Hunting/foraging was always a secondary strategy for farmers everywhere in the world. The farmers got more and more land and competed with hunters for game and other resources in the remaining wildlands. Because of their village life they were organized in bigger units that could easily outcompete the scattered hunter bands that can't organize in larger units because local resources don't suffice. So, foragers slowly adopted farming or intermarried with farmers and became extinct as a distinct culture.
Agriculture provides more food per unit area of land, compared to foraging. That is, you get more food per acre by farming it than by collecting the wild foods on it. This allows more people to live in a given area. That is, it allows a higher density of people. Of course, it takes more labor to farm an acre of land than to collect the wild foods that are naturally there. This process of putting in more labor per acre to get more product per acre out is called "intensification". Agriculture is more "intensive" than foraging in that it produces food more per acre, but requires more labor per acre to do so agricultural practices themselves can be more or less "intensive". Just scattering seeds or diverting floodwaters to wet some land does not take much labor, and is not a very "intensive" form of agriculture building and maintaining canals to irrigate the fields is more "intensive" than just depending on rainfall because they are getting more crops per acre at the cost of building and maintaining the canals.
As well as growing plants their economy (subsistence strategy) was based on the animal husbandry (meat, milk)and also fishing or hunting (small mammals). That means that (at least in starting phase - lets say 2-3 generations) depending on the number of the villagers growing plants need may vary. Another important issue is the crop failure which was quite commom, just like today. We can see this from the table 2 where we see that they grew a whole range of plants from Emmer wheat and grass pea to the Cornelian cherry.
I know that P. Halstead as well as Jack Harlan did some research into this. Harlan was interested in the amount of wild grain that was available in the ancient near east. A biography and list of his publications is here: http://www2.bioversityinternational.org/publications/Web_version/47/ch13.htm
It all depends on few factors like: used techniques, land quality (fertility), seed quality etc. Some estimates are around 800 - 1000 kg per acre.
Generally speaking 1 kg of wheat has around 3000 calories and whit 1 tone of it we can feed 3 persones for a whole year.
I'll use Danilo - Bitinj and Pokrovnik site as an example (Figure 1).
The results of the excavations may be summarized briefly.
Pokrovnik was occupied from the Early Neolithic, or Impressed Ware, phase continuously through the Middle Neolithic, or Danilo, phase. Closely spaced trenches revealed that occupation was intense throughout. During the Impressed Ware phase substantial terrace walls were built of stone to support sectors of the village. In the Danilo phase we found evidence of rectangular houses. Towards the edge of the site, bounded still by terrace and other walls, habitation gave way to spaces that were heavily trodden by domestic animals. The site was occupied from the initial stages of farming in Dalmatia through to the later Neolithic, based on the artefacts recovered. This is confirmed by the seven AMS dates obtained by the Oxford Laboratory, all on single grains of domestic wheat. They range from 6999 ± 37 bp (OxA–17194) to 6170 ± 35 bp (OxA–17223) or ca. 5900 to 5100 BC. Thus, the site appears to have been inhabited for at least the entire sixth millennium BC.
Danilo has yielded deposits mainly of the Middle Neolithic, or Danilo, phase, although a little material of other periods was recovered. Each trench that was excavated contained structures of different kinds, basal pits from which clay for building had been excavated, deep ditches, stone pavements, open yards, and traces of rectangular houses constructed of poles, brush and clay. These remains suggest that widely different activities were carried out across the site. We have 13 AMS dates for Danilo, on individual domestic wheat grains, other charred seeds, and a sheep calcaneum. The earliest is 6284 ± 40 bp (OxA–14449) and the latest 5987 ± 35 bp (OxA–15680). These dates indicate a shorter span of occupation than at Pokrovnik, at least in the areas we excavated, from perhaps 5300 to 4800 BC. Many of the various activities that were documented would have taken place at approximately the same time. The dates support provisional interpretation that the village at Danilo was more complex in its range of activities and spatial arrangements than excavations at other Neolithic sites in the region would have suggested.
My question to all of you is:
How much did (could) farming (Triticum dicoccum for example as it is the most common in my example site - Danilo-Bitinj and Pokrovnik) yield per acre in the neolithic age ? When I say neolithic age I mean early neolithic in sence of technology.
How much people could be sustained by 9 ha of arable land during this time ?
It looks to me that if we could find way to calculate some parameters like for example 1 ha of ariable land sowned by Triticum dicoccum seeds in 6 months time will give 300 kg of wheat. That means that by calculating meat production or milk (here I dont talk about exchange - for example villagers gave 300 kg of wheat every 6 months to the local guther-gatehrer group to stay in peace) particulare village (Danilo-Bitinj for example) could have population of 150 indivuduals.
Agriculture provides more food per unit area of land, compared to foraging. That is, you get more food per acre by farming it than by collecting the wild foods on it. This allows more people to live in a given area. That is, it allows a higher density of people. Of course, it takes more labor to farm an acre of land than to collect the wild foods that are naturally there. This process of putting in more labor per acre to get more product per acre out is called "intensification". Agriculture is more "intensive" than foraging in that it produces food more per acre, but requires more labor per acre to do so agricultural practices themselves can be more or less "intensive". Just scattering seeds or diverting floodwaters to wet some land does not take much labor, and is not a very "intensive" form of agriculture building and maintaining canals to irrigate the fields is more "intensive" than just depending on rainfall because they are getting more crops per acre at the cost of building and maintaining the canals.
As well as growing plants their economy (subsistence strategy) was based on the animal husbandry (meat, milk)and also fishing or hunting (small mammals). That means that (at least in starting phase - lets say 2-3 generations) depending on the number of the villagers growing plants need may vary. Another important issue is the crop failure which was quite commom, just like today. We can see this from the table 2 where we see that they grew a whole range of plants from Emmer wheat and grass pea to the Cornelian cherry.
I know that P. Halstead as well as Jack Harlan did some research into this. Harlan was interested in the amount of wild grain that was available in the ancient near east. A biography and list of his publications is here: http://www2.bioversityinternational.org/publications/Web_version/47/ch13.htm
It all depends on few factors like: used techniques, land quality (fertility), seed quality etc. Some estimates are around 800 - 1000 kg per acre.
Generally speaking 1 kg of wheat has around 3000 calories and whit 1 tone of it we can feed 3 persones for a whole year.
I'll use Danilo - Bitinj and Pokrovnik site as an example (Figure 1).
The results of the excavations may be summarized briefly.
Pokrovnik was occupied from the Early Neolithic, or Impressed Ware, phase continuously through the Middle Neolithic, or Danilo, phase. Closely spaced trenches revealed that occupation was intense throughout. During the Impressed Ware phase substantial terrace walls were built of stone to support sectors of the village. In the Danilo phase we found evidence of rectangular houses. Towards the edge of the site, bounded still by terrace and other walls, habitation gave way to spaces that were heavily trodden by domestic animals. The site was occupied from the initial stages of farming in Dalmatia through to the later Neolithic, based on the artefacts recovered. This is confirmed by the seven AMS dates obtained by the Oxford Laboratory, all on single grains of domestic wheat. They range from 6999 ± 37 bp (OxA–17194) to 6170 ± 35 bp (OxA–17223) or ca. 5900 to 5100 BC. Thus, the site appears to have been inhabited for at least the entire sixth millennium BC.
Danilo has yielded deposits mainly of the Middle Neolithic, or Danilo, phase, although a little material of other periods was recovered. Each trench that was excavated contained structures of different kinds, basal pits from which clay for building had been excavated, deep ditches, stone pavements, open yards, and traces of rectangular houses constructed of poles, brush and clay. These remains suggest that widely different activities were carried out across the site. We have 13 AMS dates for Danilo, on individual domestic wheat grains, other charred seeds, and a sheep calcaneum. The earliest is 6284 ± 40 bp (OxA–14449) and the latest 5987 ± 35 bp (OxA–15680). These dates indicate a shorter span of occupation than at Pokrovnik, at least in the areas we excavated, from perhaps 5300 to 4800 BC. Many of the various activities that were documented would have taken place at approximately the same time. The dates support provisional interpretation that the village at Danilo was more complex in its range of activities and spatial arrangements than excavations at other Neolithic sites in the region would have suggested.
The results confirm that at least three species of domestic wheat and one of barley were cultivated at Danilo, as well as an array of pulses and other plants. Some wild fruits and nuts were also collected.
At this site survey of the area was taken (area covered by the site) and its vicinity using the standard method of field walking, complemented by the mapping techniques. Survey demonstrated that the archaeological site was much more extensive than we had anticipated, covering an area of perhaps 9 ha. This makes it one of the most extensive Neolithic sites in southern Europe (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Location of the Danilo-Bitinj and Pokrovnik
Figure 2: Look at the Danilo valley. The area covered by the site is within the
dashed line
Table 1: Charred seeds recovered in flotation during excavation at Danilo-Bitinj site
Table 2: During excavation, there was extensive sampling by water flotation of all archaeological deposits as excavated. This work, and the task of analysis, has been done by Ms Kelly Reed of the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London
Table 3
Table 4: Domestic species
My question to all of you is:
How much did (could) farming (Triticum dicoccum for example as it is the most common in my example site - Danilo-Bitinj and Pokrovnik) yield per acre in the neolithic age ? When I say neolithic age I mean early neolithic in sence of technology.
How much people could be sustained by 9 ha of arable land during this time ?
It looks to me that if we could find way to calculate some parameters like for example 1 ha of ariable land sowned by Triticum dicoccum seeds in 6 months time will give 300 kg of wheat. That means that by calculating meat production or milk (here I dont talk about exchange - for example villagers gave 300 kg of wheat every 6 months to the local guther-gatehrer group to stay in peace) particulare village (Danilo-Bitinj for example) could have population of 150 indivuduals.
Writte your comments and references as well so tomorrow we can answer questions we ask today.
Please post some references for further reading as well.
Please post some references for further reading as well.
References:
Legge A. J. and Moore, A. M. T. (2011) Clutching at straw: the Early Neolithic of Croatia and the dispersal of agriculture. Dynamics of neolithisation in Europe: studies in honour of Andrew Sherratt / eds. A. Hadjikoumis, E. Robinson and S. Viner. Oxford: Oxbow Books. pp. 176 – 195
Fadem, C. (2009) Geoarchaeology of the Danilo Bitinj and Pokrovnik sites, Dalmatia, Croatia. August 2009, http://digital.wustl.edu/e/etd/pdf/Fadem_wustl_0252D_10080.pdf . (12.09.2011.)
Moore, A. et al. (2007) Project “Early farming in Dalmatia” Danilo Bitinj 2004-2005. Vjesnik arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu. pp. 15 – 24
Halstead, P. (2006) Sheep in the garden; the integration of crop and livestock husbandry in early farming regimes of Greece and southern Europe. Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe / eds. D. Serjentson and D. Field. Oxford: Oxbow Books. pp. 42 – 55
Halstead, P. (1996) The development of agriculture and pastoralismin Greece: when, how, who and what. The spread of agriculture and pastoralism / eds. Haris, D. R. London: UCL Press. pp. 296 – 309
Pryor, A. (2008) Following the fat: food and mobility in the European Upper Palaeolithic 45,000 to 18,000 years ago. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 23(2), pp. 161–79
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