Deck 11: Origins of Agriculture

Question 1

What has been learned about foraging societies of the past by studying the !Kung

Answer 1

The Foraging life style is also called hunter-gatherer technique in which the food is basically obtained by the foraging techniques like hunting of animals and collecting wild-life plants, etc. There are proposed several theories regarding foraging life style, which include endurance running hypothesis, Kung San studies, etc.
Foraging lifestyle by the Kung San sates that foraging societies were have enough time for hunter and gatherer of food and most of the time also used for other activities. The Stone Age people have varied food habits and they consumed different types of wild-life plants. These properties were evidenced by the archeological studies.

Question 2

Humans survived as foragers of wild plants and animals for hundreds of thousands of years. Agriculture arose relativelyrecently, roughly 10,000 years ago, in the course of human history.
Explain the success of foraging as a survival strategy for early humans.

Answer 2

NO ANSWER

Question 3

Domesticated plants are genetically different from their wild relatives.
The fruits of wild cherry trees are sour tasting, yet the domesticated varieties derived from wild populations produce deliciously sweet cherries. Explain the difference between wild and domesticated cherries by explaining the difference between artificial and natural selection.

Answer 3

NO ANSWER

Question 4

Describe an early agricultural community in the Near East.

Question 5

How do archeologists reconstruct diets of prehistoric peoples

Question 6

How have the theories about the origin of agriculture changed in recent decades

Question 7

What crops were domesticated in the New World the Far East the Near East

Question 8

You are an archeologist on a dig and discover in a cave the preserved seeds and fruits of a type of squash. These remains are dated to between 8,400 and 10,000 years old. What characteristics would you look for to determine whether this squash was a wild type, gathered by foraging, or a domesticated plant, cultivated in the fields

Question 9

A national seed company offers a reward of $10,000 to the first gardener who develops a pure white chrysanthemum. How would you go about breeding a chrysanthemum for its color What is the underlying process and its mechanism of action