And so it begins, Strayer 2 First Farmers

9/4/2015

Welcome to Strayer class of 2018. Studying is "merely" the manipulation of data. Arrange, and rearrange, write it out and chart it out, think about it and talk about it. The more you do of that, the more you'll understand, and then therefore be able to analyze and synthesize the content. (The translates in to getting a good grade on the test.)

One more piece of advice about boredom, the more interested you make yourself become about a topic, the more interesting the topic becomes. Control your own mind!

26 Comments

Bingham

9/4/2015 03:10:24

Yeah, so I'll start this off. BPQ1: The Agricultural Revolution marked a decisive turning point in human history. What evidence might you offer to support this claim, and how might you argue against it?

In support of the claim, you might note the following:
• the ability of humankind after the Agricultural Revolution to support much larger populations
• the beginning of the dominance of the human species over other forms of life on the planet
• an explosion of technological innovation, including techniques for making pottery and weaving textiles and metallurgy
• the growing impact of humans on their environments

In opposition to the claim, you might argue
• that the Agricultural Revolution was a long-term process rather than a turning point, and that even today it is not practiced universally by all humankind.
• you could also argue that the Agricultural Revolution was part of a longer process of more intense human exploitation of the earth that began long before the first permanent agricultural settlements took shape.

Melissa Alter

11/4/2015 13:06:07

Jumping ahead to Big Picture Question #3: "Was the Agricultural Revolution inevitable? Why did it occur so late in the story of humankind?"

I would argue that, yes, the Agricultural Revolution was inevitable. As many large animals died with the end of the last Ice Age, humans' source of protein was severely diminished to smaller animals, which would likely have required them to put in more work for a lot smaller reward had they not turned to agriculture and domesticating animals (which, in addition to using them for muscle power so humans wouldn't have to work as hard, benefited them because domesticated animals were also used for their meat and milk). Additionally, humans had been "preparing" for the Agricultural Revolution for some time with the making of tools such as sickles, which suggests that the Agricultural Revolution would have come about sooner or later. Finally, there is the fact that new farming techniques were developed in varying regions of the world (i.e. the Fertile Crescent, sub-Saharan Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and eastern North America) at approximately the same time. Contrary to an isolated incident, the individual yet widespread development of new farming techniques and technologies suggests that the Agricultural Revolution was inevitable, and humans had only been so late in developing it due to the unfavorable conditions of the last Ice Age.

Anything I left off or someone wants to argue the opposite?

Bingham

11/4/2015 14:26:50

I like it Mellissa! Good answer. For those of you peeking in, note that Mellissa answered the question in a narrative way. That's good, but you might find it makes sense to you to just provide bullet points. That works too.

Notice how similar these two questions are. There is overlap. You'll hear me say this a hundred times next year, but the most common AP mistake is not answering the question asked. If I asked you BP1, the answer would be somewhat different if I asked BP3. Why would you do that? Because you might not read the question carefully enough to notice the slight differences in the question . And before you assume you wouldn't do that, don't be so sure. I see people do it over and over, year after year!

What about margin questions guys? Time is short!

Addison Antonoff

12/4/2015 04:38:26

The first margin question:
"What accounts for the emergence of agriculture after countless millennia of human life without it?"
As Strayer explains, the start of the Agricultural Revolution coinciding with the last Ice Age (during the Pleistocene Epoch, I believe) is far from coincidental. As the Ice Age ended, the weather conditions became similar to the ones we know today. As we know, and covered by de Blij, climate change greatly impacts the way humans progress. If I recall correctly, he said that the changes caused by the Little Ice Age brought around a second Agricultural Revolution. Not only did the climate change, but the placement of humans changed as well. At the end of the last Ice Age, humans migrated across the planet, in part because of the "friendlier" weather. Relating this back to what Melissa said, the active movement came with active hunting. This lead to the extinction of large species that humans had depended on for food. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. When there is a problem, ingenuity has to kick in. Since humans had not only hunted, but gathered, they knew that plants (some of them, at least) were food. The conditions of weather and extinction not only made it possible to farm, but also made it necessary. The reason the Agricultural Revolution did not happen before is because humans as a species did not have any need for it.

Bingham

12/4/2015 08:50:03

Good analysis Addison, I enjoyed seeing you synthesizing Strayer with de Blij. And, you write well, always a good thing!

I think you have missed another argument in response to that question. Aside from climatic conditions, the Agricultural Revolution was part of a longer process of more intense human exploitation of the earth that began long before the first permanent agricultural settlements took shape. The development of techniques and technologies during this process proved important for the transition to settled agriculture, and the need to develop these new techniques and technologies also explains in part why the Agricultural Revolution occurred so late in human history.

And on a side note, this brings to mind one of those "which came first, the chicken, or the egg?" issues. And that is this, did increasing human populations become "the mother of invention" as you so artfully put it, or were the increased populations a result of agriculture? Strayer takes a position on this, see if you can find it.

Addison Antonoff

12/4/2015 10:41:05

About that argument -- is there something scholars mark as the "starting off point" for the Agricultural Revolution? Is there a certain invention (I know Strayer talks about the hoe) or something that marks the start? I can't see this happening because almost all of these things are integrated within each other, but is there a defining symbol for this time, like the Confederate flag as a symbol for the Civil War, etc.? I imagine there isn't because there are too many important things - all the types of plants and (fourteen) animals that were exploited - for just one symbol to arise. If there is one, however, what is it and why?

As for Strayer's position - in the section 'The Culture of Agriculture', he writes, "On a global level, scholars estimate that the world's population was about 6 million around 10,000, before the Agricultural Revolution got under way, and shot up to some 50 million by 5,000 years ago and 250 million by the Common Era" (61). To me, it sounds like he believes that the population increase was one of the causes for the Agricultural Revolution. It makes sense because the extinction of several large species -- not only has the climate changed, but more people are hunting them. What do you think Mr. Bingham?

Bingham

12/4/2015 10:50:00

Sorry Addison, the AR is too distant, too fuzzy for iconic symbols. No stars & bars, no hammer & sickle. Plus, as you say, we are talking about the convergents of so many separate events.

As for Strayer's position, I think you have it. Strayer, and I agree with the "mother of invention" side of the argument...with a little geographic luck thrown in.

Diana

6/7/2016 01:10:09

Yes, the Agricultural Revolution was inevitable because an advanced way to gather and hunt food was bound to be developed and the Agricultural Revolution did just that. Because of Agricultural Revolution, things like “growing populations, settled villages, animal-borne diseases, horse-drawn chariot warfare, cities, states, empires, civilizations, writing, literature and more”(26), were able to happen. Agriculture happened so late in the story of humankind because of the last Ice Age. After the Ice Age, plants and animals were able to “ flourish[ed] and increase[d] their range, providing a much richer and more diverse environment for many human societies” (24). Thus the Agricultural Revolution eventually came to be..

Is my answer to that same question good also?

Bingham

10/7/2016 14:16:13

Hey Diana,

I think you ended up on the wrong forum for some reason. This is last year's class. You will want to post here...
http://www.binghamsplace.com/you-and-strayer/strayer-2-2nd-ed-foundational-civilizations#comments

Cathleen Freedman

12/4/2015 10:11:24

As for margin questions, I'll go with the Connection on page 56 for $200.
"In what ways did agriculture spread? Where and why was it sometimes resisted?"
For the first part of the question, agriculture spread through diffusion (the progressive unfurl of agriculture and its methods)
and through the migration and settling of agricultural people. Both of these approaches could be utilized simultaneously.
Examples of the different ways: 1000 BCE- Maize is exposed to southwestern US due to agricultural migration here
500 CE- Maize reaches Mississippi river valley area by diffusion
6500-4000 BCE- The "agricultural package" (the ideal, am I right, ladies?) (this consisted of the agricultural people, their languages, and farming methods) from Southwest Asia through diffusion and migration and spread to Europe, central Asia, Egypt, and North Africa. The Indo European languages (so you're saying de blij like actually helps us in real life and we haven't spent a year of our lives reading his monstrosity of self-citations for nothing?!) today are the living proof of this movement of culture.
3000 BCE- whole set up of agricultural societies in Africa, going back to migration. Bantu speakers brought their language and agriculture and iron skills. Paleolithic people were either absorbed, killed, pushed out, or given animal-related diseases fro which they had no immunity to (take that science!)
Austronesian speakers had the same deal going on and took their culture to vacant islands like Madagascar ( and later produced Dreamworks hit movie Madagascar:sources unknown)

So now let's try to wrap our minds around the resisters.
First, there's New Guinea. These people didn't necessarily resist agriculture, but it did not spread. I take it that agriculture was like "fetch" and it just wasn't happening. Is this a form of resistance?
Australians, people of western N.A, arcitc areas, and southwest africa kept being hunter gatherers, despite being introduced to agriculture. And why, the margin question may ask? Because climates didn't permit productive agriculture. Because some of them lived in areas where resources were plentiful as it was. Because some of them simply preferred their Paleolitihic lifestyle. And because (this part I'm unsure of, so if anyone can better phrase it, help me out) it didn't seem like they were in a position where they could compete with other agricultural societies. Also, the hunter gathering lifestyle was mostly destroyed. I'm sure this was probably a big deal to those hunter gatherers who were like "but this is all I know."
Anything I missed?

Fun fact: CE means Common Era. Took me way too long to figure out, so I hope I spare someone else that headache.

Bingham

12/4/2015 12:12:20

I like your sense of humor Cathleen! I forgot how similar all of these margin questions and big picture questions are in chapter 2. Don't get too used to that, later chapters span a much wider array of topics.

Your answer implies this, but I'd like to emphasize that with regard to resistance, some peoples took the fairly reasonable positions that they liked the chill lifestyle off the hunter/gatherer. I mean seriously, farming is a butt load of work! Sure there is less food insecurity, but man, you really have to give up a lot of family evenings around the campfire and young couples going off into the forest to, well, do whatever it is that young couples do. And think of the paleo-diet stuff these days, there is definitely something to be said against all those carbs like wheat and barley! And these people don't even know about corn syrup or sugar yet!!!

We'll see a parallel of this with industrialization. There are plenty of reasonable people, like Gandhi for example, that saw more down side than upside to factories and electric lights.

The brutal nature of history is that in spite of the reasonable objections to these immutable forces, in the end, the agricultural societies won out, as did the industrial societies in the 18th & 19th centuries. What we have to remember as world historians is that there is always a cultural price to pay for this "progress". Something unique and special is always lost, and the "winners" of history never seem to appreciate that.

Jennifer Lankau Chase link

13/4/2015 03:11:16

Remember at the beginning of the year when we talked about BC, BCE and AD and CE? And then again when we talked about religion? Argh!

Bingham

12/4/2015 12:14:31

Even though there aren't many margin questions abouts this, be sure your understand the variations in agricultural societies.

Addison Antonoff

12/4/2015 12:40:27

There are several good study resources online, but the website for the book is extremely helpful (Melissa sent this link to me, so please credit her):
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/strayer1e/pages/bcs-main.asp?v=chapter&s=02000&n=00020&i=02020.01&o=|00030|00060|00010|00020|&ns=0

Addison Antonoff

12/4/2015 12:44:02

Melissa Alter

12/4/2015 13:11:44

Thanks, Addison, but I can't claim credit; the link was off in the margins on the back page. In regards to the differences between agricultural societies, I enjoy bullet-pointed lists:

Pastoral:
-Nomadic
-Favored animals over planting
-Mostly unfavorable relations with agrarian societies (although there was "peaceful exchange of technologies, ideas, products, and people")
-Mostly in Central Asia, Arabian Peninsula, and South and East Africa
-Organized in clans (ex: Igbo and Tiv)

Agricultural Village / Stateless Societies:
-Organized by lineages
-Ex: Banpo, Jericho, and Catalhuyuk (they were the ones with the tombs laid atop each other. They originated in Turkey -- the country, not the food)
-Inequality developed over time, but was not inherited

Chiefdoms:
-Similar to agricultural village societies, but power was inherited, or granted by birth (which became popular in later societies and civilizations)
-Chiefs "won over" their followers through generosity and charisma
-Originated in Mesopotamia (also popular with Polynesian people in the Pacific Islands)
-In charge of both religious and secular functions
--Chiefs led rituals, organized for warfare, directed the economy, and resolved internal dispute

Hope this helps; if I forgot / mislabeled anything, please correct me on it.

Cathleen Freedman

12/4/2015 13:44:47

Just to add teensy details (I think your outline was spot on)
Pastoralists-
utilized animal husbandry (relying on the goods of animals like milk, blood (ya nasty pastoralists), and meat)

Were all about their animals (their nomad lifestyle revolved on the animals' needs) and really did not delve into their fruits and veggies.
Animals of theirs also varied based on the regions. (like football teams' mascots. That's how I think of it) Also, horses and camels were very important and were in very different regions.

had a military confederation

Agricultural Village Societies
Organized by lineages (would someone mind going into detail about how this works...) that acted as the gov't.

Also the central Nigerian Tiv worked this way for 1 million people

I just want to go into a bit more depth on the inequality, as I found this interesting. Elders began to take advantage of the juniors and exploit them through labor and controlled women's reproductive powers.(kind of intriguing that this is where that begins.) Also, the concept of slaves came into play. Darn those elders.

Chiefdoms
Cahokia located around St. Louis as an example

Olivia Manning

12/4/2015 13:35:45

BPQ2: How did early agricultural societies differ from those of the Paleolithic era? How does the example of settled gathering and hunting people such as the Chumash complicate this comparison?

The Paleolithic era contained people who were mostly hunter/gatherers. Their communities were normally small because they had no need for expansion and they received their food by hunting animals, gathering herbs, etc. Unlike the Paleolithic Era, people of the Agricultural Revolution focused on simply agriculture. They farmed their food, and created big societies because their food (the crops) required much space, and the increasing popularity of agriculture had brought more people to start farming. This shows one of the many distinct differences between the hunter/gatherers and the farmers, their societies were completely different sizes. Now, the Chumash come into play right here because they have qualities of both. Doing some research online, I found that the Chumash were a Native American tribe of hunter/gatherers based on the shores of California. They did their hunting and gathering like any other Paleolithic population would, but they had a HUGE society. This is why it’s confusing because the generalization of the Paleolithic people was that they had small societies that had maybe 30 people. The Chumash had a society that at one point expanded over 7,000 square miles, and contained a population that once numbered in the tens of thousands. As shown, the Chumash could make this question difficult because they were Paleolithic people that possessed an agricultural size society.

Olivia

12/4/2015 13:38:50

This is the link for the info about the Chumash:

http://www.santaynezchumash.org/history.html

Bingham

12/4/2015 14:22:07

World historians love the Chumash because they are the exception to the rule. Their domain was just so darned abundant (mainly fish) that they supported a large a reasonably sophisticated society with out the need for agriculture.

Makes you wonder about how the world might be different if the earth's resources were distributed a bit more evenly, huh?

Olivia Manning

12/4/2015 14:01:15

Margin Question pg 61: What was revolutionary about the Agricultural Revolution?

I think that what was revolutionary about the AR was that it was this huge "explosion of technological innovation" (in the words of strayer), It led to all these new inventions of tools etc. that benefited all the farmers. Some of these include, pots, looms, metallurgy, etc. Also it gave way to this ginormous population of people. Over a period of ten thousand years, which is like lunch break for the Earth the human population went from around 6 millions people to 250 million people by the CE. I dont what that percent it, but its huge. And there are many many other things that he lists.

Bingham

12/4/2015 14:19:06

we can't do a reply to a reply on this forum, so...

Cathleen; to your point about inequality and the control of women's reproduction, this is a HUGE point in world history. Although there is almost no evidence of much social class distinction or gender inequality before the advent of agricultural and pastoral societies, it remains a consistent aspect of the human story all the way through today. For example, American women earn less than 80% of the pay for the same work as their male counterparts. And that's mild compared to the inequality you'll see in later chapters!

The lineage thing relates to class inequality as we see emerging in chiefdoms. Increasingly we see the idea that superior abilities, even connections to the divine, are related to genetic lines. As in the dad was amazing, so the sons (not daughters) must have that spark of amazingness in them as well. This is a persistent idea as well. This also explains the seemingly obsessive concern with controlling women's sexuality, there needs no question about who the father might be! Crazy, but it's the beginning of the world we live in.

Bingham

14/4/2015 14:17:29

So most of you did well on the reading check. You understand that you need to keep reworking the content to be successful on the open ended test, right?

Olivia Manning

15/4/2015 11:22:29

I have!! I've been reading it each day. I just haven't posted because the vocal concert is tomorrow and I've been preparing for it. 😂😂😂

Lois Sanford

15/4/2015 10:14:08

So I was working with my tutor on Chapter 2, and we answered the Big Idea questions. The most helpful (and by helpful I mean easier to see both the general and specifics) and productive method that was used to answer the questions is making a chart of both sides. For example: Question 4 asks, "The Agricultural Revolution provides evidence for 'progress' in human affairs." How would you evaluate this statement?
What we did was make one list under the title "Progress" and another titled "Not." Then we looked at the chapter and found evidences for both lists. It takes a lot less time than answering in complete sentences and allowed me to find evidence pieces for both sides of the argument without having to read the chapter more times than necessary.
Another helpful thing for both Strayer and DiBlij: Complete sentences take up time and space. Bullet points, abbreviations, and leaving out articles are your friends.

Augustus Allen

15/4/2015 12:23:46

Hello to all of those who are studying for the chapter, in my search for good resources for this chapter, I have stumbled upon this useful powerpoint.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhs.auburn.cnyric.org%2FTeachers%2FJeannette_OliverCarr%2Fch%25202%2520.ppt&ei=avwuVePIIfTLsASY-oCABg&usg=AFQjCNFh4ewScaetDwaHIGxh43MynkLgPQ&sig2=FsdDQMutnTdH8gGtRLkm-w&bvm=bv.91071109,d.cWc

I hope this can be a help to those who are doing some last minute studying/cramming...

And so it begins, Strayer 2 First Farmers

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Bingham

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