Where Do the Roots of Agriculture Lie?

Before I begin some in-depth exploration into environmental change and the contributions of farming to such change, I want to start where it (agriculture, that is) started. This seems quite uninteresting and straightforward in itself, but in fact the issue of uncovering agriculture's roots is much more complicated.

Where do the roots of agriculture lie? (Source: photosof.org)

An article by Michael Balter in Science explored this 'tangled' issue. As Balter outlines, about 20 000 years ago, mobile populations of hunter-gatherers occupied the steppe biome of the eastern Mediterranean region, existing marginally and very much living in the absence of any form of farming. Then, around 14 500 years ago the climate began to warm. This marks a point where hunter-gatherers, although continuing to hunt, started building permanent settlements from stone and wood, gathering in sedentary communities of several hundred. This culture is known as the Natufians, and is one that is markedly different from the preceding hunter-gatherer culture. Archaeologist Phillip Edwards is quick to note that such communities "represent a key development in human settlement history". So, here we have seen a transition away from hunter-gathering, but the question still remains as to when agriculture began.

This Natufian culture is described by Balter as the 'next-to-last stop on the long road to farming' (2010: 404). Indeed, archaeologists suggest that many of the activities of the early Neolithic - a period of early forms of farming and domestication - have roots in the Natufian. Roots?! We might be on to something! So, if this period is a significant potential time where the roots of agriculture formed, the next question is why?

Central to this debate is the changes to climate - and thus environment - occurring around this time. Most notably, around 13 000 years ago (which just so happens to lie right in the middle of the Natufian cultural period) a cold and dry spell known as the Younger Dryas reversed the post-glacial warming trend. It is this Younger Dryas period and the Natufian response that, for some, holds the clues to why hunter-gatherers settled down and agriculture evolved. A once-popular hypothesis centres around the idea that an environmental crisis resulting from the Younger Dryas forced the Natufians to begin domestication in order to ensure enough food, thus marking the first experiments with agriculture.

Plump rye grains, used to argue that domestication occurred during the Younger Dryas (Source: sciencemag.org)

However, opinions have shifted somewhat and this theory is under increasing scrutiny. Some even argue that climate change did not drive agriculture, and that the Natufians continued as hunter-gatherers throughout the Younger Dryas without signs of attempted domestication. Indeed, the harsher conditions have actually been suggested as a barrier to agriculture, postponing its emergence. In spite of this, researchers do suggest that the cultural innovations of the Natufians helped make agriculture more possible when the Younger Dryas period ended and conditions were more conducive to it. In this view, populations were forced into agriculture because of growing populations as well as being supported by increasing precipitation and milder climates which made farming more attractive and less risky.

All in all, there is no definitive answer. Personally, I am inclined to think that real agricultural evolution began after the Younger Dryas period, and that the Natufian culture marks the cusp of the transition into the agricultural age. What can be said is that although the Natufian culture might not mark the time of agricultural invention, the cultural innovations of this period certainly are likely to have made the later developments of the early Neolithic possible. The Natufian culture is a key point in the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture, but it remains to be seen whether the roots of agriculture lie here.