Ruare, Kenya

Assess the achievements of the neolithic revolution in East africa?

i want to know the failures and achievements of the neolithic revolution in East africa and what it qactually means

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1. There was nothing natural or inevitable about the development of agriculture. Because cultivation of plants requires more labor than hunting and gathering, we can assume that Stone Age humans gave up their former ways of life reluctantly and slowly. In fact, peoples such as the Bushmen of Southwest Africa still follow them today. But between about 8000 and 3500 B.C., increasing numbers of humans shifted to dependence on cultivated crops and domesticated animals for their subsistence. By about 7000 B.C., their tools and skills had advanced sufficiently for cultivating peoples to support towns with over one thousand people, such as Jericho in the valley of the Jordan River and Catal Huyuk in present-day Turkey. By 3500 B.C., agricultural peoples in the Middle East could support sufficient numbers of noncultivating specialists to give rise to the first civilizations. As this pattern spread to or developed independently in other centers across the globe, the character of most human lives and the history of the species as a whole were fundamentally transformed. Causes Of The Agrarian Transformation..... http://history-world.org/neolithic.htm The Neolithic Revolution is the term for the first agricultural revolution, describing the transition from nomadic hunting and gathering communities and bands, to agriculture and settlement, as first adopted by various independent prehistoric human societies, in numerous locations on most continents between 10-12 thousand years ago. The term refers to both the general time period over which these initial developments took place and the subsequent changes to Neolithic human societies which either resulted from, or are associated with, the adoption of early farming techniques and crop cultivation - the domestication of plants and animals. The first agricultural revolution introduced dramatic social changes, including an increasing population density, specialization in non-agricultural crafts, such as clay figurine making in Catalhoyuk, barter and trade, the organization of a hierarchical society; the introduction of slavery, armies, the state, official religions, official marriage and personal inheritance. This revolution marked a dramatic expansion of human "control" over nature and of humans over humans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution The dawn of the Neolithic Age Fourteen thousand years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, a new lifestyle, known to archeologists as the Natufian culture, began to emerge in the Middle East. The Ice Age was coming to an end and temperatures were warming very quickly. Food became available in relative abundance for the first time in thousands of years. Instead of having to travel long distances to find food, some groups were able to live in the same place all year round. People started to build permanent dwellings. By 10,000 BC, the end of the Younger Dryas period, they were discovering that certain animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle and pigs, had temperaments and dispositions that made them easy to manage within close proximity to their dwellings. They selected and cultivated certain grasses, such as oats, wheat and barley, which provided nourishment to larger groups of people. These plants became common anywhere there was human settlement, eclipsing all other plant-food sources. They discovered how to store and preserve food over the harsh winter months. Thus, farming began and a new age, the Neolithic Age, was ushered in. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2054675 http://wps.ablongman.com/long_stearns_wc_4/0,8725,1123074-,00.html http://www.slideshare.net/MrKeatley/ap-world-history-locating-world-history-in-the-environment-and-time/ http://www.istendency.net/pdf/1_01_neolithic_revolution.pdf http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/sections.php?magazine=123§ions=17