Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies

Early Farming in Southwest Asia: Revolution, Worst Idea in Human History, or Something in Between?

Inaugural lecture by professor Tobias Richter.

Roughly 12,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age loosened its grip, a handful of human communities in Southwest Asia made a decision that would eventually remake the planet: they started cultivating plants and herding animals. The gradual abandonment of hunting and gathering in favour of agriculture resulted in unprecedented economic, social, cultural, and ecological transformations, which form the basis of modern society to this day. As a result, archaeologists have invested enormous effort into investigating and trying to understand why this process occurred and what its effects on the history of humanity have been.

The ‘Agricultural Revolution’ as it came to be known, was initially seen as a natural development as human societies progressed from a stage of savagery and primitivism towards civilization. Subsequently others took the view – according to Jared Diamond – that it was instead the ‘worst idea in human history’ which led to the emergence of commutable diseases, urban squalor, inequality, and ecological disaster.

Some of the world’s most important crop species and livestock animals were first domesticated in southwest Asia, including wheat, barley, peas, sheep, goat, cattle, and pigs. Despite the disastrous turmoil and conflict this region has faced for the past century, archaeologists have amassed a large and detailed dataset of information gleaned from excavations, and artefact, plant and faunal assemblages. This provides fertile ground on which to examine whether agriculture emerged as a result of human ingenuity, accidental circumstances, climatic conditions, population pressure or for ideological reasons, and whether it was a really terrible thing to have happened or indeed an engine of human progress.

I will discuss these issues before the background of some of my own work that I have carried out in Jordan and Iran where – together with many colleagues and collaborators – we have investigated a series of sites dating to the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

The lecture will be held in English.