15,697
edits
Changes
m
Admin moved page What is the Deep Impact of Plant Domestication? to What is the Deep Impact of Plant Domestication
Plant domestication was initially thought to have first appeared in the Fertile Crescent, with later societies in the Nile, Yellow River, and Indus valleys also adopting domesticated plants. However, now it has become evident that various societies have independently discovered how to domesticate given plants for food production. These plant staples have included wheat, barley, rice, lintels, beans, millet, corn/maize, and others (Figure 1).<ref>For more on the background to plant domestication, see: Spielvogel, J. J. (2015). <i>Western civilization</i> (Ninth edition). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, pg. 6.</ref>
Several results ultimately developed with the domestication of these plants. First, the benefits of plant domestication was to increase food supplies and make them more predictable. Although plants, as they become domesticate, are susceptible to disease and other detrimental results, over time genetics of plants begin to alter. For wheat, barley, and other grains, these developments can take hundreds of years before fully domesticated varieties form. However, once domesticated varieties form, they now require societies to more fully invest in them. This includes removing weeds, providing fertilizer, and harvesting at appropriate times so that yields are not lost. Thus, one of the first major impacts of domesticated plants is how they required societies to be settled, where labor began to focus on the care of grain production and other domesticated plants. Greater dependence on plant domestication ultimately makes societies live in villages, towns, and even cities. This change led to a change in gender roles, often leading to the emphasis of men being more focused on production and creation of food resources, while women became caretakers of the home. Previously, women likely spend much of their time collecting food for human societies. In effect, domestication led to a major cultural evolution and not just a new mode in obtaining food.<ref>For more on the labor involved in agriculture and how that fundamentally changes society, see: Peterson, J. (2002). <i>Sexual revolutions: gender and labor at the dawn of agriculture.</i> Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.</ref>
Greater dependence on plant domestication ultimately makes societies live in villages, towns, and even cities. This change led to a change in gender roles, often leading to the emphasis of men being more focused on production and creation of food resources, while women became caretakers of the home. Previously, women likely spend much of their time collecting food for human societies. In effect, domestication led to a major cultural evolution and not just a new mode in obtaining food.<ref>For more on the labor involved in agriculture and how that fundamentally changes society, see: Peterson, J. (2002). <i>Sexual revolutions: gender and labor at the dawn of agriculture.</i> Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.</ref> The other major development evident in New and Old World societies is the freeing up of labor. While plant domestication can be labor -intensive, the greater output of food allows larger populations to form. Most or if not all settled societies show evidence of families becoming larger, where even social norms and systems evolved so that women began having more children. Once labor increased, then more people were able to focus on other activities, including the production of other goods that supported agriculture. Innovations often lead to other innovations to support them. Agriculture led to many secondary innovations that helped to support it. This included new technologies such as plows, the need for mathematics to calculate field areas, and eventually writing became one result in some societies that needed to account for agricultural goods being produced.<ref>For more on innovations based on agriculture, see: Mays, L. W. (Ed.). (2010). <i>Ancient water technologies.</i> Dordrecht [Netherlands] ; London ; New York: Springer.
</ref>
While we often see these impacts, particularly as they spread across different agricultural regions, as having beneficial results for societies, the reality is much more mixed. One major result of domesticated agriculture is that the environment has been greatly altered, to the point where scientists today call the period after plant domestication as the Anthropocene, or when human societies began to have a major impact on the plant. Plant domestication leads to the need for clearing more land, including burning of fields to fertilize them and clear them. This, already beginning by 10,000 years before the present, began to have an impact on societies and even likely global temperatures through the release of carbon dioxide and methane. While we think global warming has been a modern effect of industry, agriculture arguably helped to create the first significant wave of human-induced climate change or at least increased emissions into the atmosphere.<ref>For more on the environmental impact of agriculture and plant domestication, see: Balter, M. (2013). Archaeologists Say the “Anthropocene” Is Here--But It Began Long Ago. <i>Science</i>, 340(6130), 261–262. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.340.6130.261 </ref>
==Intensification of Agriculture==
[[File:PSM V88 D110 Ancient syrian water wheel pump for irrigation.png|thumbnail|left|300px|Figure 2. Irrigation and other agricultural technologies have led to a scaling up of population and often led to major social change.]]
After the initial innovation of plant domestication in many parts of the globe between 12,000-5,000 years ago, the next major wave of development occurred in how plant domestication enabled large cities to develop. Initially, plant domestication and agriculture allowed towns and villages to flourish. However, with increased accumulation of agricultural resources by fewer individuals, cities encouraged greater labor migration to them so that people could work in the new economies that had agriculture at their core. This is evident in the place that first had cities, southern Mesopotamia, but also appears to be the case in the Indus and the New Word. In these cases, social inequality in wealth distribution was closely associated with the rise of cities. However, that wealth was based on unequal ownership of agricultural holding. In effect, domestication helped to create our modern economic institutions that also created more wealth inequality across societies.<ref>For more on the origins of urbanism and how it was shaped by plant domestication, see: Bridge, G., & Watson, S. (Eds.). (2000). <i>A companion to the city.</i> Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass: Blackwell.</ref>
<dh-ad/>
Technologies also became more complex as the need to feed larger cities developed further after 5000 years ago. Large-scale irrigation networks, spanning hundreds of miles are found in the Old World, were required to intensify agriculture (Figure 2). These irrigation works not only required large labor forces, but they also required larger control of territory. One goal of now a new form of states, that is empires, was to control the food production process, where the control of water resources became paramount in some of the earliest empires from the 3rd millennium BCE to the 1st millennium BCE. This only continued and intensified in later states and empires. Technologies, on the one hand, enabled larger populations to grow, but they also created new social problems, as they required new social adaptation to enable them. In the case of irrigation technologies, intense labor and upkeep of major irrigation works, including canals, qanats, and aqueducts, required an enormous amount of labor but also led to state control of these resources because of their enormous investment required. The power of governments over people's lives subsequently increased as agriculture and irrigation of domesticated plants became ingrained.<ref>For more on the relationship between technology, government, and how this affects people's lives, see: Mollinga, P. P. (1998). <i>On the waterfront: water distribution, technology and agrarian change in a South Indian canal irrigation system.</i></ref>
