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    AP World History Lesson 2

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    Andrew Jones
    The document summarizes key aspects of the Neolithic Revolution, including the domestication of plants and animals approximately 12,000 years ago which led to a rapid increase in the human population. Some advantages of agriculture included a more controllable food supply and the ability to produce surpluses, while disadvantages included the need to radically change the land and increased labor. The shift from foraging to agriculture was likely gradual and the result of multiple factors. Overall, the document examines how small changes in early human behavior ultimately led to major societal transformations.

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    AP World History Lesson 2

    Uploaded by

    Andrew Jones
    22 views20 pages
    The document summarizes key aspects of the Neolithic Revolution, including the domestication of plants and animals approximately 12,000 years ago which led to a rapid increase in the human population. Some advantages of agriculture included a more controllable food supply and the ability to produce surpluses, while disadvantages included the need to radically change the land and increased labor. The shift from foraging to agriculture was likely gradual and the result of multiple factors. Overall, the document examines how small changes in early human behavior ultimately led to major societal transformations.

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    The document summarizes key aspects of the Neolithic Revolution, including the domestication of plants and animals approximately 12,000 years ago which led to a rapid increase in the human population. Some advantages of agriculture included a more controllable food supply and the ability to produce surpluses, while disadvantages included the need to radically change the land and increased labor. The shift from foraging to agriculture was likely gradual and the result of multiple factors. Overall, the document examines how small changes in early human behavior ultimately led to major societal transformations.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    22 views20 pages

    AP World History Lesson 2

    Uploaded by

    Andrew Jones
    The document summarizes key aspects of the Neolithic Revolution, including the domestication of plants and animals approximately 12,000 years ago which led to a rapid increase in the human population. Some advantages of agriculture included a more controllable food supply and the ability to produce surpluses, while disadvantages included the need to radically change the land and increased labor. The shift from foraging to agriculture was likely gradual and the result of multiple factors. Overall, the document examines how small changes in early human behavior ultimately led to major societal transformations.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 20

    AP World History

    LESSON TWO: THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION


    Neolithic

     What does that mean?


     Neo: New
     Lith: Stone
     New Stone Age
     Rapid increase in human population
     20,000 years ago, the human population was less than two million
     The Neolithic Revolution started 12,000 years ago
     By 5,000 BCE (7,000 years ago), the human population had grown to 10 million
     By 1,000 BCE, it had grown to 100 million
    Why did the Neolithic Revolution Occur?

     What were the causes?


     Last ice age ended 12,000 years ago
     Domestication of animals
     Shift in food production from foraging to agriculture
    Neolithic Tools and Metallurgy

    Weaving

    Wheel Plow

    Pottery
    Domestication of Animals

     What is it?
     Taming – either animals or plants
     How do you tame an animal?
     Feed it!
     Dog was tamed first
     Companionship, security, and hunting
     Next, goats, sheep, and pigs
     Meat and milk
     Then, utility animals
     Horses, oxen, buffalo, llamas, camels
    Pastoralism

     Or Herding. What does it mean?


     Domestication of animals without agriculture
     Usually nomadic
     Sometimes became wealthy and developed socially
     Not as large or powerful as agricultural societies
     Often used utility and war animals
     Warriors on horseback or in chariots
     This necessary mobility made it difficult to settle
     Often roaming traders, usually in grasslands like Eurasia
    Advantages and Disadvantages of Herding

     First, you get to be a cowboy.


     That’s pretty cool
     People take care of animals and vise versa
     Animals provide meat and milk
     Also provide shelter and clothing (wool and leather)
     Of course, herders also have to move around a lot. Why?
     Animals constantly need new grass to eat.
     What becomes very difficult if you have you move around a lot?
     Building cities
     Unless, of course, you’re the Mongols
    Qualities of Animals to Domesticate

     Intelligent
     Not overly-aggressive
     Capable of some task
     Easily and quickly bred
     Dogs, goats, pigs, sheep, horses, oxen
     llamas, donkeys, etc.
     Why not elephants?
     They are pregnant for 22 months!
     Why did Pastoralism never catch on in the Americas?
     They have none of these animals except the llama
     And the llama is mean, lazy, and not very smart.
    Social Stratification

     Classification of people into groups


     Why did Pastoralism lead to Social Stratification?
     Some people herded animals for food
     Some for utility
     Some used animals for war
     Who was at the top of the hierarchy?
     Warriors. Why?
     Strongest! They could tell others what to do.
     This also led to gender division
    Cultural Diffusion

     What does it mean?


     Spreading things between groups
     What was spread?
     Technology
     Hierarchical systems
     Religious beliefs
     Why did pastoralism lead to cultural diffusion?
     Roaming traders
    The Agricultural Revolution
    The Cheeseburger

     In a mere 15,000 years, mankind went from hunting and gathering to creat-
    ing such wonders as the airplane, the Internet, and the $0.99 cheeseburger.
     To get this cheeseburger, you have to:
     Feed, raise, and slaughter cows, then grind their meat
     Ship that meat to its destination
     Grow wheat and process it (a lot) into bread
     Milk some cows for cheese
     Grow and pickle cucumbers, sweeten tomatoes, and grind mustard seeds
     Somehow, people are able to bring all of these factors together – a process
    involving dozens, if not hundreds of people – and create a food so affordable
    that a person making US minimum wage can earn enough money for it in 11
    minutes.
    Shift from Forager Society

     The cultivation of crops arose independently in a number of places –


    from Africa to China to the Americas – using crops that grew nearby
     Rice in Southeast Asia
     Maze in Central America
     Potatoes in the Andes
     Wheat in the Fertile Crescent
     Yams in West Africa
     People around the world began to abandon their foraging ways in favor
    of agriculture.
     Given that people around the world independently made this choice to
    switch from foraging to agriculture, what can we ultimately assume
    about this shift?
     It was a good change, right? Probably. Let’s find out.
    Advantages of Agriculture

     Controllable food supply


     People are in control of their own food
     If you’re growing the crops and breeding them to be stronger, you have a better chance of not
    starving.
     Provides surplus food (especially if you grow grain)
     Allows for specialized labor and creation of cities
     For example: tradespeople make tools to farm better, which allows more food to be produced
    and allows more people to become tradespeople
     In time, this eventually makes it possible for a corporation to make a profit on a $0.99 double
    cheeseburger.
     Can be practiced all over the world
     Unlike hunting/gathering, which limits locations
    Disadvantages

     Must radically change the land


     Difficult to do and damaging to environment
     Must continue to change it – growing farmland – as the population grows.
     Many argue that the creation of large cities made possible by agriculture is not
    that beneficial
     People work harder
     The environment suffers
     Farming is HARD
     Less leisure time
     Encourages such behaviors as caste systems and slavery
    Domestication of Plants

     What does that mean?


     Breeding plants for favorable qualities. Like what?
     Large size
     Sweet flavor
     Resistant to bugs and cold
    Why Agriculture?

     Historians don’t agree exactly on why people shifted from forager soci-
    eties to agrarian ones. Some possible reasons include:
     Population pressure necessitated agriculture, even though it was more work
     Abundance gave people the leisure to experiment with domestication
     Planting originated as a fertility rite
     People needed to domesticate grains in order to produce more alcohol
     It’s also possible this wasn’t a revolution at all, but a gradual shift
     Early foragers knew that seeds from plants grew into more plants when put in
    the ground. People only needed to be convinced to stay in one place long
    enough to grow crops.
     Through generations of experimentation, they found the plants that grew the
    best and discovered that agriculture simply makes more food.
    Example: Snails

     We have evidence that, 13,000 years ago, early Greeks were domesticat-
    ing snails.
     In the Franchthi Cave (which was inhabited by humans for more than 20,000
    years) were the remains of many snail shells
     These were much larger than modern snails, and they seem to have grown
    larger in that cave alone. What does this mean?
     People were selectively breeding snails to be larger and more nutritious
     Snails are very good for domestication, because they are (surprisingly)
    nutritious, easy to carry, and easy to imprison.
     This is the first example of continuous domestication and breeding of an-
    imals by humans. Was this a “revolution”?
     Maybe not, but one small revolution leads to another, and soon people are
    making cheap double cheeseburgers.
    In Conclusion

     Many historians argue that, without agriculture, we wouldn’t have all the
    bad things that come with civilization. Like what?
     Patriarchy
     Inequality
     War
     Famine
     The environment also suffers because of agriculture. Why?
     Building dams
     Clearing forests
     More recently, drilling for oil to turn into fertilizer
     People around the world independently made the choice to switch to
    agriculture. Does that mean it was the right choice?
     Maybe, maybe not. But it does allow us to eat inexpensive cheeseburgers.
    What History Teaches Us

     This is a good example of what history teaches us. We often simply things to single
    events, when they are, in fact, gradual processes built up to over the course of tens, hun-
    dreds, or even thousands of years.
     People have been making decisions that have shaped what the world is today since there
    have been people. What does that mean about us?
     The decisions we make will also shape the world for our descendants.
     It is therefor extremely important for us to understand the decisions and consequences of our an-
    cestors so that we may be adequately informed to make those decisions for the future.

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