EXPLANATIONS FOR THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE Essay

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE - Essay ExampleThe first argument suggests that the education of agriculture was control by a scarcity of resources. The second argument differs radically, claiming that it was a surfeit of resources that encouraged domesticity. This paper will discuss and compare these 2 argument types and cerebrate that while no one model appears to have all the answers it is Haydens model that appears more convincing.There are obvious academic merits attached to decision a solution to the problem of formative agriculture. Indeed, since the snip of Darwin scientists, social-scientists, historians even theologians have all tried to put forward a convincing model that explains why certain hunter-gatherers decided to change thousands of years of practise and begin agriculture (Richerson et al 387-390). There have been a series of interesting and intriguing theories during that time ranging from population pressure driving domestication to the developme nt of rituals and theology encouraging a sense of place (Hayden 31). Naturally, the stakes are high. A well demonstrable universal model of domesticity would explain once and for all the most important transition in human history. However, such a complete model does not yet exist.Two of the more interesting theories have to do with climate change, put forward here by Peter Richerson et al, and competitive feasting as explained by Brian Hayden, who suggests that the surplus of food encouraged social adaptation that encouraged the continued development of further agriculture and domesticity.The climate change theory consists of two major ideas. Essentially, there were push and pull factors. The former, at least according to Richerson and his colleagues, consisted of a sense of competition between Holocene societies which in effect made the development of agriculture during this period all but compulsory (Richerson 387). The second factor is comparatively simple