1.4 living from farming

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 1

1. The Age of Hunters and Farmers

1.4 Living from farming 

When the last Ice Age was over, prehistoric people in the Middle East started to become farmers. 

They no longer moved around, but lived in one place. 

Here they could grow crops and keep animals. Pottery was invented, to store things.

What is this lesson about?

What you can do after this lesson

• explain when and why first agriculture began in the near east
  
• explain how the first farmers discovered how to grow their own crops
  
• explain the meaning of domestication
  
• explain how the first farmers lived
  

Word Duty

Ice Age: periods in the past when areas of the world were covered by ice and it was very cold

Agriculture: a way of living where people grow their own crops and keep animals

Fertile Crescent: area around the rivers Tigris, Euphrates and Nile

Agricultural revolution: farming was introduced, a completely new way of living in prehistory

Domestication: tame animals for your own use

Pottery: an invention of farmers to store products

KEY WORDS

FERTILE CRESCENT

the Fertile Crescent = the place where the first civilisations started

Mesopotamia= The Fertile Crescent 

The first farmers still do a lot by hand.

Farming was hard, but hunting was much harder!

Through the invention of animal breeding they now use domesticated animals for that purpose...

Hmm...

Welk dier zou dit werk voor me kunnen doen?

Bad harvest = hunger!

Farmers were now more dependent on nature. If the harvest was fogged or the season was bad, it was more difficult to survive. In the past as a hunter you would just move on. Farmers did this less quickly, they had more property! 

Hunters or farmers?

How do you recognize that these are farmers and not hunters?

Farmers invent graffiti rituals when someone dies.

They think about a life after death. Commemorate the dead.

They learn how to bury or cremate. 

As a hunter you couldn't stand still, you had to move on. Move on!

Farmers live in the same place. Stand still... and remember. Cemeteries arise...

What remains...

Dolmen (Hunebedden)

• Graves are becoming bigger, near the farms. 

• Both buried and cremated: urn fields
  
• They can, now that they can make pots!
  

• The dead were given possessions: presumably believing in life after death

Agricultural revolution

The moment when people switched from hunting and gathering to agriculture

This was a big change in society

(Society of hunters and gatherers --> agricultural society)

A revoltuion means: a big change in society.

Life changed completely!!!

What is?

change and continuity (in history lessons)?

Change: this means that something ends and is replaced by something different.

For example: When the Roman monarchy ended and Rome became a Republic.

A system of government was replaced by a very different system. So this is "change".

Continuity: this means that somethings continues, or "keeps going on" . 

For example: After the fall of the western Roman empire Christianity continued as an important religion.

In other words: If Christianity had ended with the Roman empire we would speak of "change", but in this case we speak of "continuity".

Hunters & Farmers

A hunter has not much possessions

A farmer has much possessions

People 

collect 

stuff

Farmers

had

more and more possessions:

clothing,

a house,

stuff,

animals...

For each statement, choose the correct answer.
2. There have been several ice ages in the past.

This is an example of:

1. change
2. continuity

For each statement, choose the correct answer.
1. prehistoric people have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years

This is an example of:

1. change
2. continuity

For each statement, choose the correct answer.
3. hunter-gatherers became farmers during prehistory.


This is an example of:

1. change
2. continuity

For each statement, choose the correct answer.
4. For the last 10,000 years, there were no ice ages.

This is an example of:

1. change
2. continuity

The domestication of pigs began 80,000 years ago.

1. TRUE
2. FALSE

The first animals to be domesticated were goats and sheep.

1. TRUE
2. FALSE

Animals were selected for their useful characteristics.

1. TRUE
2. FALSE

It took hundreds of years before the animals were tame.

1. TRUE
2. FALSE

Farmers

Hunter-Gatherers

moving from place to place

finding grain, fruit and vegetables

hunting animals and fishing

small groups

only few possessions that can be carried

Farming was a big change in the way prehistoric man lived. So what changed exactly?

Drag each change  to the correct place in the table.

large groups

pottery

domesticating animals

growing your own crops

living in one place

(= settling)