Bron 11

The great Old World archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) wrote of two great developments in prehistoric times, a Neolithic Revolution and an Urban Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution saw the development of agriculture and animal domestication in the Near East during a period of prolonged drought in the Near East. The Urban Revolution coincided with the appearance of the first cities, writing, and literate civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Childe developed his revolution theory during the 1930s, when much less was known about world prehistory.Child's theory is too simplistic, for it has long been surpassed by more sophisticated formulations, based on a much more detailed knowledge of ancient societies. In one respect, however, Childe was correct. The deliberate cultivation of the soil and the domestication of animals were not, in themselves, revolutionary developments, for every hunter-gatherer was familiar with the germination of seeds and the taming of animals. But the consequences of the new economies were indeed revolutionary, for they were the catalyst for lasting, and dramatic, culture changes.

Thanks to radiocarbon dating, we know that agriculture appeared in widely separated areas of the world over several thousand years: in the Near East, China, south and Southeast Asia, and the Americas. Modern theories are based on the realization that many postglacial hunter-gatherer societies were preadapted to food production before anyone started planting wild cereal grasses or penning animals. They were already exploiting such resources intensively, local populations were rising, and there were occasional food shortages in areas like the Near East, where the most favored areas were already at the limits of their carrying capacity.

Bron: The origin of food production