What gave rise to early agriculture? Briefly about cattle breeding and agriculture of ancient people

Agriculture is one of the main and most important elements of our civilization for the entire period of its existence known to us. It is with the beginning of agriculture and the transition to a sedentary lifestyle that the formation of what we understand by the terms “society” and “civilization” is associated.

Why did primitive people switch from hunting and gathering to cultivating the land? This issue is considered to have been resolved long ago and is included in such a science as political economy as a rather boring section.

The scientific view goes something like this: primitive hunter-gatherers were extremely dependent on their environment. All his life, ancient man waged a fierce struggle for existence, in which the lion's share of his time was spent searching for food. And as a result, all human progress was limited to a rather insignificant improvement in the means of obtaining food.

And then the population grew exponentially (fast in the sense of it), there was very little to eat, but there were still a lot of hungry people. Hunting and gathering could no longer feed all members of the primitive community. And the community had no choice but to master a new form of activity - agriculture, which required, in particular, a sedentary lifestyle. This transition to agriculture stimulated the development of tools, people mastered the construction of stationary housing, then social norms of social relations began to form, etc. and so on.

This scheme seems so logical and even obvious that everyone, somehow without saying a word, almost immediately accepted it as true.

But recently opponents of this theory have appeared. The first and, perhaps, the most serious “troublemakers” were ethnographers who discovered that the primitive tribes that had survived until recently did not fit into the harmonious picture painted by political economy. The patterns of behavior and life of these primitive communities not only turned out to be “unfortunate exceptions”, but fundamentally contradicted the pattern according to which a primitive society should have behaved.

First of all, the highest efficiency of gathering was revealed:

“Both ethnography and archeology have now accumulated a mass of data, from which it follows that the appropriating economy - hunting, gathering and fishing - often provides an even more stable existence than earlier forms of agriculture... The generalization of this kind of facts already at the beginning of our century led the Polish ethnographer L. Krishivitsky to the conclusion that “under normal conditions, primitive man had more than enough food at his disposal.” Research in recent decades not only confirms this position, but also concretizes it with the help of comparisons, statistics, and measurements” (L. Vishnyatsky, “From Benefit to Benefit”).

The life of a “primitive” hunter and gatherer in general turned out to be very far from the all-consuming and harsh struggle for existence. But these are all arguments!

Beginning of farming

The art of agriculture is too difficult an art for a beginner, lacking experience, to achieve any serious success. Obviously that's why early farming is extremely difficult, and its efficiency is very, very low. In this case, cereals become the main crop.

The nutritional efficiency of cereal plants is not very high - how much grain will you get even if you sow a large field with it? “If the problem really were to find new sources of food, it would be natural to assume that agricultural experiments would begin with plants that have large fruits and produce large yields already in their wild forms.”

Even in an “uncultivated” state, tuber crops are ten or more times higher than cereals and legumes in yield, but for some reason ancient man suddenly ignored this fact, which was literally under his nose.

At the same time, the pioneer farmer for some reason believes that the additional difficulties he has shouldered are not enough for him, and he complicates his task even more by introducing the most complex crop processing that could be invented.

Grain is an extremely labor-intensive product, not only in terms of growing and harvesting, but also in terms of its culinary processing. First of all, we have to solve the problem of removing the grain from the strong and hard shell in which it is located. And this requires a special stone industry.

TO on “Primitive Society” 6th grade

OPTION

Task 1 – Test.

1. In which primitive group did tribal relations play the main role?

a) in the human herd b) in the tribal community c) in the state.

What occupation of primitive people led to the emergence of agriculture?

a) hunting b) cattle breeding c) gathering.

Who ruled the clan community in primitive society?

a) kings b) priests c) elders.

4. The first metal from which ancient people learned to make tools:

a) copper b) bronze c) iron.

5. The first domesticated animal by man:

a) cow b) horse c) dog.

What occupation of primitive people arose around the same time as

agriculture?

a) cattle breeding b) hunting c) metal processing.

In which human group did property inequality emerge?

a) in the human herd

b) in the tribal community

c) in the neighboring community.

8. Select the reason for the emergence of religion:

a) human inability to explain natural phenomena

b) human fear of the elements of nature

c) human desire to be different from animals.

When did man appear on Earth?

a) 2 million years ago

b) 100 thousand years ago

c) 10 thousand years ago.

Task 2.

history, historical source, general history, Cro-Magnon, shaman, art, tribal community, tribe, elder, craft, nobility

Task 3- What are the features of primitive man and ape?

Task 4 –

Mesolithic, Chalcolithic, Paleolithic, Neolithic;

Sinanthropus, Neanderthal, Dryopithecus. Australopithecus, Cro-Magnon,

OPTION Task 1- Test

Select the main reason for inequality among people.

a) the collapse of the clan community b) a change in the tools of labor c) the emergence of the state.

What allowed primitive man to survive the Ice Age?

a) gathering

b) the invention of metal tools

c) mastery of fire.

Who ruled the tribe?

a) priests b) council of elders c) kings.

What did primitive people make their first clothes from?

a) from silk b) from the skins of wild animals c) from cotton.

5. Several tribal communities living in the same area:

a) human herd b) tribe c) neighboring community.

6. The first tool of labor of primitive man:

a) hoe b) pointed stone c) plow.

A tool with which primitive people caught fish.

a) harpoon b) bow c) chop.

What is called art?

a) creative reproduction of the surrounding world

b) human desire to explain the mysteries of nature

c) people's desire to hunt better.

When did people start farming?

a) 10 thousand years ago

b) 3 thousand years ago

c) 200 thousand years ago.

Task 2 What do the words and expressions mean:

history, material source, history of the Ancient world, tools, religion, neighboring community, tribal union, leader, idol, inequality, agriculture

Task 3- What are the features of primitive society and religion?

Task 4 Task 4 – put in the correct sequence:

Mesolithic, Chalcolithic, Paleolithic, Neolithic

;- Sinanthropus, Neanderthal, Dryopithecus. Australopithecus, Cro-Magnon,

Topic: Tests on “Primitive Society” “Primitive Society”

Religion is a tool of socialization or a form of socialization of individuals through established norms of behavior, rituals, religious activities and a belief system based on belief in supernatural forces located above the physical world and operating outside the laws of nature. Since religion is a system of beliefs, it can also be interpreted as a worldview, i.e. a system of ideas about the surrounding world in which a person occupies a certain place. Such a system includes certain principles of human existence and value guidelines for all members of society, which unites them into a single society that has a supra-individual status. We can say that religion is a set of collective ideas about the world around us, i.e. as the initial stage of social consciousness or worldview, reflecting the social reality of human existence. This is a certain point of view on the objects and objects surrounding people, not just a specific person, but society as a whole, which includes a set of views, beliefs, values, supported by cult actions and brought into a single system. There may be several or even many such points of view or systems. For this reason, there are a large number of religions (more than 5000).
The origins of the emergence of religious movements originate in the period of primitive communal society, when man was not able to explain natural phenomena due to the lack of sufficient knowledge about nature and developed intellectual thinking. For this reason, the primary form of religion was symbolic actions performed to achieve a specific goal with the involvement of supernatural forces, i.e. magic. After some time, these actions were transformed into a belief in the existence of the soul, spirits and the animation of all nature as a whole, i.e. animism. Further into totemism, fetishism, polytheism and, ultimately, monotheism. It should be added that mythology also became the initial form of cognitive activity of human thinking, as a predecessor of more developed forms: religious, philosophical and scientific. For example, the French ethnologist K. Lévi-Strauss showed that the thinking of ancient people had the same properties of homology, comparison and analysis as the scientific thinking of modern man. However, the difference is that the conclusions of ancient people were based on direct sensations of sensory organs, acting as intermediaries between sensations and emerging images. Ultimately, the desire to understand and comprehend the natural world, oneself and society made it possible to form the final structure of the surrounding world.

The apogee of development of the appropriating economy of the early tribal community was the achievement of a relative supply of natural products. This created the conditions for the emergence of the two greatest achievements of the primitive economy - agriculture and cattle breeding, the emergence of which many researchers, following G. Child, call the “Neolithic revolution”. The term was proposed by Child by analogy with the term “industrial revolution” introduced by Engels. Although agriculture and cattle breeding did not become the main branches of the economy for the majority of humanity in the Neolithic, and many tribes remained hunting and fishing, not even knowing agriculture as an auxiliary branch of production, yet these new phenomena in industrial life played a huge role in the further development of society.

Making ceramics:
1 - spiral-bundle technology, New Guinea; 2 - stuck, Africa

Eskimo sleigh and leather boat - kayak

For the emergence of a productive economy, two prerequisites were required - biological and cultural. It was possible to move to domestication only where there were plants or animals suitable for this, and only when this was prepared by the previous cultural development of mankind.

Agriculture arose from highly organized gathering, during the development of which man learned to take care of wild plants and obtain their new harvest. Already the aborigines of Australia sometimes weeded thickets of cereals, and when digging up yams, they buried their heads in the ground. Among the Semang of Malacca, in the 19th century. standing at approximately the same stage of development as the Bushmen, the collection of wild fruits was accompanied by the beginnings of their cultivation - pruning the tops of trees, cutting down bushes that interfered with the growth of trees, etc. Some tribes of the Indians of North America, who collected wild rice Societies at this stage of economic development were even designated by the German ethnographer J. Lips with a special term: “harvesting peoples.”

From here it was not far from real agriculture, the transition to which was facilitated both by the appearance of food supplies and the associated gradual development of a sedentary life.

At some Mesolithic sites, signs of highly organized gathering or, perhaps even incipient agriculture, have been traced archaeologically. Such, for example, is the Natufian culture, widespread in Palestine and Jordan and named after finds in the Wadi en-Natuf area, 30 km northwest of Jerusalem. It dates back to the 9th millennium BC. e. The main occupation of the Natufians, like other Mesolithic tribes, was hunting, fishing and gathering. Among the Natufian tools, stone inserts were found that, together with a bone handle, made up sickles, peculiar bone hoes, as well as stone basalt mortars and pestles, which apparently served for crushing grain. These are the same dating back to 11-9 millennia BC. e. cultures of the Near East, represented by the upper layer of the Shanidar cave, the settlement of Zavi-Chemi (Iraq), etc. The inventor of agriculture was undoubtedly a woman: having arisen from gathering, this specific sphere of female labor, agriculture for a long time remained predominantly a female branch of the economy.

There are two points of view on the question of the origin of agriculture: monocentric and polycentric. Monocentrists believe that the primary focus of agriculture was Western Asia, from where this most important innovation gradually spread to North-East Africa, South-East Europe, Central, South-East and South Asia, Oceania, Central and South America. The main argument of the monocentrists is the consistent emergence of agriculture in these areas; they also indicate that it was not so much different agricultural cultures that spread, but rather the idea of ​​agriculture itself. However, the paleobotanical and archaeological material accumulated to date makes it possible to consider the theory of polycentrism developed by N.I. Vavilov and his students, according to which the cultivation of cultivated plants independently arose in several independent centers of the subtropical zone, more justified. There are different opinions about the number of such centers, but the main ones, the so-called primary ones, can apparently be considered four: Western Asia, where no later than the 7th millennium BC. e. barley and einkorn wheat were cultivated; the Yellow River basin and adjacent areas of the Far East, where millet-chumiza was cultivated in the 4th millennium; Southern China and Southeast Asia, where by the 5th millennium BC. e. rice and some tubers were cultivated; Mesoamerica, where no later than 5-4 millennia, cultures of beans, peppers and agave, and then maize, arose; Peru, where beans have been grown since the 6th millennium, and pumpkin, peppers, maize, potatoes, etc., from the 5th to 4th millennia.

The initial cattle breeding dates back to approximately the same time. We saw the beginnings of it already in the late Paleolithic - Mesolithic, but in relation to this time we can only speak with confidence about the domestication of the dog. The domestication and domestication of other animal species was hampered by the constant movements of hunting tribes. With the transition to sedentism, this barrier fell away: osteological materials of the Early Neolithic reflect the domestication of pigs, sheep, goats, and possibly cattle. How this process went can be judged by the example of the Andamanese: they did not kill the piglets caught during round-ups, but fattened them in special pens. Hunting was the sphere of male labor, so cattle breeding, genetically associated with it, became a predominantly male branch of the economy.

The question of the place of origin of cattle breeding also remains a subject of debate between monocentrists and polycentrists. According to the first, this innovation spread from Western Asia, where, according to modern paleozoological and archaeological data, cattle, pigs, donkeys and, probably, the dromedary camel were first domesticated. According to the second, pastoralism arose convergently among various groups of primitive humanity, and at least some species of animals were domesticated completely independently of the influences of the Central Asian focus: the Bactrian camel in Central Asia, the deer in Siberia, the horse in the European steppes, the guanaco and guinea pig in the Andes .

As a rule, the formation of a producing economy occurred in a complex form, and the emergence of agriculture was somewhat ahead of the emergence of cattle breeding. This is understandable: for the domestication of animals, a strong food supply was necessary. Only in some cases were highly specialized hunters able to domesticate animals, and, as ethnographic data show, in these cases there was usually some kind of cultural influence of settled farmers-pastoralists. Even the domestication of reindeer was no exception: although there is still debate about the time and centers of its domestication, the most well-reasoned point of view is that the peoples of Southern Siberia, already familiar with horse breeding, took up reindeer husbandry and moved to the northern regions unfavorable for horses.