Page 209 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1510 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Mesoamerica (the region of southern North America that malnutrition and disease far greater than do foraging
was occupied during pre-Columbian times by peoples societies. First, frequent births and early weaning, com-
with shared cultural features), a transition to agriculture bined with substitute foods and bland diets of cereals
developed around the cultivation of maize (corn) in and vegetables, caused malnutrition in childhood. Agri-
combination with chili peppers, beans, and varieties of cultural societies polluted their immediate surroundings,
squash and pumpkins. Domesticated animals included and human and animal wastes accumulated.Water sup-
turkeys and guinea pigs.Another transition to agriculture plies became contaminated by topsoil runoff and wastes
occurred in the highlands of the Andes around cultiva- from villages upstream. Dense habitation, of course,
tion of potatoes, maize arriving later from central Mex- increased disease.Villages of several hundreds each, sep-
ico, and domesticated llamas and alpacas. Recent arated by 15 kilometers or so, formed interactive culture
research reveals also development of agriculture in the zones, through which infectious diseases passed. By con-
tropical lowlands of the Amazon and the Yucatan Penin- trast, tiny foraging communities rarely came in contact
sula, depending on maize, sweet potatoes, and other with others, kept campsites clean by frequently moving,
crops. and seldom contracted illnesses.
Agricultural societies were fundamentally different Agricultural societies were less healthy, but villages
from the foraging societies who surrounded them on all multiplied relentlessly from their multiple points of ori-
sides. First, the geographical range of agricultural soci- gins. The scholar Jared Diamond terms this “farmer
eties was smaller; with a radius of perhaps 6 kilometers power.” Hunter-gatherers may have been healthier and
from its center, a village’s land might include 80 square more warlike, but sheer superiority of numbers and their
kilometers and be crossed end to end in a two-hour walk. huge reproductive capacities drove agricultural societies
forward across frontiers. Foraging societies retreated,
Population Increase assimilated, or were wiped out, depending on local cir-
Second, populations were much larger. Deliberately cumstances. During the millennia from 9000 BCE to the
growing food required vast amounts of labor but yielded industrial age agricultural populations fanned out across
vastly larger amounts of food than did foraging.Villages the cultivable world.
contained hundreds of persons, and in ideal sites with Pastoralism was a variant of agriculture. By the fifth
excellent water, fertile soil, and abundant forest resources, millennium BCE some societies had become specialists in
populations might reach a thousand or more. the grazing of herbivorous animals, mainly cattle, sheep,
Third, restraints on reproduction relaxed. Having goats, yaks, and horses, later camels and reindeer.These
adequate food and permanent dwellings—a lifestyle societies moved the principle of domesticating animals
known as “sedentism”—allowed women to have multiple into semiarid lands of northern Africa, Arabia, the non-
numbers of children, perhaps one every two or three agricultural uplands of southwest Asia, the Iranian pla-
years during their fertile adulthood, that is, roughly teau, and inner Eurasia. These were regions where rain-
eighteen to forty. During twenty years ten or more chil- fall was inadequate for crops but sufficient for vast
dren were possible, and six or eight were commonplace. grasslands whose exploitation by grazing livestock sup-
Of these, of course, perhaps half died before attaining ported thousands of people organized in communities of
adulthood, but three or four surviving children per several hundreds. Not all pastoral societies were nomadic;
woman added up to an astonishing growth rate. More some practiced intermittent agriculture, and most traded
material possessions, larger families, and increased sex- with agricultural societies around them.
uality were the advantages of a shift to agriculture. Their patterns of reproduction were similar to those of
Disadvantages also existed. Agricultural societies sedentary agriculturalists but with slightly fewer births.
show in their skeletal remains unmistakable evidence of Mortality was slightly greater as migration between win-