Part 1

Summarise and compare the evidence for the development of agriculture in South West Asia and North America.

The two continents provide a very different insight into the development of agriculture. America with its slow alterations, for example the gathering that continued and the consistency of crops remaining in their natural habitat until much later for example the May grass. South West Asia reveals a different approach where although still gradual development the use of tools and grinders support the discovery of cultivation and domestication leading this continent towards villages and eventually civilizations with trade and travel as its force for change as early humans emulated and adapted. The southwest begins its …show more content…

The early Helocene was a moist climate, so the recovery of forestry may have provided more room for expansion given the 'tight' years previously. Theories such as Demographic explanations for the development of agriculture, the oasis theory and 'hilly flanks' all can coincide with the climatic alterations and suggest reasons for the expansion and successful development of agriculture.

The oasis theory can be supported by the 'die back' of forestry during the Younger Dryas, it can also be supported by the rising of sea levels at the end of the last Global Maximum. Space may have forced humans, plants and animals in closer proximity and therefore utilized each others recourses. Plants also showed a willingness to adapt to human interaction such as Barley developing a tougher rachis and animals co-existing to live off waste for example. The Americas give a good example of co-existing with its reluctance to give up the hunter gatherer way of life completely. The woodland era's caves provide remains that show wild foods were widely depended on and storage was key, rather than constant agriculture. Tools were designed for nomadic lifeways although were capable of processing cultivated foods such as Maize and Gourd. Although the nomadic life style of the north Americans the delayed acceptance of agriculturist means suggest a degree of free movement therefore the oasis theory may not be relevant in the Americas as