1.2 Early Farmers - T -

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 1

1. The Age of Hunters and Farmers

1.2 Early Farmers

theory

- T -

In this lesson :

1. Around 10,000 BC people started with farming.
2. Agriculture started in the region we call "the Fertile Crescent".
3. Farmers lived in fixed places.
4. Because of farming, the population grew.
5. Farmers domesticated animals.
6. the invention of pottery was spread by farmers.
7. Agriculture started in our region around 5300 BC.
8. The Christian calendar uses BC and AD.
9. Prehistory can be split into Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Chronology:

10,000 BC: beginning of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent.

  7,000 BC: farming spreads to Europe

  6,000 BC: farmers start domesticating animals

In the Netherlands:

  5,300 BC: beginning of agriculture

  2,000 BC: end of the Stone Age, start of the Bronze Age

     800 BC: end of the Bronze Age, start of the Iron Age

       50 BC: end of the Iron Age, end of Prehistory.

Around 50 BC, our region was conquered by the Romans.

Introduction

In this section, we will see that prehistoric people changed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. Farmers are people who grow crops and keep animals. This change did not happen overnight. It took thousands of years. But how did it start?

Climate change

For a hundred thousand years, nothing could live in large parts of Europe because it was covered in a thick layer of ice. The region that now is known as the Netherlands also had a polar landscape. But then the climate changed and it became warmer on earth. The ice melted and the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC. At that time the conditions were right for people in the Middle East to learn a new way of getting food: agriculture.

Written sources are text sources. The information that a historian gets from the source is written (in any language or on any material).

The written source in the picture is a clay tablet with cuneiform inscriptions. It is the oldest form of writing in history, dating back to 3200 BC.

Source 1.3.1

The changes in temperature on Earth in prehistory. You can see that there have been several Ice Ages in the past.

Hunter-gatherers become farmers

Around 10,000 BC, a gatherer in the Middle East developed a smart way to get food. It might have even been by accident that she found out that plants grow when she put the seeds in the ground. When she looked after them, by watering them and removing all the other plants, the plants would grow. After a while the plants would even be edible. So, instead of eating all the wild grain she found, the gatherer kept some seeds to grow new plants. She also made fields to protect the grain. Now that she could grow her own food she didn’t have to travel to gather wild grains. Instead, she could just plant seeds wherever she would like plants to grow. She was no longer a hunter-gatherer, but had become a farmer.

The Fertile Crescent

Farming started in the Middle East. The people that lived near the Tigris, Euphrates and the Nile rivers started to learn how to grow their own food. This region is called the Fertile Crescent, because the area is shaped like a crescent moon. The land was fertile because the rivers provided enough water for the crops to grow. The farmers grew plants with edible seeds, like emmer, barley and wheat.

Because of farming, the people didn’t have to travel around anymore. They started to live in fixed places to look after their fields. Because of this they build stronger houses close to each other. There was enough to eat, so more people survived. The population began to grow and small settlements were formed where between 100 and 200 people lived. These settlements became the first villages.

Source 1.3.2

Source 1.3.2

 A map of the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East.

Keeping animals

The agricultural revolution didn’t happen in a few years. It took thousands of years for people to learn how they could grow their own food. At first they combined farming with hunting animals, but it was difficult to follow the animals around now they lived in one place. So they only hunted animals that lived close to their villages.

Around 6000 BC, farmers in the Fertile Crescent learned how to tame animals for their own use. This is called domestication. The first farmers captured wild animals to keep them behind fences. They even began to look at useful characteristics some animals had, for example how calm they were or how much fat they could grow. Animals that had a lot of flesh were used to breed new animals that also had a lot of flesh. After doing this for several generations, new breeds were created. Eventually the farmers didn’t only grow plants, but now also had goats and sheep around their house. Pigs and cows followed around 4000 BC.

Source 1.3.3

The aurochs were bred to become smaller instead of bigger (present-day drawing).

Dogs were already domesticated by hunter-gatherers around 14,000 years ago, to help them during the hunt.

Agriculture in our region

The population in the Fertile Crescent kept growing. To feed everyone, the farmers needed more land. Because of this, they had to move to new areas. Around 7,000 BC, agriculture spread from the Middle East to South and Central-Europe. The farmers took their knowledge, plants and animals with them.

The invention of pottery is an example of new knowledge that was spread by the farmers. Pottery is made by forming clay into a certain shape and heating it to high temperatures in an oven. Pottery was used to store products like grain and seeds.

About 5300 BC, farming appeared in our region. The first group of people who were farmers in our region, stored their products in pottery decorated with straight lines. Because of this, we say these farmers belong to the Linear Pottery Culture. This culture is found in large parts of Europe, for example in the south of nowadays Limburg. Above the river Maas and the river Rhine we find the Funnel Beaker Culture. The people of this culture built the Hunebedden.

Source 1.3.4

Pottery from the Linear Pottery Culture (5400 - 4900 BC).

Source 1.3.5

 Pottery from the Funnel Beaker Culture (2500 - 2200 BC).

Source 1.3.6

A reconstruction of a group of farmers with their crops and animals (present-day drawing).

Agriculture did not spread all the way from the Fertile Crescent to China or Latin America. Farming spontaneously began in more than one place in the world around the same time. People just needed soil and a good temperature for their crops to grow. In Latin America these first crops were not wheat or barley, but maize or manioc. Here, the first animals farmers kept were not goats and sheep, but alpacas.

Calendars

Time is also measured with the help of calendars. A calendar is a way of organising the days, weeks and months of the year. Not every calendar organises time in the same way. Some calendars are based on the rotation of the sun, while others use the moon to count the passing of time. To make things even more complicated, not every calendar has the same starting point.

Calendars are also used to count the passing of the years. In our western society, the Christian calendar is used most often. This calendar measures time from when Jesus Christ was born. There is of course a large part of history that happened before Jesus was born. This is everything that happened Before Christ, or BC. Everything that happens after Jesus was born is After Christ, or AD. BC is a very logical abbreviation. AD is a bit more complicated. AD comes from Latin and means Anno Domini, in the year of Our Lord.

Other calendars still being used are for example, the Chinese and the Islamic calendar, and the calendar from Judaism. As you can see, most of these calendars are based on religion.

A calendar the ancient Egyptians used. For the Egyptians, one year was 365 days. They had 12 months. Every month had 30 days (c. 3000 BC).

 A timeline in which you can see the correct use of the abbreviations BC / BCE and AD / CE.

This present-day Tunisian calendar shows you what date it is on three different calendars, so everyone can use it.

Periods in Prehistory

Since prehistory is such a big time period, it is split into three smaller periods. The oldest period lasts until 2000 BC and is called the Stone Age. It was the time when prehistoric man used stone tools. These were the hunter-gatherers and the first farmers. Then came the Bronze Age, between 2000-800 BC. In this period, man discovered how to make objects and tools out of bronze. Bronze is a metal that is made of copper and tin. But these two metals are not found everywhere, so stone was still used a lot. 

The last period in prehistory is the Iron Age between 800-50 BC. In this period, prehistoric man learned how to create objects made of iron. Iron ore needs to be heated to a much higher temperature than bronze. It was harder to make iron objects, but they were also much stronger. This did not mean that stone or bronze objects were no longer used. Iron was a new type of material that was now also being used.

A timeline on which you can see the different ages of prehistory in our region.

Some objects that belong to the three ages of prehistory. Can you place them in the correct age?

Some people believe that you should use a more neutral basis for a calendar. They prefer to talk about the Common Era, CE or Before the Common Era, BCE. These are the periods before and after Christ was born.

Summary

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Word Duty

Ice Age: periods in the past when areas of the world were covered by ice and it was very cold.

Agriculture: a way of living where people grow their own crops and keep animals.

Revolution: a big change in the lives of people that happens in a short time.

Fertile Crescent: area around the rivers Tigris, Euphrates and Nile.

Agricultural revolution: farming was introduced, a completely new way of living in prehistory.

Domestication: tame animals for your own use.

Pottery: an invention of farmers to store products.

Calendar: a way of organising the days, weeks and months of the year.

AD: Anno Domini, the period after Jesus Christ was born.

BC: Before Christ, the period before Jesus Christ was born.

CE: Common Era, a neutral way of describing the period after Jesus Christ was born.

BCE: Before Common Era, a neutral way of describing the period before Jesus Christ was born.

Stone Age: the time when prehistoric man mostly used tools made of stone.

Bronze Age: the time when prehistoric man learned how to make objects of bronze.

Iron Age: the time when prehistoric man learned how to make objects of iron.

KEY WORDS

What you can do or explain after this lesson

• what a creation narrative is
• what the evolution theory is
• how both theories are used to explain where humans come from
• what the "Out of Africa" theory means
• how you can  read the family tree of   modern humans
• what paleontologists and archeologists do

TEST YOURSELF

What you can explain or do after this lesson:

1. how climate change led to the rise of agriculture. 
2. how the first farmers discovered how to grow their own crops.
3. what the Fertile Crescent is.
4. why farmers no longer lived as nomads.
5. why, because of farming, settlements grew into villages.
6. the advantages of domestication of animals
7. why pottery was a useful invention
8. when agriculture came to our region
9. how archeologists use pottery styles to name different cultures.
10. what the function of a calendar is.
11. how to calculate dates using BC and AD
12. what the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age were

congratulations