Twelve Revolutions: The Global Origins of Agriculture
Douze révolutions : les origines mondiales de l'agriculture
Douz Revolisyon: Orijin Mondyal Agrikilti
Lesson Content
The shift from foraging to farming was not, as the old Eurocentric narratives would have us believe, a singular gift bestowed upon humanity from the Fertile Crescent. It was, rather, a phenomenon of staggering multiplicity. People in twelve or more geographically separated, far-flung regions of the world independently set these developments in motion between twelve thousand and seven thousand years ago, during the early Holocene. The regions of independent agricultural invention included not only the Fertile Crescent but also West Africa, the eastern Sahara and Sahel, the southern Ethiopian Highlands, northern and southern China, highland New Guinea, highland South America, lowland northeastern South America, Mesoamerica, India, and eastern central North America.
In each region, agriculture began with the first deliberate cultivation of one or more plant foods previously gathered from the wild, and in some areas with the first tending of animals formerly hunted. These histories each passed through several initiatory stages. Communities that had previously harvested wild grain might begin each year to keep a portion in reserve, then clear small fields and sow them with the reserved seeds at the start of the next rainy season. To increase productivity, they would soon have discovered the need to remove competing weeds and to send children to drive away birds and small mammals from ripening grain.
The demographic consequences were immense. Deliberate cultivation meant that people could produce far more food on the same amount of land than they could by foraging alone and do so close to home. A community could now support ongoing population growth simply by bringing successively more land under cultivation. As populations grew, they expanded outward from their areas of origin into new lands, and most often the expanding farmers outcompeted existing foraging communities because of their larger numbers and greater productivity.
Africa, far from standing apart from this global transformation, was home to three different regions of independent agricultural invention. The continent was not peripheral to the agricultural revolution; it was one of its principal theatres.
Le passage de la cueillette à l'agriculture ne fut pas, comme les récits eurocentriques voudraient nous le faire croire, un don singulier accordé à l'humanité depuis le Croissant fertile. Ce fut plutôt un phénomène d'une multiplicité stupéfiante. Des peuples dans douze régions ou plus, géographiquement séparées, ont indépendamment mis ces développements en mouvement entre douze mille et sept mille ans, pendant l'Holocène précoce.
Dans chaque région, l'agriculture commença par la culture délibérée d'une ou plusieurs plantes alimentaires précédemment cueillies à l'état sauvage. Ces histoires passèrent chacune par plusieurs étapes initiatiques. Les conséquences démographiques furent immenses : la culture délibérée permettait de produire bien plus de nourriture sur la même superficie que la cueillette seule.
À mesure que les populations croissaient, elles s'étendaient vers l'extérieur depuis leurs zones d'origine, et le plus souvent les agriculteurs en expansion surpassaient les communautés de chasseurs-cueilleurs existantes grâce à leur plus grand nombre et à leur productivité supérieure.
L'Afrique, loin de se tenir à l'écart de cette transformation mondiale, abritait trois régions différentes d'invention agricole indépendante. Le continent n'était pas périphérique à la révolution agricole ; il en était l'un des principaux théâtres.
Chanjman soti nan ramasaj ale nan agrikilti pa t, jan ansyen istwa ewosantrik yo ta vle fè nou kwè, yon kado inik ki soti nan Kwasan Fètil la. Li te pito yon fenomèn ki gen yon miltiplisite etonan. Moun nan douz rejyon oswa plis, ki separe jewografikman, te endepandaman mete devlopman sa yo an mouvman ant douz mil ak sèt mil ane de sa, pandan Olosèn bonè a.
Nan chak rejyon, agrikilti te kòmanse ak kiltivasyon delibere youn oswa plizyè plant manje ki te anvan sa ramasè nan nati. Istwa sa yo chak te pase nan plizyè etap inisyatik. Konsekans demografik yo te imans: kiltivasyon delibere te vle di moun te ka pwodui plis manje sou menm kantite tè pase ramasaj pou kont li.
Pandan popilasyon yo te grandi, yo te elaji deyò zòn orijin yo nan nouvo tè, e pi souvan agrikiltè ki t ap elaji yo te depase kominote chasè-rasanblè ki te deja la gras a pi gwo kantite yo ak pwodiksyon siperyè yo.
Afrik, lwen de kanpe apa nan transfòmasyon mondyal sa a, te gen twa rejyon diferan envansyon agrikòl endepandan. Kontinan an pa t periferi nan revolisyon agrikòl la; li te youn nan teyat prensipal li yo.