Digital Scrapbook Entry #2- Agriculture

Current event: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
Past event: http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

"Animal Secondary Revolution Effect On Lactose Intolerance"

Lactose intolerance varies a great deal among populations around the world. In adults 15% of white American and Northern Europeans, 47% in Mexican Americans, 60% in Black South Africans, 25% in China and Japan, 90% in Mestizos of Peru are lactose intolerant. Milk is widely available almost everywhere today but lactose intolerance today can be partially explained by the historical availability of availability of milk products among different populations in ancient times.  People who can drink raw milk without getting sick are called lactose persistent.

Recently archaeologists discovered some early pottery in Poland which was used to make cheese. Straw  was used to poke holes in the pottery to separate fatty milk solids from the liquid whey. They couldn't drink milk because they were lactose intolerant, instead they ate cheese. 7000 years ago they started being lactose persistent which gave people with access to milk an evolutionary advantage. That adaptation opened up a new source of nutrition that could have sustained communities when harvests failed. If there's milk widely available for several hundred  generation then gradually all the people around the continent will become lactose persistent. So in the past lactose persistent evolved along with a ready supply of milk.

The ability to digest lactose into adulthood would have been useful to humans after the invention of animal husbandry and the domestication of animal species that could provide a consistent source of milk. Hunter and gatherer populations before the agrarian era were almost all lactose intolerant as are modern hunter-gathers. Romans recorded that people from Northern Europe were lactose persistent, while  the people from Southern Europe were lactose intolerant.  This is still true today. In east Asia people were farmers and didn't domesticate cows for milk whereas in Mongolia they were pastoralist and so they became lactose persistent. In the border of china near Mongolia people are lactose persistent.

Citations:

• http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471
• http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324481204578175372509354246

Current Event Article:

Lactase Persistent 
Wikepedia
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence


Ancient Article:

Archeology: The Milk Revolution 
- July 31, 2013-
By: Andrew Curry
Link:http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence

Thoughts and Reflections: Irrigation

             
       When irragation was invented, it helped a lot of farmers to raise more food which led to high productivity and trades. It also allows population to increase. building irrigation was hard back then because there was no power, so people then used hand tools to build great irrigation canals. I think people back then were amazing, creative and smart because building irrigation canals is not easy without any power.

Thoughts and Reflectons: Pig Lovers and Pig Haters.

Four Explanations as to why pork is not eaten in the Middle East?

• Pigs were originally sacred. The reason for not eating them was that many were originally divine.
• Another reason is that the pig is literally a dirty animal because it wallows in its own urine and eats their own poop.
• Maimonides a renaissance said that food had intended the ban on pork as a public health measure.
• Pigs are difficult to move. Pig has a further disadvantage for nomadic pastoralists, because you don't get anything extra from the pigs like milk, wool, or other stuff for farming.

What is the real reason pork is not eaten in the Middle East?

• Before 2,000 B.C people ate pork. But it was increasingly expensive, that only rich people ca afford it. It was much better to raise some other than pigs, that better suited for the Middle East.   A good way to make teen stop raising pig was through god telling them to stop eating pig.

How's is this an environmental issues?

• Pig used a lot of natural resources that are source in the Middle East. Pigs tasted good  but it was too expensive to feed them and keep them cool.

   

Citation link : http://www.khandro.net/animal_swine.htm

                      

Digital Scrapbook Entry #1 Hunter and Gatherers

             Are Hunter- Gatherers Inherently Warlike?       

"Today"

          The Sentinelese are among the last hunter-gatherers who still resist contact with the outside world.  Only very occasionally have they been lured down to the beach of their tiny island home by gifts of coconuts and only once or twice have they taken gifts without sending a shower of arrows in return. Today several archaeologist and anthropologist argue that violence and warfare are much more common in hunter-gatherers society than in more recent eras. From the Kung in the Kalahari to Inuit in the Arctic and Aborigines in Australia two-thirds of modern hunter-gatherers are in state of almost constant tribal warfare and nearly 90% go to war at least once  a year. A lot of the wars are not very deadly but still a lot of people die because of so many wars and also homicide. 

The Sentinelese People 

Showering Arrows 

"Yesterday"

           Since there are no written records , we don't know for sure whether hunter-gatherer were war like or not. In most foraging societies says anthropologists Douglas Fry lethal warlike aggression was infrequent. In the archaeological record violence didn't take regular group on group characteristics until relatively recently when people settled down in ever larger and more complex and hierarchical societies. Previously most killings were motivated by sexual jealousy, revenge for previous murder, insults or other interpersonal quarrels. Collective between group violence was the exception, not the rule. To Fry, the weight of evidence suggests that the original human were, if not exactly peaceful, then not warlike either.

Primitive Man and Woman

Foraging Societies

                                                  

  "Yesterday and Today"

  
I feel like the environment changed about 10,000 years ago.  Before 10,000 years ago hunter-gatherer had a lot more unoccupied open spaces to move to if they needed more land. About 10,000 years ago the population grew large enough that the number of places they could go to that weren't already occupied started disappearing.  Neighbors started fighting wars about land. The invention about bows and arrows about about 10,000 years ago allowed a great increase in the population  growth because they could shoot small fast animals from far away. In addition bows and arrows made it easier to fight wars.

Hunter Gatherers from the past.

Modern Hunter Gatherers.

Current Event Article:

Noble or Savage
-December 19, 2007-
Link: http://www.economist.com/node/10278703


Ancient Article:

Human may not be so warlike after all
- July 6, 2013-
By Brandon Keim
Link:http://www.wired.com/2013/07/to-war-is-human-perhaps-not/

What was man doing for 99%? Of human history?

Thoughts and Reflection;
      During late Paleolithic Era or  The old Stone Age, humans survived by combining  hunting and fishing with the gathering of fruits, berries, grains and root crops that grew in the wild in small groups for a long period of time. Back then people were primitive, even though they were primitive , they were actually very creative. They used stones for weapons, they made sculpture, beads and other forms of jewelry and carved bones and they also painted. People who  created paintings did not write, and historians can't be certain of the reasons for this surge in artistic expression Itself. After thousands and thousands of years they started using symbolic language that changes their life style.

"How Man Invented Cities"

How did man invent cities?
-    Hunters and Gatherers started settling in areas where they could find plentiful food which was  cause by melting glaciers. The population started to explode because the birth rate went up. Institutions and building started to be built which allowed  cities to grow. Communications was easier because people were nearby. 

Where did he invent them?
-    It started in Meso-America to Mesopotamia and China 
This places can grow lots of food in a small area because of its good climate and soil.

Why did he invent them?
-    The population rate force them to organize into to towns and then into cities. This is the reason why the cities were invented to deal with the problems of population growth.

3 Discussion Questions

How Man Invented Cities

 

1.How was the interactions between the birthrate and the growth of cities.

2. What effect did the melting of the glaciers have on the nomadic lifestyle.

3. What kind adaptions can people do in order in hostile environment?