Re: When DID agriculture start?


rmacfarl wrote:
Gerrit Hanenburg wrote:
"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

When did hominids begin this 'non-
agricultural' plant cultivation?

It would be wise first to consult a recent textbook on the matter,
such as
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9780631205661&site=1

And according to this source agriculture has multiple primary origins
around the world, but there is no evidence for crop cultivation on a
detectable scale much earlier than the Holocene.
What tangible evidence, instead of speculation, is there to the
contrary?

Is there any tangible evidence, instead of specuation, that crop
cultivation, of some kind, did not occur earlier?

Is there any tangible evidence that there is no one in the house?
What kind of data would falsify that hypothesis?
You want me to turn negative evidence into positive evidence. How do I
do that?

In fact there seems to be a lot of positive evidence that agriculture
did start - initiate, commence, become established, undergo a rapid
cultural evolution - in the past 12 thousand years, with the timing and
sequence of events differing in different locations.

Well, basically we see the origins of the first large-scale grass based
(wheat, rice, corn, barley, etc.) agriculture. Does this demarcate the
origins of man's other agriculture based pursuits? Why, Ross, should
we assume this? Be explicit.

I'm only a lay reader of popular texts like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs
& Steel, & of the postings of professional archaeologists like Mikey
Brass on Paleoanthro,

Uh?

but the markers of the development of agriculture
seem pretty clear from what I've read.

Maybe you should quote some of this directly and this way your words
wouldn't leave us with the impression that you want us to take your
word that the, "markers of the development of agriculture (whatever you
might mean by this) are "pretty clear." You know what I mean. As it
is now your words leave your audience wondering why if is clear to you,
you don't just tell us so that it is clear to us. Or, maybe, it really
isn't clear to you. And then why did you tell us it was. Ross, you
got some splanin to do!

Depositional changes in e.g.
marshes & bogs for example - e.g. pollen showing a reduction in tree
cover & increase in pollen from crop plants, & evidence of erosion of
topsoil.

What can analysis of this site tell us about possible earlier sites at
locations (and points in time) independent of this site? IOW, absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Then you have archaeological evidence of lifestyle changes -
increased population density, appearance of settled villages &
eventually towns & cities. Changes in tools from hunting to
agricultural implements. Appearance of pottery. Et cetera.

Yes, mesopotamia (or thereabouts) being the first emergence of
livescale agriculture.

How does this body of evidence preclude the possibility of other forms
of agriculture occurring earlier? Obviously it does not and could not.
We simply don't have enough information about prehistory to say one
way or another.

Plenty of evidence of these in various parts of the world at different
times after the end of the Ice Age. Much debate about actual timing, &
whether or not different locations developed the capabilities
independently, or partly by diffusion of ideas from elsewhere (e.g.
West Africa - an independent development, or influenced by ideas
diffusing from North Africa & the Middle East?)

It's highly interpretive. We have little blips of history preceding,
let's say, 5 thousand years. And, none of it can be used to tell us
what was or was not happening at, let's say, 10 kya.

But as for positive evidence of agriculture from 2MYA to 12KYA? Over to
you, Claudius [smirk]...

It makes no sense to deny these hominids the intellect to be able to
recognize the rather obvious benefit of some form of cultivation. Why
should we make the assumption that, let's say, the ability to sow seeds
was beyond them? Or even, most simply, the ability to recognize
productive forages and lay claim, using weapons to drive off
food-competitor species. I don't feel comfortable denying them these
kind of common sense abilities.

.

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