Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey who were also corecipients of the Natufian Culture.
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