THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURE
The contemporary discussions about the origins of agriculture are also driven by their broad interdisciplinary context, which inevitably involves specialists in the large spectrum of social and natural sciences, such as archaeology; history, cultural studies, biology, and medical anthropology; human genetics; paleobotany and plant selection; geography; marine geology; demography; and many others. Most of these disciplines have developed independently during the past decades, with their theoretical achievements and new empirical databases open to novel perspectives for fresh insight into the problem.
This section will examine the migratory, or diffusive, approach to the problem of agriculture origin and plant domestication. In order to clarify its reliability and cognitive potential, we first must provide an overview of the history of the migratory version of the spread of agriculture, sum up theories and concepts proposed by representatives of different sciences, and synthesize the arguments put forward since W. G. Childe initiated the discussion of this idea.
Following this historiographic approach, it will place the discussion in the context by examining recent trends, and special attention will be given to the problem of human migration versus the idea’s diffusion, which caused the dissemination of the agricultural mode of life worldwide. Finally, a synthesis concerning the connection of agricultural diffusion with the dispersal of Indo-European peoples will be made and corrolated with the Black and Mediterranean seas’ level change at the beginning of Holocene period.
Migration and Diffusion: An Attempt of Identification
Migration could be defined as the total or partial change of location (habitat) or movement into new areas for certain periods of time or permanently. The term ‘‘migration’’ is widely applied in the social sciences as well as in the frames of biology, geophysics, astronomy, and computer sciences with reference to plants and animals, fish and birds, insects and cells, planets, systems, and data.
In contemporary social sciences, migration is interpreted as population displacement (translocation) and is usually viewed as one of the four basic genres of human activity alongside habitation, storage, and creation. Migration is an integral part of the professional terminology of contemporary archaeologists, ethnologists, sociologists, demographers, cultural anthropologists, geographers, and representatives of other social sciences. The sphere of its application and meaning seems to be so clear that some reference encyclopedias and dictionaries consider it unnecessary to define or interpret this concept. Nevertheless, more careful analysis of the concept of migration’s application or sphere testifies to the fact that it is often applied to the process, which principally differs in spatial and chronological scale as well as in ecological, livelihood, ethnic, and social consequences.
The migration concept is applied in studies of the displacement of population (group and individual movements) as well as to the dispersion of the artifacts created by the people and their culture in general. Sometimes anthropological and other data indicate that culture transmission does not accompany its human substrate displacement; in such a case migration of ideas is assumed.
The possibility of culture migration was widely discussed in cultural anthropology at the beginning of the 20th century in frames of a wide variety and diffusion of schools and theories. The notion of cultural diffusion as a spatial transference of cultural phenomena was put forward by anthropologists, and this context of human history was interpreted as a series of cultural clashes, adoptions, and transfers. Long-distance contacts such as international trade and exchange, conquests, and conscious imitation were regarded as basic ways by which certain cultural phenomena or artifacts could surmount impressive distances from the point of their primary origin.
Origin and rapid upsurge of genetics during the second half of the 20th century provided a possibility to verify the hypothesis about ideas and artifacts translocation without human displacement on the basis of comparison of gene structure of population of certain areas. Such DNA spatial distribution studies, initiated at the turn of the 21st century, were brilliantly developed by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and have resulted in a series of gene flow theories that have brought studies of human migration into historical retrospection on a principally different level.
Oasis Theory of W. G. Childe
From the very outset the stumbling stones have been the definition of time and place of productive economy origin (with permanent rivalry of monocentric versus polycentric understanding of this cultural and economic phenomenon) along with the reconstruction of the mechanisms, pace, and ways of spread of agriculture in the world, as well as the chronology of these processes.
One of the earliest versions of the migratory explanation of agriculture origin and dissemination was proposed by William Gordon Childe in connection with his concept of Neolithic revolution, as early as the mid-1920s. According to Childe, drought and supply shortage stimulated food production in certain oasis areas characterized by a peculiar set of geographic, environmental, and social parameters that enabled (or even required) transition to new forms of livelihood and subsistence strategy.
His localization of this oasis in the Middle East at the beginning of the 20th century matched the deep and sincere belief that existed among many archaeologists and historians in the priority of this region in cultural and historical evolution. According to the Ex Oriente lux concept, which was widely popular at that time, most cultural innovations, not to mention civilization itself, came from the East, as the light of the sun does, and historical priority of this region seems to be based on its centuries of experience of unique cultural development.
Theory of Primary Locuses of Nikolay Vavilov and the Problem of Domestic Traits
The next step in the development of migratory views on the spread of agriculture is connected with detection of the earliest manifestations of domestic animals and plants with reconstruction of mechanisms of their introduction into human culture and livelihood practice.
During the first half of 20th century, these studies were the cornerstone of the assumption that domesticated forms could appear only in the region where their wild ancestors had been distributed; here the substantial difference between the contemporary and early Holocene environment caused the noncoincidence of modern and prehistoric areals of floral and faunal species, which should be taken into account. Most researchers believe that the most favorable areas for domestication are situated on the margins of different geographic zones, characterized by the junction of landscapes of different sorts. The reason for this belief is that this genre of environment provides broad variability of wild species by way of wide perspectives for hybridization and metisation of related forms of plants and animals as well as for mutation in unstable conditions.
Trying to localize such an environment geographically, Soviet geneticist Nikolay Vavilov referred to the primary loci of plant domestication with arid piedmont areas. In the worldwide context he distinguished seven primary loci of agriculture origin, which he described as rather huge areas where the transition to agricultural mode of life was based on complex cultural plants:
1. East Mediterranean locus, or Fertile Crescent (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey): 9000–7000 BCE, wheat, barley, rye;
2. South Asian locus (Southern China, South-Eastern India, and Southeastern Asia): 7000–5000 BCE, rice, tuberousals;
3. East Asian locus (Mongolia, Amour region, Northern China): 7000–5000 BCE, Chinese millet, beans;
4. Sahara and Sudan: 4000–3000 BCE, pearl millet, sorghum;
5. Guinea and Cameroon: 4000–2000 BCE, yam, beans, oil-bearing palm;
6. Mesoamerican locus (Central and Southern Mexico): 9000–4000 BCE, maize, amaranth, string bean, pumpkin, pepper, garden trees;
7. Andean locus (Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia): 7000–5000 BCE, potato and sweet potato, manioc, amaranth
These primary loci of domestic plants introduction are characterized also by introduction of different forms of cattle, most widespread of which were sheep and goat (sometimes hardly differentiated) and bull, which are known in domestic faunal assemblages of 8000–7000 BCE. Further studies in this field during the second half of 20th century are connected with detailed elaboration of history of certain plants introduction into human culture.
It should be stressed that today most of the studies (especially those concerning cereals) disprove Vavilov’s basic assumption about the necessity of direct connection in time and space between wild and domestic sorts. A brilliant illustration of this retraction could be found in the history of domestication of wheat, one of the most important cereals in human culture and procurement system.
Wheat is traditionally regarded as one of the earliest domestic plants, which was introduced to human culture and productive economy on the territory of Fertile Crescent as early as 9000–7000 BCE. Paleobotanic assemblages of the first settlements of Near East farmers indicate that it was cultivated together with barley even on the same plot of land. From the very beginning early farmers had already explored several types of wheat, most widespread among which were representative of tetraploid (emmer) and diploid (einkorn) wheat.
Identification of the wild ancestors of wheat is complicated by the genetic diversity of its domestic forms, which implies that they were introduced into farming independently. Einkorn (Triticum monococcum) is regarded as a relatively more archaic form in comparison with emmer; nevertheless most paleobotanics believe that it was domesticated in the Tavrus region on the basis of its widely distributed wild form a little bit later than emmer. Emmer’s wild form, which nowadays is growing freely in southwest Turkey, western Iran, and Armenia, usually is regarded a cytogenetically nonrelated with domestic emmer (Triticum dicoccum Schrank). The latter is traditionally connected with the southern coarse-grained race of tetraploid wild emmer, which was primarily domesticated in Palestine and since distributed as a domestic form in the Near East.
Appearance and dissemination of soft wheat in approximately 6000 BCE traditionally is equated with the process of natural hybridization of wild emmer and einkorn and with their wild relative Aegilops that occurred in southern Iran and Transcaucasia. Nanous wheat, which was widely distributed in Caspian region and Caucasus, most probably resulted from natural hybridization of emmer Triticum dicoccum Schrank or common (or bread) wheat Triticum aestivum and club Triticum compactum. It is worthy mentioning that soft wheat would replace emmer only in Roman times. The crucial factor here is the genetic difference of various sorts of wheat—14 chromosomes for einkorn, or small spelt, 28 chromosomes for wild and durum wheat, and 42 chromosomes for soft wheat. The qualitative gap between wild and durum wheat is characterized by an equal number of chromosomes, which could not occur without special genetic changes.
These primary loci of domestic plants introduction are characterized also by introduction of different forms of cattle, most widespread of which were sheep and goat (sometimes hardly differentiated) and bull, which are known in domestic faunal assemblages of 8000–7000 BCE.
Further studies in this field during the second half of 20th century are connected with detailed elaboration of history of certain plants introduction into human culture. It should be stressed that today most of the studies (especially those concerning cereals) disprove Vavilov’s basic assumption about the necessity of direct connection in time and space between wild and domestic sorts. A brilliant illustration of this retraction could be found in the history of domestication of wheat, one of the most important cereals in human culture and procurement system.
Wheat is traditionally regarded as one of the earliest domestic plants, which was introduced to human culture and productive economy on the territory of Fertile Crescent as early as 9000–7000 BCE. Paleobotanic assemblages of the first settlements of Near East farmers indicate that it was cultivated together with barley even on the same plot of land. From the very beginning early farmers had already explored several types of wheat, most widespread among which were representative of tetraploid (emmer) and diploid (einkorn) wheat. Identification of the wild ancestors of wheat is complicated by the genetic diversity of its domestic forms, which implies that they were introduced into farming independently. Einkorn (Triticum monococcum) is regarded as a relatively more archaic form in comparison with emmer; nevertheless most paleobotanics believe that it was domesticated in the Tavrus region on the basis of its widely distributed wild form a little bit later than emmer. Emmer’s wild form, which nowadays is growing freely in southwest Turkey, western Iran, and Armenia, usually is regarded a cytogenetically nonrelated with domestic emmer (Triticum dicoccum Schrank).
The latter is traditionally connected with the southern coarse-grained race of tetraploid wild emmer, which was primarily domesticated in Palestine and since distributed as a domestic form in the Near East. Appearance and dissemination of soft wheat in approximately 6000 BCE traditionally is equated with the process of natural hybridization of wild emmer and einkorn and with their wild relative Aegilops that occurred in southern Iran and Transcaucasia. Nanous wheat, which was widely distributed in Caspian region and Caucasus, most probably resulted from natural hybridization of emmer Triticum dicoccum Schrank or common (or bread) wheat Triticum aestivum and club Triticum compactum. It is worthy mentioning that soft wheat would replace emmer only in Roman times. The crucial factor here is the genetic difference of various sorts of wheat—14 chromosomes for einkorn, or small spelt, 28 chromosomes for wild and durum wheat, and 42 chromosomes for soft wheat. The qualitative gap between wild and durum wheat is characterized by an equal number of chromosomes, which could not occur without special genetic changes.
(Nea Nikomedia), and Crete resulted from this migration are dated by seventh millennium BCE to the beginning of the sixth millennium BCE. From there, early agriculturists moved to Trachea and farther to the north up to the middle Danube region, central Transylvania, and the Balkans, bringing with them the first domestic plants and skills of cattle breeding.
By the first half of sixth millennium BCE, the whole Balkan region was engaged in the process of early agriculturist dispersion displayed in Karanovo in Bulgaria. in former Yugoslavia, Romania, and Hungary.
Formation and further durable and gradual expansion of this population on vast territory localized between Phessalia and Tysa basin and between Adriatic and eastern Carpathians and Dnister basin has caused ambiguous progress. On the one hand, it has resulted in neolithization of local Late Mesolithic cultures (such as the case of Lepensky Vir). On the other hand, movements of this population had influenced significantly the process of further agriculture spread into Central and Eastern Europe due to diffusion and relatively rapid dissemination of an agricultural set of know-how (ideas, skills, domestic plants and animals, and techniques of their treatment). Exodus of Sesklo, Karanovo, and Starcevo-Krish populations from the Balkan region meant overcoming the natural limits of the Mediterranean climatic zone and is traditionally associated with the origin and dissemination of sites attributed to linear pottery (Bandkeramik, LBK) culture. Its core is localized in the Carpathian region, and during the second half of sixth millennium BCE, transmitters of this culture started their dissemination over broad territories of Western and Central Europe. Recent studies based on new series of calibrated radiocarbon data obtained from sites of linear pottery culture show that the duration of spread of the LBK is shorter than the available temporal resolution of the radiocarbon dating. The rate of spread of the initial pottery making is estimated as 1.6 km per year and is comparable to the average rate of spread of the Neolithic in Western and Central Europe.
Since the end of sixth millennium BCE, one can trace coexistence of at least two sorts of secondary locus of productive economy spread over Europe: foreststeppe areal of land cultivation zone and steppe zone of cattle breeding. Population of these zones differed not only by form of food procurement but also by general livelihood systems, social organization, and spiritual sphere. The forest-steppe population have an affinity with the Balkan cultures while the steppe pastoralists have shown their connection with the nomadic populations of the Eurasian steppes.
Early Indo-Europeans as Agriculture Spreaders: Contemporary Theories and Hypothesis
One of the latest developments in the study of migratory or diffusionistic understandings of the spread of agriculture across the world is connected with searches for the primary homeland of Indo-Europeans peoples. Most hypotheses put forward in this context during the second half of 20th century are based on the same starting point: dissemination of agriculture should be connected with expansion and migration of Middle East inhabitants, which are viewed as absolute pioneers in this field. To the north, European hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture together with appropriate rituals, rites, and spells, which were pronounced using the language of pioneers of land cultivation and ensured through linguistic similarity of Indo-European peoples.
Most advocates of early Indo-Europeans’ interpretation of early agriculturists believe that the process of their formation should be viewed in broad chronological frames beginning since the Mesolithic period and transitioning to productive economy. The spread of pre-Indo-European language culture in such a way is usually connected with the dispersion of farming skills, which implies the development of terminology, rites, and customs. It implies sharing of oases or a monocentric theory of transition to land cultivation and cattle breeding, and searches of time and place of Indo-European origin in such a context mean searches of time and place of agriculture origin.
One of the most widespread in contemporary historical and archaeological understandings of pre-Indo-Europeans as early agriculturists was proposed in the late 1980s by Colin Renfrew. Localizing Indo-Europeans in Central and Eastern Anatolia as early as the middle of the eighth millennium BCE, he distinguished 10 diffusions of Indo-Europeans to the adjacent and relatively remote territories (Black Sea steppe region included). Such diffusions caused by necessity ensured facilities for an agricultural mode of life (suitable for farming land) in the situation of considerable growth of population density (up to 50 times in his calculations). He doesn’t imply broad human migrations; in Renfrew’sunderstanding it was rather a gradual movement of individuals or their small family groups approximately 1 kilometer per year, which caused a series of local hunter-gatherers population adaptations directed toward acquiring an agricultural mode of life. As a result, it took approximately 1,500 years for agriculture to spread from Anatolia first to Greece, than to the Balkans and southern Italy, Central Europe, and, finally, to Northern Europe as well. No clear archaeological evidence could be found within such a process; it reflects mainly in demographic, economic, and social changes caused by ‘‘dominance of agricultural elite.’’
Similar ideas were expressed almost simultaneously by Soviet researcher Igor Diakonov, who localized Indo-Europeans’ homeland in the Balkan and Carpathian regions, indicating that their ancestors could have come from Asia Minor with their domesticated animals and plants. He dated this process to the fifth to fourth millennium BCE. Russian archaeologist Gerald Matyushin believed that the only common traits for all future Indo-Europeans, which could be traced and proven archaeologically, are microlithic industry and origin of productive economy (land cultivation and cattle breeding).
He localized the earliest displays of both these traits in the Zagros Mountains and Southern Caspian region, suggesting that agriculture distribution in Europe should be connected with expansion and migration of Middle East inhabitants to the north (Matyushin, 1986). European hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture together with appropriate rituals, rites, and spells, which were pronounced using the language of pioneers of land cultivation, ensuring linguistic similarity of Indo-European peoples. His hypothesis is based on mapping of microlithic technology and productive economy, and temporal and spatial distribution later was proved by linguistic studies of T. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov. They suggest that the ancestral home of Indo-Europeans was located in the region of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, from where they moved to middle Asia, the northern Caspian region, and southern Ural (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1990).
One more version of so-called agriculturist interpretation of early Indo-Europeans should be mentioned here: the hypothesis about their origin in Central Europe on the territory between Rein, Visla, and the Upper Danube. It was based on the correlation of Indo-European hydronimy to the distribution of population connected with linear pottery culture, funnel beaker culture, globular amphora culture, and corded ware culture. Such understanding of time and place of Indo-European formation shared by G. Kossina, E. Mayer, P. Bosch-Gimpera, G. Devoto, and others was actively discussed during the first half of the 20th century especially by the apologists of Nazi ideas in the human sciences. This discussion had resulted, in particular, by G. Kossina’s identification of pre-Germans (or pre-Indo-Germans) with Aryans who were regarded as transmitters of the highest cultural achievements in ancient civilization.
This conclusion was broadly used by fascist propaganda as justification of genocide of non-Aryan population practiced in Europe during World War II. One should confess, nevertheless, that in spite of the existence of fundamental theoretical background and an impressive empirical database that is constantly being updating, the interpretation of early Indo-Europeans as pure agriculturists (as well as their understanding as early nomads) has faced serious objections among archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and linguists since the very beginning.
Migration: What for? Adoption: Why?
Empirical studies and historical reconstructions of agricultural dissemination across the world traditionally were accompanied by searches for reliable and logical explanations for the causes and backgrounds of this process. In general, it is possible to distinguish two basic directions of such explanations. Proponents of one are concentrating on studies of mechanisms, which forced early agriculturists to move from their homeland, and adherents of the second try to find reasons that make agriculture adoption possible or even indispensable for populations of territories lying outside the primary locus of agriculture origin.
An overwhelming majority of the studies in this field fall under the rubric of the first approach, and the basic idea here is that the evictions of groups of population were provoked by disproportion between natural resource availability and procurement requirements. Two basic groups of theories could be distinguished here. On the one hand, most researchers tend to suppose that local population exodus from Asia Minor was caused by demographic factors, first, by rapid growth of early farmer populations and natural restrictions of arable land, which provoked demographic tension and necessity to search for new territories suitable for plant cultivation (Childe 1958; Binford 1968; Renfrew 1989; Braidwood, 1952; and others).
Earlier displays of an analogous demographic situation at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary resulted in the origin of productive forms of economy itself. On the other hand, environmental factors (i.e., changes of natural environment) are regarded as the basic reason for early agriculturists’ migration from the Fertile Crescent during the eighth to sixth millennium BCE. In broader context it is viewed as a disruption of equilibrium between nature and human society, which previously also influenced origin land cultivation and cattle breeding (Binford, 1968; Harlan, 1977; Zohary, 1969; and others).
It should be stressed, nevertheless, that in contemporary science the essence of these environmental changes that happened during the 10th to 6th millennium BCE and are understood ambiguously. On the one hand, the population exodus from the Fertile Crescent is explained by general climate aridization in this region, which happened in the course of Holocene and caused a shortage of arable land and crops reduction. This point of view is maintained by numerous palinological and paleobotanic data from archaeological sites of the region under study that highlight paleoenvironmental situations here during Neolithic, Eneolithic, and Early Bronze ages.
On the other hand, recent studies of British and American marine geologists have given new discussion on hypotheses concerning Great Flood in the Black and Mediterranean seas. According to this point of view, spread of agriculture over Europe caused by migrations from the Middle East was provoked by the sea level rise. It was so rapid (according different calculations, 73,000 square km were inundated during 34 years, or over 100 square km during 300 days, or about 60,000 square miles were covered by water, which approached as much as six inches per day) that it was felt by local population as catastrophic (water cover 400 m deep into the coast every day).
That’s why about 150,000 inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent were forced to displace, and the only suitable place for their procurement system territories were located in northwestern and northeastern directions. In such a way, early agriculturists appeared on the European Mediterranean region and also inhabited the northern Black Sea region (territories of contemporary Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine), bringing with them their technology of land cultivation, seeds, and pottery-making skills. In this connection, clarification of reasons that made agriculture adoption possible for populations met with newcomers becomes especially acute. Why didn’t they also try to practice new forms of procurement activity instead of fighting with invaders?
Why didn’t they, in the permanently complicating demographic local population, make a choice to adapt instead of fight for preservation of their cultural and economic identity?
Most contemporary research tends to explain this fact by crisis of traditional hunter-gatherer economy of these territories of and necessity to secure subsistence systems in new ecological situations. This crisis most probably was caused by the new climatic situation of the Middle Holocene as well as by the anthropogenic impact (new demographic situation and critically changed demographic pressure on the foraging territory complicated by nonrational utilization and main hunting species overkills in previous time). In this situation, searches for principally new forms of economic activity were the only possible way to survive, and newcomers proposed to them an already well-elaborated version suitable for introduction.
Searches for Subject of Migration: Human Movements versus Migration of Ideas
It should be stressed that in spite of an obviously vast database and rich arsenal of instrumental techniques, it still remains unclear what the cornerstone of the migrationist version of agriculture spread is—that is, the subject of migration. One can trace at least three approaches to understanding of the essence of such migration. Adherents of the first of them, known now as demic expansion, or wave of advance model suppose direct colonization of Europe by population who moved from the Fertile Crescent (Childe 1958; Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1973; and others). Their reconstructions are based on archaeological data as well as on scarce but rather illustrative results of paleogenetical studies of the prehistoric population of Europe.
At the same time, the newest results of DNA analysis show no clear signs of large-scale waves of migration to Europe Mediterranean or Middle Eastern groups (Haak et al. 2005). On this basis, a wide variety of ‘‘compromise’’ migrationistic versions were produced. In most cases they imply penetration (infiltration) of small groups of immigrant farmers who came in contact with the aboriginal hunter-gatherers (or horticulturists), creating complicated chains of cultural contacts and conditions for mutual transformations. Highest scientific resonance among such theories of models of elite dominance were proposed by Colin Renfrew (1989), ‘‘leapfrogging colonization’’ by Johao Zilh~ao, and ‘‘individual frontier mobility’’ by Marec Zvelebil (2000).
Promoters of the third approach to the conceptualization of agriculture spread into Europe as an adoption of ‘‘agricultural know-how’’ (domestic plants and animals, technique and skills of their treatment, rites and customs as well as lingual background of these cultural innovations) by indigenous hunter-gatherers through the diffusion of cultural novelties by means of intermarriages, assimilation, and borrowing (Thomas (2003; Ch. Tilley; Whittle 1996). At the same time, the current database of archaeology, paleoanthropology, paleolinguistic, and natural science (first of all, botany and genetics) provides fundamental background for further development of the relatively balanced point of view expressed in the early 1970s by Ruth Tringham (1971) who considered spread of agriculture into Europe a combination of diffusion and local inventions.
The newest trends in the field of spread of agriculture into Europe are connected with integration of database and research methods of archaeology, radiocarbon dating, genetics, linguistic, and mathematically-based population dynamic modeling. Such studies provided by Pavel Dolukhanov with his colleagues (2005) indicate the necessity to distinguish two historical and cultural processes: one connected with neolitization of Europe and the other displayed in the spread of agriculture into Europe. For the former, they proved a high probability of waves of advance that swept westward through Eastern Europe about 1,500 years earlier than the conventional Near-Eastern one, which resulted in early ceramic sites in western Europe (e.g., La Hoguette-type in northeastern France and western Germany, and Roucadour-type, or epicardial, sites in western Mediterranean and Atlantic France).
This earlier wave, dated approximately by 8200 BCE, originated most probably from a vast steppe area stretching between the Lower Volga and the Ural River (e.g., early pottery sites of the Yelshanian culture), spreading from the east via the steppe corridor, resulting in the establishment of the eastern version of the Neolithic in Europe, which implies utilization of ceramics with no apparent traits of agriculture.
Conclusion
State-of-the art research in the field of diffusionistic or migratory explanation of spread of agriculture over the world indicates that there is no common magistral approach in its understanding in contemporary human, social, and natural sciences. One can trace series of subjects of ambiguous discussions, and most acute and unequivocal among them are definition of migration subject and causes.
Among existing approaches, theories, and hypothesis, one can distinguish two main approaches to conceptualization of background essential for the migratory spread of agriculture. Representatives of the first approach suppose that new forms of human activity, as well as their technological, social, and ritual background alongside with corresponding terminology, have been borrowed by hunter-gatherers from skilled agriculturists in the course of their direct contacts. Causes and mechanisms of such contacts in most cases are conceptualized as migration and as the most probable mechanism of such changes of human lifeways and economy.
Proponents of the second approach believe that the transition to a productive economy could happen only in the case of necessity to change the traditional mode of life, and an insufficient subsistence strategy was comprehended and put into practice by certain groups of local populations. In such a context, even the relocation of bearers of new forms of food procurement into disparate local populations would not inevitably cause the adoption of these forms.
The latest shift of prehistory paradigms toward studies of prehistoric human society in close connection with its environment opens new perspectives for migratory understanding of the process of the spread of agriculture. It implies durable and gradual transition to land cultivation and cattle breeding, which began at certain times and places, as determined by a series of factors and agencies.
During the second half of the 20th century this set of circumstances became a subject of discussion in archaeology, cultural anthropology, and prehistory. The key point of the discussion on diffusive modes of agriculture dispersion is the problem of identification of migration subjects (i.e., establishing who—individuals, local groups, or ethnic groups—or what—ideas, technologies, knowhow—was migrating). The only reliable way to verify arguments pro and con every idea and hypothesis is through large-scale paleogenetical studies, organization of which is seriously restricted by scarcity or total absence of paleoanthropological data from certain regions. It should be mentioned that methods of such studies and their reliability are also disputable, so comprehensive observations of possible gene flows remains an acute task for future research projects.
One more crucial problem that is continually discussed in frames of diffusional approach to spread of early agriculture is the definition of the exact time and place where and when wild plants became domesticated. Most probably, this process was durable and was influenced by ancient farmers and cattle breeders who tried to select the most suitable from among their traits and features. At the same time, some species (mainly floral) have become background for formation of several domesticated plants that showed at the same time no direct genetic connection among them (as was the case of wild and domesticated wheat). It means that mutation mechanisms were equally important in the course of plant and animal domestication as evolutionary ones.
Farming and cattle breeding were regarded only as an additional source of food supply; wild and domesticated species were often represented side-by-side in faunal assemblages and palinological diagrams obtained from cultural layers of Neolithic settlements of Eurasia. This implies that in the course of durable and gradual introduction into productive economy, domesticated species (especially animal) and their wild ancestors could crossbreed many times, and this fact substantially complicates the definition of the domestication process in time and space.
So, at the beginning of the 21st century, the migratory, or diffusive, mode of spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent zone remains one of the trustworthy scientific approaches to historical and cultural interpretation of complex process of transition to productive economic forms. Nevertheless, many of its cornerstones are still awaiting comprehensive interdisciplinary studies.
By Olena Smyntyna as 'Agriculture, or the domestication of plants, diffused from its start in the Middle East to the rest of the world'. in the book 'Popular Controversies in World History', Volume One, Prehistory and Early Civilizations, Steven L. Danver´- Editor, ABC-CLIO, LLC, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2011, p.23-36 - Edited and adapted to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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