Plants and animals domestication process

Origins of agriculture

Oasis hypothesis

• It was advocated by Gordon Childe in 1936.
• The climate changed, and there was less rain. Temperature increased.
• Humans went to live in or near oases where there is more water, to be able to survive. Some animals and plants did that too.
• It was only a small step to domesticate some of the animals that were there.
• Climate data from the period does not support it though.

Ideological hypothesis

• Developed by the French archaeologist Jaques Cauvin.
• The invention of agriculture was the result of various processes and strategies of human beings, directly related to their need for survival and not the result of environmental and economic determinisms.

Social factor hypothesis

Developed by A. Testar.It starts from the premise of the existence of nomadic hunter-gatherer groups and sedentary hunter-gatherer groups and accumulators. Members of the latter group would push to produce more, an aspect that would have led to the discovery of agriculture.

Population pressure hypothesis

• Developed by the American anthropologist M. N. Cohen.
• Population no longer sustanable by hunting and looking for food.
• Agriculture began when population reached critical mass.
• population required more food than habitat could sustain.

Nuclear zone hypothesis

• Anthropologist Robert Braidwood claims that the Neolithic origin occurred in ecologically favorable areas.
• In other words, in those areas where plant and animal species already existed in a natural way that would later be domesticated. These zones would be located in the fertile crescent of the Middle East, which would be the nuclear area.

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