What other factors could have pushed communities in the “hilly flanks” of Mesopotamia to start cultivating anything at this particular moment in human history?
The shift towards cultivating crops in the “hilly flanks” of Mesopotamia, often referred to as part of the Fertile Crescent, during the Neolithic era, was influenced by several key factors, including environmental, social, and technological changes:
- Climate Change and Environmental Shifts: The end of the Pleistocene epoch around 12,000 years ago brought a warmer and more stable climate in the region. This transition to the Holocene epoch created conditions conducive to agriculture by providing predictable seasonal patterns, which helped stabilize wild plant growth and favored human intervention in cultivation. The hilly flanks had a variety of wild grains, including wheat and barley, which grew well in this environment.
- Resource Scarcity and Population Pressure: As human populations grew in the Late Epipaleolithic period, groups needed to secure a steady and reliable food supply. Over-reliance on wild resources might have led to depletion or seasonal shortages, pushing communities to experiment with planting and tending crops to ensure food availability. The need to support growing populations likely fostered a shift from purely foraging to mixed economies involving cultivation.
- Technological Innovations: Early humans had developed tools and techniques such as sickles for harvesting grains, mortars and pestles for grinding, and early forms of storage facilities, which made cultivation a more practical and sustainable option. Advances in understanding soil fertility and irrigation may have also played a role.
- Sedentism and Community Organization: As communities became more sedentary, driven by access to rich resources in specific areas, they could invest time and labor in managing and experimenting with local plant species. Permanent or semi-permanent settlements facilitated the planting, growing, and harvesting cycles, making agriculture more viable.
- Cultural and Social Incentives: Cultivation may have been tied to emerging social structures, rituals, and communal activities that required food production and storage. Surplus food could lead to trade, social stratification, and the development of specialized roles within a community. This process would incentivize communities to move beyond foraging and invest in cultivation.
- Domestication Pressure: The selective harvesting of desirable traits in wild grains might have encouraged natural selection for crops with more beneficial traits (e.g., grains that held onto their seeds better). As people repeatedly gathered from local areas, they could have unintentionally influenced the genetic makeup of plant species, leading to the earliest stages of domestication.
The combination of these factors suggests that agriculture was not simply a technological revolution but a response to a confluence of ecological, demographic, and social changes that made cultivation a logical adaptation for survival and development in the hilly flanks of Mesopotamia.