Page 167 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

52 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don’t somebody wake
up to the beauty of old women? • Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)

Further Reading framework, agricultural systems differ in degree of inten-
Achenbaum,W. A.,Weiland, R., & Haber, C. (1996). Key words in soci- sity. Intensity means the total of inputs to and outputs
ocultural gerontology. New York: Springer.
Frye, C. L. (1996). Comparative and cross-cultural studies. In J. E. Birren from each unit of land, and can be measured in terms of
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of gerontology (Vol. 1, pp. 311–318). New York: calories of energy. The most general trend in the devel-
Academic Press. opment of agricultural systems is an interaction between
Keith, J. (1989). Cultural commentary and the culture of gerontology. In
D. I. Kertzer & K.W. Schaie (Eds.), Age structuring in comparative per- population and intensification.Within the framework of
spective (pp. 47–54). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. a system, population builds up and intensification
Kertzer, D. I. (1989). Age structuring in comparative and historical per- increases until it reaches its internal limits of sustainabil-
spective. In D. I. Kertzer & K.W. Schaie (Eds.), Age structuring in com-
parative perspective (pp. 3–20). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum ity. At that point the system either changes to permit still
Associates. further intensification or it collapses.
Riley, M. W. (2001). Age stratification. In G. Maddox (Ed.), The ency-
clopedia of aging (3rd ed., pp. 46–49). New York: Springer.
Plakans,A. (1989). Stepping down in former times: A comparative assess- Contrasting Ecologies
ment of “retirement” in traditional Europe. In D. I. Kertzer & K. W. The difference between Old World and New World agri-
Schaie (Eds.), Age structuring in comparative perspective. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. cultural ecologies lies in the different ways they renew soil
Riley, M.W., Johnson, M. E., & Foner, A. (Eds.). (1972). Aging and soci- fertility. In long-fallow systems worldwide, such as swid-
ety: Vol. 3. A sociology of age stratification. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation. den agriculture, this is accomplished by natural organic
Sangree, W. H. (1989). Age and power: Life-course trajectories and age processes of plant growth and decay. By planting a field
structuring of power relations in east and west Africa. In D. I. Kertzer that has lain fallow the farmer brings the crops to the
& K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Age structuring in comparative perspective.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. accumulated fertility. In short-fallow systems, by contrast,
Sokolovsky, J. (Ed.). (1997). The cultural context of aging:World wide per- fertilizer must be brought to the crops. In Old World sys-
spectives (2nd ed.).Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Won,Y. H., & Lee, G. R. (1999). Living arrangements of older parents tems, this is accomplished with domestic animals, mainly
in Korea. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 30, 315–328. ungulates. By converting parts of the crops the farmer
cannot use into materials and foods that he can use, the
animals reduce the total cropped area needed while their
manure restores fertility.They provide additional organic
Agricultural material by the common practice of grazing beyond the

farmed area in the day and returning at night. A variant
Societies of this system, important in Africa where the tsetse fly
makes it impossible to keep cattle in fixed locations, is a
ll societies are pluralistic, encompassing multiple symbiotic relation between mobile herders and sedentary
Aorganizational and technological systems. In an farmers in which farmers allow the herders to graze cat-
agricultural society a substantial part of the means of tle on their stubble in exchange for the herder keeping the
human subsistence comes from one or more agricultural cattle overnight on the farmer’s land.
systems (i.e., systems of domesticated plants and animals New World agricultural ecologies do not incorporate
that depend upon a specific technology and system of domesticated animals and hence have no manure cycle.
management). Instead, fertilizing materials are generally brought to the
Ecologically, the major agricultural systems can be fields by some form of water transport. This is done in
divided broadly into Old World and New World types. two main ways: with water collection and with chinam-
Organizationally, they divide into household/peasant, pas, floating beds in lakes and swamps.Water collection
elite, and industrial.A society’s agricultural systems inter- mainly involves either waterborne silt from rivers carried
act with its kinship, political, religious, and economic sys- in irrigation channels or flow from volcanic ash fields or
tems, among others. eroding rocks. Although New World farmers recognized
Within each organizational type in each ecological the value of organic methods such as fish buried with the