Fertile Crescent (for individual work)
Fertile Crescent
From about 11,000 years ago, some groups of humans began to adopt less nomadic lifestyles, becoming at least “part-time” sedentary. There were two main reasons for this: climate change and local population pressure. With the arrival of more stable climates at the end of the last ice age, regions of natural abundance appeared where large numbers of humans were able to settle. These people were not farming, but living off the rich natural resources of the land. Those communities that abandoned nomadism but still lived as foragers are called “affluent foragers,” or wealthy hunter-gatherers, meaning those who have enough resources to settle down and stay in one place. The most important affluent foragers in the story of Jericho were the Natufian people, who began occupying the western Fertile Crescent (present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) just over 14,000 years ago.
By 10,000 BCE, foragers had migrated to most parts of this region, and in some areas there was simply not enough room for them all to settle.
Once groups like the Natufians decided to remain in one place through the pursuit of affluent foraging, all this changed. There were no longer the same constraints on population. Older members of the community did not have to be abandoned; more children could be supported. As a result, affluent foraging groups began to increase in size, and this led to the problem of overpopulation. This is, in fact, what we find at most Natufian sites — clear evidence of population pressure. Eventually there were simply too many mouths to feed by foraging practices, which is what archaeologists have found at the site of Ain Ghazal on the outskirts of Amman, Jordan — a rapid fourfold increase in population around 9,000 years ago.
At a handful of more sustainable sites, however, agriculture did prove capable of supporting much larger populations, once the inhabitants learned to domesticate certain plant and animal species and increase their production through full-scale farming. One such site was Jericho.
Jericho is located in the Jordan River Valley in the West Bank. At an elevation of 864 feet below sea level, Jericho is not only the oldest city on Earth but also the lowest one. The city is well known in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the place where the Israelites returned from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Joshua. According to the Bible, the walls of Jericho came crashing down after the Israelites unleashed the devastating sound of ram’s horn trumpets, a story we will return to in a moment.
After the original foraging settlement, evidence showed that early farmers had learned to domesticate emmer wheat and barley. The availability of these two cereal grains is another significant biological advantage enjoyed by this region. Of the hundred or so domesticated plants humans depend upon today, wheat is one of the most important.
Over the thousand years between 8350 and 7350 BCE, the village of Jericho evolved into a town that was home to perhaps 3,000 farmers. They lived in mud-brick houses arranged without any obvious evidence of town planning. Subsequent residents learned to domesticate sheep and also developed a cult of preserving human skulls and placing shells in their eye sockets.
Pigs were domesticated in the north of the Fertile Crescent, along the modern border between Turkey and Syria. Unlike sheep and goats, they compete with humans for food, which may be why they were domesticated later. Cattle were also domesticated later than sheep and goats. The earliest certain remains of domesticated cattle date to about 9300 BP. The delay may be because their wild ancestor, the aurochs, was a dangerous beast. (We know this because wild aurochs survived until three centuries ago: the last was drawn in Poland in the early seventeenth century CE.) However, like sheep and goats, aurochs were also gregarious. This meant it was possible to control whole herds by taming or supplanting their leaders. In cattle, as in sheep and goats, domestication soon led to genetic changes as animals with undesirable characteristics such as skittishness or aggression (or even intelligence!) were culled.
Questions for expert groups
1. What factors influenced the appearance of the first agrarian civilization in the region?
2. What plants and animals were domesticated? When and why did the domestications happen?
3. What were the main problems of the early agrarian civilizations in the region?
Questions for the mixed groups
1. Put the agrarian civilization in the sequence of their appearance.
1 agrarian civilization (the time of appearance; domesticated plants and animals) à 2 agrarian civilization (the time of appearance; domesticated plants and animals) à 3 agrarian civilization (the time of appearance; domesticated plants and animals) à 4 agrarian civilization (the time of appearance; domesticated plants and animals)
2. Find the differences between the agrarian civilizations.
3. Find the similarities between the agrarian civilizations.
4. Conclusive questions: what factors played the major role in the development of the agrarian civilizations? Which of them were more important and less important for the development of agriculture?