Agricultural Revolution and Its Consequences

People have tried to obtain food, wild plants and fruits by harvesting, hunting and fishing for a very long period of time.When it comes to B.C 12000, every livable fields in the World even though with a low population density,it was penetrated by hunter and gatherer human communities.
Most densely populated places were tropical and semi-tropical regions where environmental and climatic conditions for human life were appropriate.To search more suitable hunt and food sources again,hunter and gatherer who are able to switch between distant distances,especially when the hunt is abundant;for they can feed well at these times they were healthier than the first farmers who came after themselves.

           In hunter and gatherer communities the basis of the social organizations a clan which formed half dozen family.Relations between clans was extremely limited.Average lifetime did not overed the 20 years old.The babies and children's death rates were very high.At least the oldest children could reach only 10 years old.The life over 50 years old were extremely limited.The starvation and famine were encountered situations frequently.During famine periods,only the most durable could survive.At the long time famines,the whole communities might have been lost.The tools used by the hunter and gatherer were sharp chiseled stone knives and cutters, hooks and needles made of bone, antlers and shells, and weapons such as spear, harpoon, sling, arrow and bow were signs of a certain cultural and technological level.A primitive calendar info was occurred.The fire, been known and used for a long time.

             The human before more or less 10-12 years ago,how to tame animals and cultivate various plants by learning for the first time, settled agriculture succeeded.This development, which means shifting from food gathering to production, laid the groundwork for a fundamental economic change called the Neolithic Revolution (B.C 7000-5500).So utilization of people from natural source was increases extraordinarily.Human,by controlling the supply of plants and animals, they reached more plenty and reliable sources. 

             The fact that it is called a revolution should not lead to a sudden and unexpected change.The humans, the transit pass to agriculture and the consequences of this change have taken place in a very long time.

Theories of Explaining the Agricultural Revolution

The human how,why,where,when to transit pass to agriculture? To respond these questions there is a three different theories:

1. Oasis Hypothesis According to antiquity historian V. Gordon Childe, climate worsening in Eurasia and North America during the last global cooling period, called the Young Glacier Age between 10800 and 9600 BC, caused many of the mammalian animals that constitute the basic feeding resources of the hunting people in the Northern Hemisphere to disappear it was.Earlier,for people easily when the Near East and North Africa are started droughting where loaded obtainable wild animals and wild plants for human,The scarce food facilities were only available in areas with water supply.In these limited quantity region human,started to observe the animals and plants more tight contact.Some of animals increasingly tamed.Human thought that situation going to be an advantage, and they fed and saved them for their interests.Childe's theory is to take environmental change as a point of departure that arises from a reduction in the natural resources that result in the disappearance of certain species of animals and others.point it's a occured reduction in natural sources.Scarcity of natural resources,it caused to decreasing labor productivity in hunter and gatherer. For the human survive,they must benefit more effective the remaning sources.Human,achieved increasing the efficiency of labor with way of agriculture.
2. Readiness Theory The other theory put forward by Robert J. Braidwood.According to this theory, a cultural development that allows people and animals in the natural environment to better understand led to an agricultural revolution.This theory,easily be domesticated much more animals and a large number of wild plants that are amenable to rehabilitation where is a place suitable for agriculture.In this environment,production of food through agriculture,of human communities increasing cultural development, appeared as a final result.The years of B.C 8000 in Southwest Asia humans recognized environment in the region of Fertile Crescent and they started to feed tamed animals and cultivating plants.The main drawback of this theory which claims that man finds agricultural techniques as the result of a long learning process is that he must not be able to explain the timing and reason of transit on the one hand and on the other hand that knowledge is not sufficient for the birth of agriculture as a necessary condition.
3. Population Growth Theory Lewis R.Binford  In explaining the passage of human to agriculture, the movement has taken the population increase as a point. Population heap due to immigration it pressured to on natural sources and started a struggle between rival groups for to survive.The increasing population,The increasing population,has deteriorated the available equilibrium between in natural sources and human.The survival struggle has necessitated to more active techniques development.The pressure created by the decline in food resources has led to an increase in the productivity of people.The population pressure,firstly caused to hunting from big animals to small animals and caused passage from gathering to agriculture later too.The lack of this theory,has not introduced a population theory that explains how the population will increase in size to create pressure on pre-agricultural natural resources.

Spreading and Development of Agriculture

                  The great development in the transition period was first realized in the Fertile Crescent region starting from the eastern end of the Mediterranean in 8000 BC and covering the Northern Iraq, Syria, Euphrates and Dicle valleys to the Gulf of Basra. In this region, people began to breed themselves by reforming the wild seeds that they had gathered beforehand for consumption in order to increase their productivity.The goat and sheep,the first animals to be domesticated for feeding. In the  B.C 6000's,bovines were domesticated.With the wheat and barley farming in the B.C 6000's, settled agriculture, based on sheep, goat and cattle breeding, which is a region extending from Western Iran to the Mediterranean, in Eastern Anatolia and both sides of the Aegean, is fully started and later,it spreaded the old World's other fields.The Agriculture reaching up to the in B.C 4th Millenium to Nile Valley and in 3rd Millenium until Indus Valley,The Agriculture reaching up to the in B.C 4th Millennium to Nile Valley and in 3rd Millennium until Indus Valley,in B.C 2500's spreaded to Danube Valley,to West Mediterranean,to South Russia and probably to China later.When the spreading process,weather and soils differences ,it caused to new adaptations.Increasingly, new tools, new techniques, new products and new animals have joined to system.

                     Climate, topography and soil conditions in the mediterranean region were determined to be the most active methods of agriculture, which were found by trial and error methods and which changed very little for centuries.In some regions, such as North Africa and Spain, irrigated agriculture is not economically feasible to apply in other regions.Therefore,the technique of dry agriculture has been developed in some regionsThe climate and soil conditions of the Mediterranean required the frequent but superficial harvest of the fields so that the accumulated moisture during the rainy winter season could be preserved in the summer months.To preserve the productivity,the soils were rested once in two years.Also,to prevent the wild plant formation,every season 3-5 times and even soils were harvesting more times.

                    In North China, millet and soybean were the basic cultivated products.In Southeast Asia,rice agriculture was developed since B.C 1500. In this regions mandate was the most importance domesticated animal.In arid steppe of South Russia and Middle Asian,instead of neolithic anchor agriculture,livestock raising was developed.Probably,horses were domesticated in this region.
     
                   The used agricultural tools were quite primitived.In the processing of the soils, the anchors formed by attaching stones that serve as knives at the tip of a wooden handle were used for the first time.This anchor-based farming style spread too many parts of World later.Animals which attract the plowed first appeared in the 4th or 3rd millennium BC.

                  According to stone containers,to be more less durable since BC 6th millenniumbut started to manufacturing terracotta pot which requires more less labor for production.To make like a bread form by grinding of grain from the hand mills where found in archaeological excavations,it is obvious to see as old as the discovery of agriculture.At the beginning of BC 5th millennium by cultivating cannabis,had been started to linen clothes manufacturing.Before 3th millennium,there is no clear prove about usage of woolen clothes.But,if we think sheep and goats were domesticated much earlier and,technically be able to thread manufacturing from wool to linen easily, we can come to the conclusion that the first garments made of leather and fur are produced from wool.

                  Settled village allowed for  to a much more advanced specialization than work-sharing(also check) based on age and gender.Specialization, with productivity increase, it has came with technological development.There are many examples of how technological progress in one area promotes new developments.From nomadic life to settled life,with passage of the leather tents were replaced by houses built of dried earth bricks found in the typical village settlements of the Middle East.Brick manufacturing was ensured the development of pottery.This art branch was advanced with the first appearance of the wheel.Later, it was also used in the construction of wheel transport vehicles.The development of the Metallurgy has happened with same way.Was encountered to silver and gold goods in some excavations belonging to B.C. 6th Millennium.But,regularly the copper production until 5th and 4th millennium,bronze production was started at a much later date.Copper mines was there in Anatolia's mountains and the South Caucasus and North Iran.With the melt of copper since 4th Millennium,the tools of copper and bronze in Middle East,weapons and ornamental items was started to production.Development of the Work-Sharing,emergence of the new art branches like pottery and metallurgy,was necessitated commercial and variation.

                In summary plant improvement like;animal domestication, weave, pottery, metallurgy, monumental architecture,wheel etc. the whole elements of technology which ancient civilizations used,was explored before initiation of written history.The most important technological accomplishment of second millennium was smelting of iron ore between in BC 1400-1200.

                An important result of the emergence of agriculture, which caused major changes from the history of mankind, was the increase in the population that a particular region could feed.Especially,population was quite reproduce in a fast way the regions where the Neolithic Revolution spread.At the first time,People were started to live at constant residential places.The supply of food came to the more regular and safe point.At least,the fluctuation wasn't daily, it was annual.Through the facility of food storage,of the annual fluctuations negative effects,could be reduced in partly.

Consequences of the Agricultural Revolution

In agricultural communities,it could be summarized like this way the emergence of economic development in time of BC 8 millennium:

1. Population has increased.Before agricultural revolution,the rate of population increase was only around ‰ 0,007-0,015,after agricultural revolution it rose to ‰ 0,36.Of the people built-up areas were expanded.The population around Mediterranean became quite intense.
2. Over time there has been a continuous transition from hunting and gathering to farming.As agriculture became increasingly dominant economic activity, resident life took its place.
3. At the technological development area there was great progress.Iron epoch takes the place of bronze in this 8 millennium.
4. The commercial expanded and developed.Especially,the importance of Interregional commercial was increased.As a result market mechanism was born and in the distribution of economic sources started to took a increasingly place.
5. The cities developed at first time,while their sizes increasing,their function become complicated and it spread to whole Mediterranean World.
6. Various economic organization types were born.While the interventionist economy, described as redistribution, was at one end, the types of economic organization in which prices were determined by the market mechanism were at the other end.
7. The income distribution was fairly equal because all the income of the hunter and collective societies was composed of labor income.In agricultural societies, inequality in income distribution has increased considerably because half of the income comes from wealth that can be collected by transferring in the form of land rent and capital income.

Read More

Work-Sharing

The Spanish guy looked in front of his enormous view and admiringly,sighed. In 1439 Venice, he came for to see how these Italian cities armed the battle ships.In his homeland this job was troublesome and it takes days,but in this place Venetians could equip ships in less than an hour,in front of his eyes.But how Venetians  managed to do it?

               In Spain the ships are connected to the docks and the mass of workers were equipping it with munitions and backups.In Venice the ships pulling over to the canal and the different producers of gun and munitions,while the ship was passing, they were releasing their goods to the deck. The stunned Spanish tourist took notes of this condition on his diary.He observed the more ideal work-sharing example:He was the witness of the mechanism of the World's first assembly line.

               The underlying idea is simply,to divide the work and we will be able to produce more, better with the specialization of the job that each unit performs best.In fact the work-sharing using for years.In Antique Greek, it was a well-known method;it was present in factories of during Adam Smith's times.But only at the beginning in 20th century,Henry Ford and with his Model-T car, it tooks the perfect form.

               The Work-Sharing,first it was efective on to start the Industrial Revolution,different countries,it provides to increase their productivity and wealth.Every product that might come to mind today was produced with the work-sharing.

               Manufacturing Confusion Imagine a basic pencil.Production includes many different stages:cutting wood,removal of the relevant substance and shaping,stigmatization,varnishing,eraser attachment.There is one more hand labor to procude one pencil.

              Until the time of Adam Smith, the work-sharing was not explained by a simple theory.Smith in his book '' The Wealth of Nations '',gives the example of the famous needle factory.This,in 18th century England,a factory that manufactures small needles by hand.Smith says it's hard to make a needle in the house of an ordinary man at home, and Smith says the job is divided among various experts in the needle factory:

One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. 

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations pg:14-15 

             According to Smith,in a factory of 10 people,through work-sharing,can be produced in a day 48,000 needles.It means increase %400 thousand in productivity. A group to work like this way,it makes much of the total of what the self-constituting individuals can do.

              Naturally,centuries ago it is the prototype of factories created by Henry Ford. Ford designs an assembly line, in which each of the workers will add a new piece to it, which will pass the different workers' teams in front of the automobile.Hereby,it can produce automobiles by spending far less money and time it takes to make cars.

            To Know the Strong But work-sharing doesn't finish here.Imagine a company,get better than workers fromthe manager of the company is in charge,in administration,in accounting,in marketing and building cleaning..All these officials from inside they will choose the most profitable for theirselves,for others assigns others.

            Same way, of a automobile producers,in seats leather to sound system,It would be very pointless for him to do all the parts of the vehicle by theirself.Some of jobs( or all)  leave it to the expert companies,to supply the pieces from them and it is more profitable to pick them up and assemble from them.

             Smith,devoloped that idea to one step forward.Work-sharing not to be only in among a different people,but also he proposes to be in among different countries and cities too.

              Dangers of Divisions There are some problems with the work-sharing too.The first one of this-many fired employers was witnessed of this-it is difficult for someone who specializes in an unsolicited craft to find another job.One hundered automobile worker,mine worker,steel worker,iron worker....etc when the factories are closed,they were unemployed in the past years.Secondly, a factory could become completely dependent to a person or a group of people.This,these people's over whole process,they will have the power to abuse it if they wished it.

              Third, of individual in single job and condensation on expertise,it can make it increasingly reluctant.To repeat one work to all day,according to Smith's statement it leads to a situation called ''Mental Disabling.'' It prevents to progress of people mental capacities and alienate them to each other.Karl Marx agreed too.In fact Marx said,in the Communist Manifesto,workers became increasingly desperate and at the end of they will rebel against his bosses.

               The alienation caused by job sharing, the incredible earnings it provides, must be compared.Work-sharing it was the reasons of modern economics growing and shrinking and it was the very important parts of economic logic's.

Read More