So Fo Home Assignment

Ques. What are the factors that led to the emergence of agriculture and animal
husbandry? Do you think it was increase in population or climate change that
facilitated the emergence of agriculture?

Ans. In terms of theories, the Oasis Theory or Desiccation Theory is a core concept in
archaeology, which refers to the main hypotheses about the origins of agriculture: that
people started to domesticate plants and animals because they were forced to, because
of climate change.The Oasis Theory was defined by V. Gordon Childe, in his book, ‘The
Most Ancient Near East’. He argued that the bands of hunters and gatherers were
initially living in an environment able to satisfy their needs. However, a major climatic
change occurred; the transition from the Pleistocene to Holocene, around 15-12,000 BC,
was characterized by global warming. With the end of the last ice-age, some areas - like
Sahara, which initially was a Savannah where bands of hunter-gatherers were living -
became arid deserts unsuitable for them to live in. They were therefore forced to
migrate to the Levant in places where life was still possible, i.e., in Oasis and on the
banks of large rivers(Nile, Euphrates, Tigris). along with humans, desiccation also forced
plants and animals to congregate around oasis and other areas where permanent water
was available. Due to this, the familiarity with animals and abundant wild plants allowed
humans to easily understand their growth cycles, while their relative crowding
stimulated humans to invent agriculture in order to maximize the food production. In
order to survive in these places, they adapted their way of living, developed a symbiotic
relationship with certain plants and animals which eventually culminated in their
domestication and thus, some of them(Natufians) invented agriculture and pastoralism.
The transition to agriculture results, therefore, from a logical sequence having some
similarities with biological evolution theory.
Even if this theory is quite seductive - and was innovative for its time - it does not
explain why agriculture was not invented before this time. This theory implicitly
assumes that prior to Holocene, hunter-gatherers had no knowledge of plants and
animals whereas there is plenty of evidence t the contrary. Another shortcoming of this
theory is that in the Levant, there is no evidence of major climatic change for the period
considered by Gordon Childe. It has been argued recently that while the role of climate
change in the evolution of human societies remain important, its contribution should be
more qualified. However, this theory seems to be at odds with the early developments
of garden agriculture in New Guinea where most likely inter-temporal climatic variability
was low.