Download Factors that increase sedentism

Sedentism
Definition:
Living permanently in one place
Factors that increase sedentism:
Emergence of agriculture
Areas that are rich in natural resources
Larger nuclear family unit (consequence)
Permanent shelter (eg: cave)
Before Emergence Agriculture
Overall more movement:
 Movement with the
seasons
 Movement with the
herds of animals
• Smaller families/or
groups of people
• Increased variety in diet
• Less disease
Domesticating Agriculture
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Consequences:
Dependency on fewer plants
Greater vulnerability to weather
Complete dependency on harvest times
Need for intense physical labor
Need for storing and preservation of food
Increase in infectious disease
Infectious disease
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Closely related with Population growth
It is difficult to maintain a clean & healthy living space
Humans also share diseases with domesticated animals
Clustering of humans & animals into confined spaces is a breading ground
for infectious disease
Eventually natural selection would help develop immunities to specific
pathogens that plagued the agricultural revolution
Weather
Before not a huge concern
 move with the seasons
Now as a result much more
vulnerable
• Large nuclear families make it
difficult to move with the
seasons
• Bad weather also was a
contributor to sickness and
disease
Dependency on fewer plants
Made agriculture a huge gamble
Increase dependency on weather/certain
weather conditions favor specific crops
Communities find themselves betting their lives
on the weather patterns (e.g.: rainfall)
As a result making early agriculture much more
of a gamble than hunting and gathering
Harvest Times
• Complete dependency on the harvest times
• Agriculturalists, to survive, gathered their food 1-3 harvest times
in a year
• Nothing could interrupt the harvest (e.g.: war/epidemic)
Storing Produce
• Since harvest season is 1-3 times in a year food
must be stored away for continual use
Reasons/Considerations for storage:
Protection from moisture
Animals
Thieves
Process of distribution of food so that there is
enough between harvest times to survive
Physical Labor
• Increase in intensive manual labor/several times of the year
• There is a vast difference between hunting/gathering &
agriculture
• Labor of both women and men was required in the fields
• These conditions enhanced individual discipline
Population Growth
• Mobile hunters/gatherer groups have to limit
reproduction, this lifestyle does not allow large
families
• On the other hand agricultural communities do
not have this amount of mobility
• More children in agricultural community the
better: more hands to work in the fields
• As a result there is a tendency for larger families
Technology
Earliest phase
Stone axe
Hoe (left)
Sickle (left)
All tools used in
preparation of fields &
harvesting grains
Technology
• A primitive milling
device for grinding seeds
between two stones
“quern” (right)
• This would process the
grain into edible form
• Used for thousands of
years by people who
collected seeds but did
not plant them
Conclusion
• In conclusion domestication of agriculture was a
large step for native peoples
• It increased sedentism, which increased
population
• Domestication encouraged the development of
social & individual discipline
• These changes molded humans & human
society in new ways