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Agricultural Revolution (agricultural + revolution)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Life Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

The origins of food production in north China: A different kind of agricultural revolution,

EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2010
Robert L. Bettinger
Abstract By roughly 8,000 calendar years before the present (calBP), hunter-gatherers across a broad swath of north China had begun small-scale farming of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica).1,6 According to traditional wisdom, this early millet farming evolved from the intensive hunter-gatherer adaptation represented by the late Pleistocene microblade tradition of northern China,2, 7 termed here the North China Microlithic. The archeological record of this hunter-gatherer connection is poorly documented, however, and as a result the early agricultural revolution in north China is not as well understood as those that occurred in other parts of the world. The Laoguantai site of Dadiwan, in the western Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, PRC, furnishes the first complete record of this transition, which unfolded quite differently from other, better known, agricultural revolutions. [source]

Tooth wear and dental pathology at the advent of agriculture: New evidence from the Levant

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2006
Vered Eshed
Abstract Differences in patterns of diet and subsistence through the analysis of dental pathology and tooth wear were studied in skeletal populations of Natufian hunter-gatherers (10,500,8300 BC) and Neolithic populations (8300,5500 BC, noncalibrated) from the southern Levant. 1,160 Natufians and 804 Neolithic teeth were examined for rate of attrition, caries, antemortem tooth loss, calculus, periapical lesions, and periodontal processes. While the Natufian people manifest a higher rate of dental attrition and periodontal disease (36.4% vs. 19%), Neolithic people show a higher rate of calculus. Both populations manifested low and similar rates of caries (6.4% in the Natufian vs. 6.7% in the Neolithic), periapical lesions (not over 1.5%), and antemortem tooth loss (3.7% vs. 4.5%, respectively). Molar wear pattern in the Neolithic is different than in the Natufian. The current study shows that the dental picture obtained from the two populations is multifactorial in nature, and not exclusively of dietary origin, i.e., the higher rate and unique pattern of attrition seen in the Natufian could result from a greater consumption of fibrous plants, the use of pestles and mortars (which introduce large quantities of stone-dust to the food), and/or the use of teeth as a "third hand." The two major conclusions of this study are: 1) The transition from hunting and gathering to a food-producing economy in the Levant did not promote changes in dental health, as previously believed. This generally indicates that the Natufians and Neolithic people of the Levant may have differed in their ecosystem management (i.e., gathering vs. growing grains), but not in the type of food consumed. 2) Changes in food-preparation techniques and nondietary usage of the teeth explain much of the variation in tooth condition in populations before and after the agricultural revolution. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2006. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

The origins of food production in north China: A different kind of agricultural revolution,

EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2010
Robert L. Bettinger
Abstract By roughly 8,000 calendar years before the present (calBP), hunter-gatherers across a broad swath of north China had begun small-scale farming of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica).1,6 According to traditional wisdom, this early millet farming evolved from the intensive hunter-gatherer adaptation represented by the late Pleistocene microblade tradition of northern China,2, 7 termed here the North China Microlithic. The archeological record of this hunter-gatherer connection is poorly documented, however, and as a result the early agricultural revolution in north China is not as well understood as those that occurred in other parts of the world. The Laoguantai site of Dadiwan, in the western Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, PRC, furnishes the first complete record of this transition, which unfolded quite differently from other, better known, agricultural revolutions. [source]