The broad spectrum revisited: Evidence from plant remains

Weiss, Ehud; Wetterstrom, Wilma; Nadel, Dani; Bar‐Yosef, Ofer

doi:10.1073/pnas.0402362101

Cited by 266 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…6,33,70 In none of these areas did relationships of domestication appear to have developed within a ''necessity is the mother of invention'' context as population growth forced humans into marginal environmental zones. 69,70 Rather, these relationships developed within rich resource situations that enabled expanded and sustained human experimental intervention in the life cycle of a broad spectrum of different species and the adoption of a sedentary, logistically based economy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication

Smith¹

2007

Evolutionary Anthropology

220

147

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Many animal species attempt to enhance their environments through niche construction or environmental engineering. Such efforts at environmental modification are proposed to play an important and underappreciated role in shaping biotic communities and evolutionary processes.1, 2 Homo sapiens is acknowledged as the ultimate niche constructing species in terms of our rich repertoire of ecosystem engineering skills and the magnitude of their impact. We have been trying to make the world a better place—for ourselves—for tens of thousands of years. I argue here that it is within this general context of niche‐construction behavior that our distant ancestors initially domesticated plants and animals and, in the process, first gained the ability to significantly alter the world's environments.The general concept of niche construction also provides the logical link between current efforts to understand domestication being conducted at two disconnected scales of analysis. At the level of individual plant and animal species, on one hand, there recently have been significant advances in our knowledge of the what, when, and where of domestication of an ever‐increasing number of species worldwide.3 At the same time, large‐scale regional or universal developmental models of the transition to food production continue to be formulated. These incorporate a variety of “macro‐evolutionary” causal variables that may account for why human societies first domesticated plants and animals.4, 5 This essay employs the general concept of niche construction to address the intervening question of how, and to connect these two scales of analysis by identifying the general behavioral context within which human societies responded to “macroevolutionary” causal variables and forged new human plant or animal relationships of domestication.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication

Smith¹

2007

Evolutionary Anthropology

220

147

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“…The huntergatherer lifestyle continued worldwide for several millions of years and ended quite abruptly with the introduction of agriculture. The first indications for the abandonment of the hunter -gatherer lifestyle towards settlement come from a 23 000 year-old fisher-hunter -gatherer's camp at the shore of the Sea of Galilee (310,311) . The associated return from diets containing substantial amounts of protein (from hunting and gathering) back to substantial amounts of carbohydrates is supported by indications for the ground collecting of wild cereals (312) .…”

Section: Archeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A multidisciplinary reconstruction of Palaeolithic nutrition that holds promise for the prevention and treatment of diseases of civilisation

2012

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Evolutionary medicine acknowledges that many chronic degenerative diseases result from conflicts between our rapidly changing environment, our dietary habits included, and our genome, which has remained virtually unchanged since the Palaeolithic era. Reconstruction of the diet before the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions is therefore indicated, but hampered by the ongoing debate on our ancestors' ecological niche. Arguments and their counterarguments regarding evolutionary medicine are updated and the evidence for the long-reigning hypothesis of human evolution on the arid savanna is weighed against the hypothesis that man evolved in the proximity of water. Evidence from various disciplines is discussed, including the study of palaeo-environments, comparative anatomy, biogeochemistry, archaeology, anthropology, (patho)physiology and epidemiology. Although our ancestors had much lower life expectancies, the current evidence does neither support the misconception that during the Palaeolithic there were no elderly nor that they had poor health. Rather than rejecting the possibility of ‘healthy ageing’, the default assumption should be that healthy ageing posed an evolutionary advantage for human survival. There is ample evidence that our ancestors lived in a land–water ecosystem and extracted a substantial part of their diets from both terrestrial and aquatic resources. Rather than rejecting this possibility by lack of evidence, the default assumption should be that hominins, living in coastal ecosystems with catchable aquatic resources, consumed these resources. Finally, the composition and merits of so-called ‘Palaeolithic diets’, based on different hominin niche-reconstructions, are evaluated. The benefits of these diets illustrate that it is time to incorporate this knowledge into dietary recommendations.

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“…The site of Ohalo II, located on the shore of Lake Kinneret, is on the cusp of the upper Paleolithic and the early Epipaleolithic Periods. It is unique in that it has yielded abundant archaeobotanical remains dominated by seeds from small-grained grasses as well as wild cereals, although nuts, fruits, and legumes were also present; additionally, ground stone mortars were used for plant processing (31,32).…”

Section: Epipaleolithic Archaeological Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant

Rosen

Rivera-Collazo

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

175

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Climatic forcing during the Younger Dryas (∼12.9-11.5 ky B.P.) event has become the theoretical basis to explain the origins of agricultural lifestyles in the Levant by suggesting a failure of foraging societies to adjust. This explanation however, does not fit the scarcity of data for predomestication cultivation in the Natufian Period. The resilience of Younger Dryas foragers is better illustrated by a concept of adaptive cycles within a theory of adaptive change (resilience theory). Such cycles consist of four phases: release/collapse (Ω); reorganization (α), when the system restructures itself after a catastrophic stimulus through innovation and social memory-a period of greater resilience and less vulnerability; exploitation (r); and conservation (K), representing an increasingly rigid system that loses flexibility to change. The Kebarans and Late Natufians had similar responses to cold and dry conditions vs. Early Natufians and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A responses to warm and wet climates. Kebarans and Late Natufians (α-phase) shifted to a broader-based diet and increased their mobility. Early Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A populations (r-and K-phases) had a growing investment in more narrowly focused, high-yield plant resources, but they maintained the broad range of hunted animals because of increased sedentism. These human adaptive cycles interlocked with plant and animal cycles. Forest and grassland vegetation responded to late Pleistocene and early Holocene climatic fluctuations, but prey animal cycles reflected the impact of human hunting pressure. The combination of these three adaptive cycles results in a model of human adaptation, showing potential for great sustainability of Levantine foraging systems even under adverse climatic conditions. agricultural origins | Epipaleolithic | hunter-gatherers | Israel S ocial collapse is a theme most often applied to complex societies, but the shift from foraging to fully farming lifestyles represents a profound social change that many researchers implicitly or explicitly attribute to a failure of forager economies in the wake of abrupt climate change. This belief is especially true for the Near East, the center of domestication of founder crops, including wheat and barley. In this paper, we argue that, in the context of climate change, foraging societies in the southern Levant were highly resilient and robust in terms of diversity of options and mobility and forager responses relied on solutions that recur in a broadly cyclical manner over the longue durée. This argument is in contrast to the perception of economic vulnerability and collapse of forager economies. We emphasize three main concepts that apply to foragers as well as more complex societies: cultural systems are resilient and do not collapse as a simple stimulus-response to climate change; a broad range of economic strategies enhances social resilience; and long-term social memory of accumulated experiences is an important resource for preparing and responding to economic challenges.The arc...

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The broad spectrum revisited: Evidence from plant remains

Cited by 266 publications

References 21 publications

Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication

Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication

A multidisciplinary reconstruction of Palaeolithic nutrition that holds promise for the prevention and treatment of diseases of civilisation

Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant

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