[2] ANT385 Foraging to Food Production

Instructor: Jessica Cook Hale

Course Description: The evolution of subsistence practices, from foraging to food production, constitutes one of the “Big Questions” in archaeology and paleoanthropology. What we eat, how we get it, and how we eat it, result in significant biocultural effects on individual, cultural groups, and our species as a whole. In this course, we will examine current ways that archaeologists interpret explanations and implications of subsistence systems, with a specific focus on the shift from foraging to farming. This transition began over 14,000 years ago, and in some places, is still ongoing. Not only did it occur at different times in different regions, it also occurred for different reasons. There is no one reason why human groups adopted agriculture, and no one timescale for that adoption. There are, however, some general themes that we will, over the course of the semester, identify and examine closely. For example: How do we understand foraging behaviors? How do foraging behaviors differ across ecological contexts? What concepts from ecology are most useful for framing these behaviors? Are these concepts always a good fit for human behaviors? What about the element of choice, agency, historical practice? How did the shift to food production differ across the world? How do these differences connect to ecology? Other forces? What are the health implications for transitioning from foraging to farming? Are they still with us today? How does this trend in human evolution fit into the wider context of modern climate change? Are modern farming practices sustainable, or not? What are the potential implications for our modern situation in the second decade of the 21st century?

My role: I delivered a guest lecture titled “Ohalo II: A 23,000-Year-Old Basecamp on the Shore of Lake Kinneret, Israel”.