The Holocene:

(Chapter 4 & 5)

Describing complex relationships

Outline:

1. Introduction

a. Summarizing the whole phenomenon- (Pleistocene)

b. Summarizing the whole phenomenon- (Holocene)

2. Explaining the inter related and Multi-faceted phenomenon of Pleistocene.

a. Critical Analysis.

3. Advent of agriculture and the complexity of issue.

4. Discussing the proposition of the domestication of plants and animals

5. Explaining the Oasis theory in terms of agriculture and climate change

6. Contrasting, analyzing and concluding the whole debate.

During the Pleistocene glaciation, ice sheets appeared while during the glacial

periods they expanded, and during interglacial periods they contracted. The major effects of

the Pleistocene glaciation have been the erosion of land and the deposition of material, both

over large parts of the continents; the modification of river systems; the creation of millions

of lakes, changes in sea level and the isostatic adjustment of the Earth's crust etc. The ice

sheets themselves, by raising the albedo (the extent to which the radiant energy of the Sun is

reflected from Earth) created significant feedback to further cool the climate. These effects

have been reshaping entire environments on land and in the oceans, and their associated

biological communities especially human beings.

numerous environmental processes, such as soil formation, plant succession, Lake Ontogeny

and faunal migration. Therefore, the environmental changes or climate change is a complex,

multifaceted and inter related phenomenon depending on numerous variables and factors.

This change was a result of several autonomous processes that encouraged the development

of environmental changes as a chain process. And as a result, sea level adjusted to the

reduced global volume of ice and in turn modified river base levels and coastal ecologies.

Collectively, the glaciation of Pleistocene (Quaternary glaciation) affected sea levels,

that consequently resulted in lake producing agency in a way when the ice sheets retreated,

countless lakes were produced as a result. Such as Lauren tide great lakes and kettle holes

(see technical box IV, Chap, 4, p 135). Lakes are usually studied through the sediments, core

of macro fossils, and organic matter. The study of lakes sediments provides a full insight of

how chemical, physical and biological processes are inter linked in an eco-system

(Hutchinson, 1957-75; Sullivan and Reynolds, 2003). Hence, the rise in temperature resulted

in the melting of glaciers, and the melting of glaciers resulted in the rise of sea level while the

rise in sea level resulted in the formation of numerous lakes. Therefore, climate was

obviously the ultimate determinant of ecological change during the Quaternary ice ages

(Delcourt and Delcourt 1987; Huntley and Webb, 1989). It also changed the patterns of forest

re occupation in several parts of the world especially Europe and eastern North America. But

this does not mean necessarily that climate always directly controlled the rate of plant

migration.

Critical Analysis: Currently, Earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the

beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 15,000 and 10,000

years ago; this caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear.
Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the world's land surface, still

exist in Greenland, Antarctica and some mountainous regions.

However, in logical connection to the above paragraphs, where the changing and inter

related processes of climate were discussed while this paragraph will discuss another major

and inter related contributing factor; the advent of agriculture. Hence, the most obvious and

inter related change in environment was due to the start of agricultural activities that changed

the relationship in between Humans and the nature. Therefore, This review will critically

analyze the interrelated processes of climate change with special reference to the advent of

agricultural activities that resulted due to environmental change which changed the hunter-

gather societies and compelled them to agricultural practices while this in result, changed the

relationship between human and nature which as a consequence, again changed the natural

environment and as a result, humans have to changed again according to the changing

circumstances. Hence, the above propositions will be justified with arguments in preceding

paragraphs that will focus on the inter connected relationship of agriculture, human and

nature in all respects.

As the effects of glacial to inter glacial world has discussed by consequence of

climatic change for natural and cultural ecologies. Now, we will discuss the human as agent

of environmental change and environmental change as an agent for the change in human way

of life, specifically to the advent of agricultural mode of production, and the domestication of

plants and animals. The question where and when our domestic crops and animals originated

is a truly interdisciplinary question which has received contribution, among others,

geographer such as Carl Sauer(1952), archaeologist such as Eric Higgs (1972), and David

Harris(Harris and Hillman, 1989; Harris 1996a) and crop scientist such as Jack Harlan (1975,
1995). These scientist discuss the domestication of plants not at once but at specific times and

places, rather than being a continuous process that was diffuse in time and space. Therefore,

this book has exclusively discussed the historical background of the domestication of plants

and animals that include southwest Asia, china and south Asia etc., Therefore, owing to its

complexity, The question is addressed by various and multiple perspectives but most

successfully by these two theories such as The Oasis Theory and opportunist model.

Oasis theory a core concept in archaeology, referring to one of the main hypotheses

about the origins of agriculture: that people started to domesticate plants and animals because

they were forced to do so, because of climate change. This theory argues that at the end of the

Pleistocene, North Africa and the Near East experienced a period of desiccation, a period of

increased occurrence of drought, with higher temperatures and decreased precipitation. That

aridity, he argued, drove both people and animals to congregate at oases and river valleys;

that propinquity created both population growth and a closer familiarity with plants and

animals. Communities developed and were pushed out of the fertile zones, living on the

edges of the oases where they were forced to learn how to raise crops and animals in places

that were not ideal.

Agriculture is often seen as a historically unavoidable but its advantage over a hunter-

forager mode of production are not as obvious as they might at first appear. Thus, we can

assume that hunter-gatherers are unlikely to have taken on the additional laborious tasks

required for agriculture unless they had a strong incentive to do so, therefore, the beginning

of agricultural activities might involve some shift in the balance between population and their

food resource base, either because of population increase or environmental change. In this

context, childe, s oasis hypothesis fitted well with archaeological evidence for an early

Holocene Neolithic revolution in south west Asia. However, in some cases, this theory may

not be applied correctly for plant domestication with climate evidence either. A shift from
hunter gather to agricultural was not a sudden change as a whole, but involved a transitional

stage of experimentation (Zeder, 2011). Thus these theories and studies shows and correlate

environmental change to early agriculture, Childe hypothesis is based on the proposition that

necessity is the mother of invention, In contrast to this model, there is the opportunist one, in

which the availability of resources is defined in terms of environmental change. For instance,

if climatic amelioration creates extensive stands of wild wheat, you learn to harvest them, as

the early Natufian did in Palestine during the same time (Rosen and Rivera Collazo, 2012).

Generally farming began on at least four separate occasions during the first half of the

Holocene, when the forming developed, it did so because of locally suitable circumstances,

(Blumler, 1996). However, the adoption of farming as a way of life took place sometime after

the start of Holocene. Climate change may have played an essential part in allowing farming

to emerge during the Holocene, but it was not usually a direct trigger, therefore,

environmental changes associated with the glacial to inter glacial transition were undoubtedly

instrumental in bringing about the adoption of agricultural modes of production,.

Collectively, in any case, the advent of agriculture was not only influenced by environmental

changes but in turn brought tremendous potential for modifying natural environments. The

most immediate effect was on the domestication itself. Agricultural activities thus

strengthened the mutual dependence between people and a limited range of domestic plants

and animals, in doing so, it brought the humans into direct conflict with the other elements of

nature. In this way, extinction of certain animals occurred due to habitat loss that affected

biodiversity and the whole eco system. This relates to the most important aspect of human

relation with nature. Additionally, the cultivation of plants required the clearance of existing

vegetation cover, which is considered as the first human impact on soil. This impact was

most prominent because of agriculture association with a settled or sedimentary way of life.

Thus in turn it resulted in the dramatic increase of human populations. While the
development of farming may have changed the relationship between human and nature, the

fate of agricultural societies remained interlinked with the habitats they occupied.