First Farmers

Catalog description

This class compares the archaeological record of the first farming societies around the world. Beginning ca. 11,000 years ago, people started experimenting with various wild plants and animals in their surroundings through selective propagation and harvesting. These activities eventually resulted in genetically and morphologically distinctive species. Many human societies became dependent on these domesticates, and they still form the bulk of our subsistence today. These changes occurred independently in several regions under varying social, cultural, and environmental conditions. By looking at the archaeological record for the domestication and early farming societies in cross-cultural comparison, we can begin to understand the similarities and differences in the processes that resulted in the emergence and spread of food production. The course introduces students to archaeological and anthropological concepts by viewing cultural groups in ecological and social context, and highlighting the variability of human adaptations. To further illustrate the diversity of farming practices, examples from historic and contemporary ethnography will be studied. Students will gain an appreciation not only of the variety of subsistence adaptations involving domesticates, but also of the time, skill, knowledge, and labor required as a non-industrial food producer. Ethnographic examples also provide an avenue to address the cultural, ritual, and symbolic elements of food production and consumption that are often difficult to see in the archaeological record. Animal and plant husbandry are viewed as sources of food, raw materials, and wealth, and we will examine how farming practices help shape the economic, social, ecological and religious contexts of non-industrialized societies in the past and present. Finally, students will also explore the environmental impacts of different farming techniques and learn about the natural and cultural histories of the foods they eat. The earliest domesticates, such as wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and goats, still provide the bulk of the world population¿s caloric consumption, and relatively few additional plant and animal species have been domesticated more recently. Industrial and globalized food production techniques have limited the genetic diversity of the modern food supply and created new environmental challenges in various parts of the world. This course provides students with an understanding of the origins of their daily foods as well as an appreciation for some of the contemporary challenges in food production.