Intensive Agriculture

 

Intensive Agriculture: Production vastly increased through such technological innovations as irrigation, fertilizers, animal traction, and more efficient transport and equipment.

 

Intensification

·       Water Management

·       Selective Breeding

·       Draft Animals

·       Fertilizers

 

Organization of Energy

·       Horticulture vs. Intensive Agriculture

 

Environmental Resilience, Stability, and Change

 

Intensive Agriculture and Civilization

·       Civilized states have a great number of non-food producing members of society.

·       What is Civilization?

·       Primary Characteristics:

o      Settlement

o      Specialization

o      Concentration of Surplus

o      Class Structure

o      State Organization

·       Secondary Characteristics:

o      Monumental Public Works

o      Monumental Art Work

o      Long-Distance Trade Networks

o      Writing

o      Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy

 

Emergence of Civilization

 

Hydraulic Theory: Earliest civilizations of the Old World developed along the flood plains of great rivers. 

 

Settlements

·       Jericho (7,500 BC)

·       Cätäl Hüyük (6,250 BC)

 

Primary and Secondary Civilizations

 

Natufian Culture: (16,000 – 9,000 BC), Levant

Ubaid Culture: (5,900 – 4,300 BC), southern Mesopotamia

Sumer (4,300 – 2334 BC), First Civilization

·       Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Kish

 

Other Primary Civilizations:

·       Egypt (3,100 BC)

·       Indus Valley, Harappan Culture (2,500 BC)

o      Indus River Floodplain

·       Shang, China (1,750 BC)

o      Yellow River Floodplain

·       Minoan (2,000 BC)

o      Aegean Island of Crete

·       Olmec (1,200 BC)

o      Mesoamerica

 

Social Consequences of Intensive Agriculture: Social Inequality

·       Regional Differentiation

·       Peasantry

o      Ceremonial Fund

o      Replacement Fund

o      Rent Fund

 

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