Evolution of Agriculture

The modern debate on the origins of agriculture began between two theorists: Sir V. Gordon Childe, a British anthropologist, and Ivan Vavilov, a Soviet botanist. These two theorists were both Marxists but came to dissimilar conclusions about the start of agriculture's evolution. They both believed the Marxist doctrine that cultures changed because of economic revolutions which brought about changes in the means and modes of production. The causes of the economic revolutio

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n these types of areas. Wild game and wild plants were gathered for a major portion of the people's diet. In areas of marginal productivity, a more secure subsistence strategy dictated the need for domestic production of resources. The domestication of plants and animals provided for a more certain existence. In addition, food resources which were domesticated were easier to store and stockpile against times of scarce production. The flexibility of each area to take advantage of the wild and domestic resources available meant that, in the fertile areas with good rainfall and cultivatable soil, agriculture was practiced as a more secure means of production than the previously practiced hunter-gatherer strategies. In these areas, a more developed, economically interdependent, denser population is found. As a population becomes more settled and begins to cultivate an area for subsistence agriculture, the environment will slowly become degraded. This process is not immediate. Evidence suggests that, even in fragile marginal areas, people continue to use a variety of food production techniques after farming and herding have been initiated. A gradual decline in the level of wild food produced and an increase in the popul
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Approximate Word count = 2270
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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