"Climate Change and the Origins of Agriculture in Western Asia: A Story of Risk, Resilience, and Sustainable Foraging during Cycles of Wet and Dry Conditions"
Arlene M. Rosen
Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory, Universit of Texas at Austin
Wednesday, April 4, 2018, at 7:00 PM in Breasted Hall of the Oriental Institute
The Oriental Institute Lecture Series
The Braidwood Visiting Scholar Lecture
Cold/dry climatic foraging is often cited as a direct cause of the origin of agriculture in western Asia. However, this does not fit with the lack of evidence for cultivation in the Natufian period Microbotanical analyses suggest late Pleistocene foragers were resilient risk-adverse foragers during cold/dry episodes, allowing the continuity of forager lifeways. Foragers only took risks with collection and low-level cultivation of a smaller range of productive plant resources such as wild cereals during times of warm/wet, stable climates.
