Environmental Impacts of the Rise of Agriculture

An event as important as the Neolithic Revolution (Bar Yosef, 1998) is one that most certainly leaves a mark. This mark can still be seen today, as the food system many modern human populations rely on continues to revolve around agriculture. The event has been so pivotal, progressivists argue, that it has allowed early human populations to spend less time hunting and gathering, and more time innovating (Diamond, 1987). Were it not for the Neolithic Revolution, would I still be blogging here today? 

An event so monumental for human populations must also have had impacts on the surrounding biotic communities. Zeder (2008) examined the environmental impacts of Neolithic economies in the Mediterranean Basin, which were most important in the large islands of the region. In these locations, domesticated and wild mainland fauna replaced endemic fauna. In Cyprus, for instance, only five endemic species existed before the arrival of humans, namely the pigmy hippopotamus, the pygmy elephant, the genet, and a mouse (Smithsonian Institution, 2013), all of which are now extinct. Zeder (2008) argues that despite the role of humans in the extirpation of endemic island fauna still being unclear due to a lack of definitive evidence, the progressive east-to-west disappearance of these mammals occurring around the time of human colonisation suggests that humans did play a significant role.

Pygmy hippopotamus skull ca. 10,000–8,500 BCE from Aetokremmos
(Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History)

The environmental impacts of the rise of agriculture have also been studied in the other major centres of domestication. Zhou et al., (2011), for example, have shown that an agricultural transition occurred in the Longdong area of China during the Neolithic period. This transition was marked by a shift in early agriculture from producing common millet exclusively to producing other grains including foxtail millet, rice, and soybeans in addition to the common millet. Agricultural civilisations grew rapidly during this period and this expansion altered the Longdong basin ecosystem. Pollen analysis revealed that the predominant effects of the intensification of agriculture in the region were the degradation and simplification of local shrub-grasslands and the expansion of Graminaceae farmlands. Following the abandonment of settlements and agriculture in this location, the ecosystem recovered.

The studies described above are only two of the many examples of the environmental impacts of early agriculture. They highlight that even the earliest agricultural civilisations managed to alter the natural environment, just as we do today albeit at a much larger scale. 

The Origins of Agriculture, Part 2

Agriculture appeared globally across the continents during the Holocene, with major centres located in Southwest Asia, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, South America, and North America (Price& Feinman, 2005). Some of the most ancient plant domesticates include wheat and barley in Southwest Asia, millet and rice in East Asia, squash and maize in Central America, and arrowroot in South America (recall the map from part 1). Early animal domesticates include dogs, goats, cattle, and pigs in Southwest Asia (Zeder,2011), dogs being the earliest domesticates. 

The earliest beginnings of agriculture are seen in the Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped zone of relatively fertile land (as the name clearly suggests). The region has high agricultural productivity, and is thought to have been even more productive in the past when the climate was more moderate than today (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013).

The Fertile Crescent (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013)

More specifically, the Levant region, home to the Natufian people, has been extensively studied as the birthplace of agriculture. This region, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, possesses diverse landscapes and a distinct seasonality pattern, the amount of rainfall dictating vegetation patterns. The Levant's Mediterranean vegetation zone was biologically the richest, with large amounts of edible fruits, seeds, leaves, and tubers, as well as fauna including gazelle, wild cattle, roe deer, and wild boar. Around 13,000 years BP, the region experienced climatic improvements, and it is around this time that the Natufian civilisation emerged. A couple millennia later, environmental deterioration occurred due to the Younger Dryas climate crisis (11,000 years BP), and it is in the thousand years following this event that we see the earliest plant and animal domesticates in the region (Bar Yosef, 1998). 

Map of the Near East indicating the territories of the early Natufian homeland, the expansion of the late Natufian culture, and the area of the Harifian culture (Bar Yosef, 1998)

As we saw in part 1 of this post, the cause for the origination of agriculture is still hotly debated among archaeologists, climate scientists, anthropologists and the like. This is where I'll conclude this introduction on the early beginnings of agriculture. Keeping in line with this blog’s intent, I’ll be back to discuss the environmental impacts of the onset of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent.