From Domestications to the Arrival of the Western Plant Collectors

Abstract

The earliest site anywhere in the world for agriculture appears to be Jericho in the Near East, and dating from about 10000 years ago. It was the subject of a classic study by Kenyon (1978). If that were indeed the earliest site, a problem which surfaces automatically is the relation of other sites to it. Are they derivative or themselves of independent origin? The further the distance from Jericho, the greater the likelihood of independence — completely so with the earliest sites in the New World. For China one might be less certain. Indeed, if it were shown that the earliest sites there preceded Jericho, the problem of dependence or not is not removed but merely reversed. On balance, the most realistic starting point might be that the original migrations of Homo sapiens out of Africa preceded by many millennia the cultural changes which led to agriculture. Relatively small, widely dispersed hunter-gatherer populations would have a life style and life expectancy dominated by the short term. Settlement, population increase, some degree of social control and sophistication would have to be in place for one human group to interact significantly with another. Until, therefore, compelling evidence emerged to the contrary, one might propose China as a third independent centre of origin for agriculture. Bray (1984) regards 7000 years B.P. as realistic for the start of agriculture in China with perhaps separate traditions for the north and south.