Kent Flannery's Transition To Agriculture

Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings (Sahlins, 1972) and it was not until about ten thousand years ago that all humans obtained their food through hunting and gathering; however, people in some parts of the world would start the transition to agriculture and food production. More specifically, this single, most significant development in human history became the forefront of the Neolithic Revolution, which embodied the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and sedentism (Sahlins, 1972). Scholars have been studying for years why hunters and gatherers decided to cultivate crops and domesticate animals even though they were thriving living a non-sedentism life. Though there may
Archeologist Kent Flannery’s theory consists of several more factors than Cohen as to why humans gave up hunting and gathering to become farmers. More specifically, Flannery’s broad-spectrum revolution theory consists of the density equilibrium model, climate change, and marginal zone theory. Flannery’s argument is that the theory of density equilibrium was accurate that a change in agriculture would only occur if there were “some disturbance of the equilibrium between population and environment (Flannery 1973, 283). ” Examples of this type of disturbances include either changes in the physical environment or changes in demography. More specifically, the change in climate would attribute to a reduction in the desired plant and animal foods while the change in demography would result in a rise of local human populations, which would be very close to the carrying capacity of that
Gradual population pressure increase throughout human history has led to numerous influential changes and innovations; the most significant one being that the increasing populations led people to need to get more food out of each area of land they settle in which was done through agriculture. By Cohen’s theory the origination of agriculture can be credited by the increase in population density in certain areas. It is universally known that adequate food supply is very essential to all societies in the Near East and that the transition from foraging lifestyle to sedentary one was a very sudden change at the time. Cohen believes there is only one reason for people in the Near East making the shift towards agriculture, population pressure (Cohen 129). With a greater population density comes the need to make sacrifices and adjustments like changing one’s eating habits to less favored and less nutritious foods (Cohen 150). Cohen feels that because of the lack of resources available, in addition to the higher demand for food supply due to increase in population, people had no other option than to find the most abundant sources of food. In Cohen’s argument, population growth is a result of people settling in locations with the most abundance of resources; this can