Agrarian Societies and Pastoralism

Key Concepts in Pastoralism and Agriculture

Agriculture: The practice of making a living off of domesticated plants and animals.
Horticulture: The art of growing plants, including vegetables and fruits, primarily for food production.
Pastoralism: The act of raising and herding animals (e.g., cows, sheep) for purposes such as food, milk, and trade.

Time Scale: From the Neolithic era to the present, known as the Agrarian Era.
The dual concepts of intensification and extensification describe the evolution and spread of agricultural practices.

Older Form: Intensive foraging.
Key Concepts:
- Sedentism: The transition to a settled lifestyle.
- Inventions:
- Irrigation: An advanced technique developed for agriculture, particularly on bottomland.
- Secondary Products Revolution: The innovation in utilizing domesticated animals beyond meat, expanding into new usages.
- Larger Animals: The focus on utilizing bigger domesticated animals for agricultural tasks.
- Other Factors Influencing Intensification:
- Development of textiles, pottery, and hard metals.
- The concept of Collective Learning, where accumulated knowledge contributes to new innovations.

Older Form: Fire-stick shifting or swidden cultivation (also known as slash-and-burn agriculture).
Key Contributions:
- Advances in agricultural tools, notably the plough, which facilitated expansion into marginal farmland.
- Increased domestication of horses and expansion of livestock agriculture into steppe regions.
- The role of Collective Learning again, promoting the spread of knowledge and practices across regions.

Cycle Elements:
- Population Growth: An increase in the human population stimulated various changes.
- Increased Resource Availability: More population led to higher resource extraction.
- Increased Information Exchange: As populations grew, the sharing of information became more prevalent, promoting innovation.
- Innovation: New techniques and tools arose as direct responses to growing challenges and opportunities.
This feedback loop resulted in a cycle that reinforced itself, leading to further population growth and resource expansion.

Module 6 Objectives:
- Explain features of the complexity of agrarian societies:
1. Intensification and the positive feedback loop.
2. Extensification in both local and trans-regional contexts.
3. The secondary products revolution.
4. Interpretation of primary sources relating to plant and animal domestication.

There are widely differing population densities among human societies, with humans being unique in their capacity to adapt to varying environments.