Welcome back to the series lectures here on Western Civilization that is History 1121.
I’m going to talk about domestication of plants and animals for a few minutes.
In our last meeting we talked about the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras, the Old Stone Age and
the New Stone Age.
We characterize Paleolithic man as nomadic, moving about in small groups, constantly in
search of shelter, food, and water.
Neolithic I want you to associate with farming, with agriculture; this is the dramatic shift
in human history.
With Neolithic man you get large populations, settled populations, cities; you get specialization.
This is all due, of course, to the surplus of food now available.
The reason we have a surplus of food is of course, Neolithic man discovered that he could
domesticate wild animals and plants, and to make them useful to him.
So we’re going to talk about some of these today.
I thought I would give you a list here of the plants and animals available for domestication.
First, in southwest Asia and the Fertile Crescent or in Mesopotamia, where we think of as Western
Civilization beginning, in the Sumerian city states, and then contrast that with the plants
and animals available for domestication in the New World, in the New World, in the Western
Hemisphere.
This should give us a good idea of the differences, and why the Old World perhaps grew faster
and perhaps a bit more complex, more larger settlements than in the New World is due to
domestication of plants and animals and the large abundance of these that are available
in the Old World.
Let’s start with animals.
Both the Old World and the New World have dogs, but there’s a distinct difference
in the duties of these animals.
The dog in the New World, in North and South America, does not have to herd and he still
provides companionship and protection and things like that, but he does not have to
herd because there are no large domesticated animals in the New World to herd.
We’ll get further into this in a bit.
In the Old World you have cattle and cattle are key, probably the foundation of human
wealth.
Cattle provide us with meat and with milk and clothing and leather for shoes and coats
and hats and belts – milk, cheese, cream, on and on and on, butter; items that you use
every single day, items you probably already used this morning, are derived from cattle,
and of course, cows eat something that we have no interest in, grass.
So the cow turns grass into everyday items that are quite valuable to us.
So cows are available in the Old World, but not in the new.
Camels, the domesticated camel, think about the impact this has had on Arabic culture.
Would Islam, for instance, borne deep in the Arabian Peninsula, would it have been able
to expand out of Arabia and then across North Africa, into Central Asia, into Europe, without
the domesticated camel.
Horses, available in the Old World, not in the New; horses will be brought over by Columbus
and explorers that follow him.
Horses, mules, donkeys; these all provide us with transportation; they provide us with
beast of burden power, labor power; and of course, they provide us with manure.
We’re an agricultural people and we need manure to help grow our crops.
So these are all key creatures in southwest Asia, but you don’t find them in the New
World.
Sheep and goats, again, sheep provide clothing and food; goats provide food as well, and
of course, goat’s milk is quite often turned to cheese.
So these are valuable creatures and easy to maintain, easy to herd, but they’re not
available in the New World, just the Old.
Pigs – A pig is a special domesticated animal.
It’s obvious what we derive from it, meat in various ways.
It’s available in southwest Asia, but it’s not available in the New World.
Now, once the pig is brought over to North and South America by the European explorers,
the pig will begin to tear up the landscape.
Pigs will root and root and root, endlessly.
If you’ve ever rubbed the nose of a pig, it’s a hard-calloused snout and it’s like
a little shovel and it constantly digs.
This, of course, disrupts the landscape and causes erosion, so when Columbus came over
and the other Europeans, they brought pigs with them and many of these pigs got loose.
They became feral or wild pigs and have a dramatic impact on the landscape of the New
World.
Pigs are also less valuable to humans because of their, well they compete with us for food.
Pigs like the same thing you like, which is carbohydrates, and pigs are willful, intelligent
animals, and they compete with humans for these essential nutrients.
Chickens, of course, we have feathers, we have eggs and flesh.
Honeybees, we all like something sweet.
Honeybees are domesticated in the Old World, but not the New where they’re not available.
We have water buffalo in the Old World, again a beast of burden.
Now that’s a pretty strong lineup, and I should add the silkworm to that lineup.
The silkworm have a major impact on trade linking East and West together as Europeans
desire the fine fabric made from silk.
That’s a pretty strong lineup of domesticated animals available in the Old World.
Now what about the New World, just in contrast.
In the New World you have dogs, but like I said, dogs don’t herd in the New World because
there’s no large domesticated animal to herd.
In the New World, in the Andes in South America, you have alpacas and llamas; these are small
pack animals.
Nimble of foot, they can negotiate those steep, difficult trails in the Andes.
Again, small pack animals, they cannot carry a heavy load.
In the New World you have turkeys; the benefits there are obvious.
And then finally, guinea pigs, a guinea pig is a standard dietary staple in South America
– roasted guinea pig on a skewer and seasoned is a common dietary item.
So if you look at these two lists as lineup cards for baseball teams, you’ll see that
the Old World looks like an all¬-star team compared to the New World that has very few
domesticated animals available.
Domesticated plants – I read somewhere years ago, I think some botanist said that there’s
something in the neighborhood of twenty thousand species of grasses on this planet.
We’ve managed to domesticate about a dozen or so of them and most of them are in Eurasia,
as opposed to the New World.
In the Old World you have barley, and of course, we feed this to animals, to help us to make
beer and bread; you have lentils and onions; wheat, of course, is the heavy hitter, with
wheat we make bread and pasta, this is the staff of life; you have rye, also, for livestock,
for bread; oats; rice, can you imagine the culture of East Asia without rice?
These are fundamental foundational grains, wild grasses that have been domesticated and
made useful for man.
And of course, we can store these, too.
You’ve all see the large silos out in the Midwest that store grain.
The only domesticated grass available in the New World is corn.
Now corn is key, it’s quite important obviously.
It’s difficult to find any processed food made nowadays that doesn’t have corn in
it in some fashion.
But nevertheless, you can see that the availability of plants available for domestication in the
Old World far surpasses that that’s available in the New World.
I’m going to make a few more comments here about this transition from Paleolithic to
Neolithic with the domestication of plants and animals.
By domesticating animals we come into contact with animal diseases.
Over time, over millennia, this allows human beings to develop immunities to these diseases
that are animal borne.
One of the great catastrophes in human history is after Columbus’ arrival in the New World,
the natives there, the indigenous people of the Caribbean began to die off in massive
numbers.
This, of course, is because they have no immunity to these diseases, having never been around
cows and chickens and other animals that carry these diseases.
So this is a key factor in the conquering of the New World by the Europeans.
We should also at least mention the fact that in the Old World, where large numbers of animals
are domesticated and people begin to settle there in Mesopotamia, you see an accumulation
of garbage.
Paleolithic people did not have garbage; they were constantly on the move; they were constantly
looking for something to eat and they did not settle down.
But Neolithic people did, in large numbers.
Now garbage begins to accumulate and there has to be some answer, some civic infrastructure
to try to take care of this accumulation of garbage, which of course, breeds disease as
vermin flock to the garbage.
There has to be some practical way of dealing with this problem that’s brought about by
domestication of plants and animals.
So I hope that gives you a little bit of an introduction to the differences between Paleolithic
and Neolithic, at least with regards to domesticated plants and animals.
Thank you.