NEW ADAPTATIONS: FOOD PRODUCTION
Time required: 2-3 hours
A. Overview: This module introduces the students to the origins and consequences of food production. At the beginning of class, a current events article is discussed: if a student has brought in the article, they introduce it to the class; the instructor then encourages discussion of what has been learned by this article and what information may be lacking. The instructor lectures to the students to introduce basic concepts. During the lecture, the instructor should refer the students to sections of the Price and Feinman text (paleoethnobotany, archaeozoology, pottery, Zea mays). Following the introductory lecture, students should be given time to complete the computer module on the emergence of agriculture. The computer activity will provide the students with a good overview of the impact of domestication on societies. Following completion of the module, students will review their answers with the instructor through discussion. If computers are not easily accessible, the material in the module may be provided to the students in lecture format.
B. Lesson Objectives:
1. Describe the origins and consequences of food production.
2. Define key terminology: domestication, cultivation, sedentism, carrying capacity.
3. Describe the transition from movement to sedentism and how it is reflected in the archaeological record (e.g., permanent structures, dependency on fewer plants, greater vulnerability to weather, dependency on harvest times, need for intense physical labor, increased opportunities for specialization, change in trade patterns, increase in bartering, development of status differentiation).
4. Identify the process of settling down and the human ability to manipulate the environment.
5. Describe key characteristics of early food producing societies, including technology, social structure, and ideology.
6. Identify an ethnographic example of a farming tribe.
7. Distinguish between the transition to settling down and food production (processes frequently not synchronous; not all hunter and gatherers are non-sedentary and not all sedentary people are food-producers); sedentism has sometimes been called the "domestication of humans."
8. Identify principles of: social relevance and communication.
C. Matrix Principles:
1. Social relevance: impact of agriculture on societies—what archaeology teaches us about how we use the environment and what may happen in the future if we continue to use the environment the way we do today.
2. Communication: reflections, activities, Internet.
D. Instructional Procedures: This module is primarily lecture and student activity. The current events portion is introduced to tie in archaeology to today's world. Ideally, the article will address subsistence in some manner. Throughout the lecture, students are asked questions to ensure they are grasping the concepts introduced. It is important to tie in real-world experiences to the content, so the questions ask the students to think of some of the concepts in the context of today's world. For example, issues of drought, flooding, and economic downturn and impact on crop sales could all be raised in the context of "how to succeed" in an agriculturally based society. PowerPoint is useful to help identify concepts, but the lecture can be taught with traditional technology (whiteboard, etc.). At the conclusion of the introductory lecture, students are given access to a computer module (Law 1996c) from which they learn additional concepts using a question and answer sheet. Following their work on the computer module and class discussion of their findings, examples of specific archaeological sites are described to conclude this topic.
E. Assessment: Students are assessed on this topic in two ways. They complete two short reflections addressing some of the objectives in this topic, and they complete the computer module and participate in class discussion relating to the module.
F. Lecture Outline:
1. Current events: discuss recent new article on anthropology/archaeology. What did you learn from this article? What information do you still want to know? Are there any biases in the reporting?
2. Discuss the domestication process (carrying capacity; sedentism; forms of domestication [e.g., dry farming, irrigation agriculture, slash and burn]; pastoralism): "involves both the inherent characteristics of the plant or animal species and the intensity and nature of the human manipulation" (Price and Feinman, p. 197).
3. Review chronology of the first appearance of domesticates (Price and Feinman, p. 198).
4. Discuss what is needed for agriculture to be a success (e.g., cultivation, propagation, husbandry, harvesting, storage, maintenance).
5. Video: Hopi: Corn is Life (Coughlan 1997); good example of modern horticulture in an arid environment.
6. Archaeological evidence: paleoethnobotany (palynology, flotation studies); dentition studies that focus on diet; archaeozoology (study of animal remains/faunal analysis). Examples: how archaeology documents changes in diet through flotation, pollen, faunal, and skeletal studies:
Pastoralism (Effland and MCC 2004)
The Process of Domestication (Effland and MCC 2004)
Maize, the Staple Crop of the Americas (Effland and MCC 2004)
Human Ingenuity When it Comes to Food (Effland and MCC 2004)
Technology Change in Association With Agriculture (Effland and MCC 2004)
Understanding the New Mode of Life (The Implications Unfold) (Effland and MCC 2004)
Seeds Reveal Squash—Not Corn—Planted in Mexico 10,000 Years Ago (Effland and MCC 2004)
Find Out Where Different Crops Were First Domesticated (Effland and MCC 2004)
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Diamond 1987)
A Quiet Revolution: Origins of Agriculture in Eastern North America (Selig 1993)
G. Activity on emergence of agriculture (see handout)
Emergence of Agriculture (Law 1996c)
H. Describe archaeological sites: (Guila Naquitz Cave; Tehuacan; Guitarrero Cave; Poverty Point; Adena; El Paraiso, Peru (all are in Price and Feinman text).
I. Readings: Prince and Feinman: Tehuacan, Guitarrero Cave, Guila Naquitz Cave; also pages 218-219; 239-241; 368-370.
J. Video: Out of the Past (Polloch et al. 1992): Segment on households.
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