World History
Slow Birth of Agriculture - An essay arguing that people began cultivating some crops long before they embraced agriculture, and that crop cultivation and village life often did not go hand in hand.
From the site:
According to early Greek storytellers, humans owe the ability to cultivate crops to the sudden generosity of a goddess. Legend has it that in a burst of goodwill, Demeter, goddess of crops, bestowed wheat seeds on a trusted priest, who then crisscrossed Earth in a dragon-drawn chariot, sowing the dual blessings of agriculture and civilization.
For decades, archaeologists too regarded the birth of agriculture as a dramatic transformation, dubbed the Neolithic Revolution, that brought cities and civilization in its wake. In this scenario, farming was born after the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers settled in small communities in the Fertile Crescent, a narrow band of land arcing across the Near East. They swiftly learned to produce their own food, sowing cereal grains and breeding better plants. Societies then raised more children to adulthood, enjoyed food surpluses, clustered in villages, and set off down the road to civilization. This novel way of life then diffused across the Old World.
But like many a good story, over time this tale has fallen beneath an onslaught of new data. By employing sensitive new techniques--from sifting through pollen cores to measuring minute shape changes in ancient cereal grains--researchers are building a new picture of agricultural origins. They are pushing back the dates of both plant domestication and animal husbandry (see sidebar, p. 1448) around the world, and many now view the switch to an agrarian lifestyle as a long, complex evolution rather than a dramatic revolution.
- Rise And Fall Of The Vikings And The Little Ice Age
The Rise and Fall of the Vikings and the Little Ice Age - Illustrated, scholarly study by Scott Mandia on the impact of long-term climate changes on the Viking civilization in Greenland and Iceland. As we continue to debate the validity of global warming,...
- Why Only Some Became Farmers: A Global View
Why Only Some Became Farmers: A Global View. Noel Broadbent, Goran Burenhult, and Moreau Maxwell discuss the sweeping changes associated with adoption of food production and offer an explanation why these events only took place independently in a few...
- History Of Papua New Guinea
History of Papua New Guinea. This is a good summary overview of the history of the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea. It is probably just me but I think they have a neat flag. From the site: Archeological evidence indicates that humans arrived...
- Worldhistorysite.com
WorldHistorySite.com Book by William McGaughey about world history as emerging in five civilizations. Provides some brief descriptions and timelines, relating four of them to changes in communication technologies. From the site: Five Epochs of...
- Farming Got Hip In Iran Some 12,000 Years Ago, Ancient Seeds Reveal
Wow! You have to love it when archaeologists make discoveries which deal with one of our first units of study in World History--Mesopotamia. According to this NPR story, archaeologists have discovered evidence of a stone age farming community at the foot...
World History
Slow Birth of Agriculture
Slow Birth of Agriculture - An essay arguing that people began cultivating some crops long before they embraced agriculture, and that crop cultivation and village life often did not go hand in hand.
From the site:
According to early Greek storytellers, humans owe the ability to cultivate crops to the sudden generosity of a goddess. Legend has it that in a burst of goodwill, Demeter, goddess of crops, bestowed wheat seeds on a trusted priest, who then crisscrossed Earth in a dragon-drawn chariot, sowing the dual blessings of agriculture and civilization.
For decades, archaeologists too regarded the birth of agriculture as a dramatic transformation, dubbed the Neolithic Revolution, that brought cities and civilization in its wake. In this scenario, farming was born after the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers settled in small communities in the Fertile Crescent, a narrow band of land arcing across the Near East. They swiftly learned to produce their own food, sowing cereal grains and breeding better plants. Societies then raised more children to adulthood, enjoyed food surpluses, clustered in villages, and set off down the road to civilization. This novel way of life then diffused across the Old World.
But like many a good story, over time this tale has fallen beneath an onslaught of new data. By employing sensitive new techniques--from sifting through pollen cores to measuring minute shape changes in ancient cereal grains--researchers are building a new picture of agricultural origins. They are pushing back the dates of both plant domestication and animal husbandry (see sidebar, p. 1448) around the world, and many now view the switch to an agrarian lifestyle as a long, complex evolution rather than a dramatic revolution.
- Rise And Fall Of The Vikings And The Little Ice Age
The Rise and Fall of the Vikings and the Little Ice Age - Illustrated, scholarly study by Scott Mandia on the impact of long-term climate changes on the Viking civilization in Greenland and Iceland. As we continue to debate the validity of global warming,...
- Why Only Some Became Farmers: A Global View
Why Only Some Became Farmers: A Global View. Noel Broadbent, Goran Burenhult, and Moreau Maxwell discuss the sweeping changes associated with adoption of food production and offer an explanation why these events only took place independently in a few...
- History Of Papua New Guinea
History of Papua New Guinea. This is a good summary overview of the history of the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea. It is probably just me but I think they have a neat flag. From the site: Archeological evidence indicates that humans arrived...
- Worldhistorysite.com
WorldHistorySite.com Book by William McGaughey about world history as emerging in five civilizations. Provides some brief descriptions and timelines, relating four of them to changes in communication technologies. From the site: Five Epochs of...
- Farming Got Hip In Iran Some 12,000 Years Ago, Ancient Seeds Reveal
Wow! You have to love it when archaeologists make discoveries which deal with one of our first units of study in World History--Mesopotamia. According to this NPR story, archaeologists have discovered evidence of a stone age farming community at the foot...