7.2 - Ways of Knowing: Agriculture & Civilisation

Lesson Purpose

The mysterious pyramids of Ancient Egypt, the Great Wall of China, and the beauty of Machu Picchu (an old Incan city in Peru) are all impressive remnants left behind by some of the world's ancient agrarian civilisations. But not every civilisation has left behind such noticeable clues. In fact, many artefacts from agrarian civilisations fade away with time. But the clues that remain become important windows to the past. Researchers in a variety of disciplines such as history and archaeology use both written record and historical artefacts to pose, analyse, and answer questions about the past. As you will see, written record is of particular importance. Unlike other species, writing gives us the ability to preserve and pass on large amounts of information from one generation to the next. With this ability comes incredible power.

The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To understand the similarities and differences between the lifestyles of hunter-gatherers and farmers; 2.) To understand what scholars from multiple disciplines know about agriculture and civilisation and the information they can derive from them using an integrated perspective.

Activity 1 - Social Status, Power, and Human Burials

Activity Objectives
This activity provides you with an opportunity to start thinking about the impact that farming can have on the way humans live and relate to each other. It will also allow you to think about the kinds of questions archaeologists and historians might ask when they must rely upon artefacts rather than written evidence to learn about the past.

Activity Tasks

Study the images on this worksheet and answer these questions:
1. Describe the burial: what does the tomb or grave look like? How was the body prepared? Were there any objects in the grave or tomb?
2. What conclusions would you draw about the wealth, power, and social status of each of the individuals from these three burials? Explain the reasoning behind your conclusions.

Activity 2 - Intro to History

History is the study of the past, but it is more than the simple memorization of dates, names, and places. Historians learn about the past by collecting evidence and asking questions in order to build a better understanding of the past.

Activity Objectives
In this video, Professor Bob Bain describes the discipline of history. It’s important for you to understand how historians use evidence to re-create the past.

Activity Tasks

Watch the video and try to answer these questions:
1. 2:45 How does Bob Bain answer the question, "What do historians do?"
2. 3:00 Why does Bain say that doing history is a lot like "understanding a mystery”?
3. 3:16 According to Bain, how is science different from history?
4. 5:00 What kinds of questions might a historian pose about a simple object, like a clock?
5. 7:39 Do all historians ask the same questions?
6. Discuss - Does what you have learned about the nature, evidence, and questions of history make it sound like a “scientific” discipline or not?

Activity 3 - "Recordkeeping and History"

Activity Objectives
It’s important for you to learn about how writing allowed for a significant acceleration in collective learning because it enabled humans to save and share information across generations.

Activity Tasks

Read the article "Recordkeeping and History" and try to answer these questions:
1. What does David Christian mean when he says that "tracking the past" is different from "memory of the past?"
2. What is an "oral tradition"? How is "proper history" different from an oral tradition?
3. What is evidence-based history?
4. Discuss - How has writing been a positive innovation for humans?
5. Discuss - Does writing have any negative impacts that you can think of?

Activity 4 - What do you know? What do you ask?

Activity Objectives
Historians study very different kinds of evidence from that studied by geologists or chemists, and their questions about evidence can be very different as well. Historical evidence poses some new but very interesting interdisciplinary challenges. In this activity, you will decide what kinds of questions scholars from different disciplines might ask about a piece of evidence that is clearly chosen from the discipline of history.

Activity Tasks

Think of a famous historical object like a building, document or artefact.
Complete this worksheet by thinking about three disciplines that would tell you more about that object.
Discuss - Is the interdisciplinary study of historical objects different from the interdisciplinary study of scientific objects?

Activity 5 - Migrations and Intensification: Crash Course

Activity Objectives
Crash Course Big History Episode #7. In this video, John and Hank Green talk about how humans migrated from Africa to the rest of the Earth. Some results of these migrations were increased populations, more innovations, and a huge increase in collective learning. This video should help you understand how the agrarian era began, and also how migration can increase complexity, change culture, and most of all, increase knowledge around the world. Today, migrations are still a catalyst for these types of changes, and it’s important to understand the effects of the movement of people around the globe.

Activity Tasks

Watch the video and try to answer these questions:
1. 1:42 What are the four world zones?
2. 3:32 What are the theories of why humans created agriculture?
3. 4:26 What were some of the positive and negative impacts of agriculture?
4. 5:43 When and where did agriculture emerge around the world and how did this impact where the first states emerged?
5. 7:47 What is the Hobbes versus Rousseau debate?
6. 9:10 What does Hank Green claim is the underlying theme in all of human history?
7. 11:12 How did collective learning raise the carrying capacity of the world during the agrarian era?
8. 12:41 What was the typical cycle of population rise and decline in the agrarian era?
9. Discuss - Think about viewing human history through the lens of carrying capacity. Even though we are no longer in the agrarian era, are we still doing things that are similar, such as maxing out our resources due to population increases, and then causing different ways of population decline? If so, where do we see the impacts of this? If not, how is today different in terms of carrying capacity than during the agrarian era?

After early humans migrated out of Africa into other parts of the world, farming societies popped up all over the Earth. These agrarian societies were able to support many more people than in the days of foraging, and the increased number of people increased collective learning around the world. Increased collective learning led to more innovation, the spread of knowledge, and even more people. However, this increase also led to humans depleting their resources and causing cycles of population decline and rise due to the limited carrying capacity of the Earth and the increased complexity in the world.

Activity 6 - The Driving Question Notebook

Activity Objectives
At the start of the unit, you looked at the driving question without much to go on. Now that the unit is almost over, you will revisit the driving question. This time, you should cite specific passages and evidence from the content in the unit that provide insights into answering the driving question.

Activity Tasks

Complete columns 2 and 3 of the Driving Question Notebook for this unit.
Look back over the content covered as well as any additional information you have come across, and write down any quotes or evidence that provide new insights into the driving question for Unit 7.

Activity 7 - The Origin of Agriculture in Africa

Activity Objectives
This reading helps you gain an understanding of agriculture’s delayed origins in sub-Saharan Africa. You will learn the answer to this important question: Widely known as the cradle of civilization, why wasn’t this area of Africa also the site where agriculture was first developed, rather than the Fertile Crescent?

Activity Tasks

Read the article "The Origin of Agriculture in Africa" and try to answer these questions:
1. What was particularly unique about the animals living in sub-Saharan Africa that gave them an evolutionary advantage over those living in regions such as Australia or the Americas?
2. How did life as an early farmer compare to that of a forager?
3. When and where did farming first take hold in sub-Saharan Africa?
4. What evidence suggests that farming in West Africa arose independently from Egypt or the Fertile Crescent?
5. Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a delay in the arrival of agriculture when compared to Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. This delay had its pros and cons. Describe some of them.
6. Discuss - What is the meaning of the following statement: “Over long stretches of evolutionary time, humans had learned to live with Africa and Africa had learned to live with us.”

Activity 8 - Little Big History: Research Questions

Activity Objectives
For this activity, you will explore the questions you might answer in researching your Little Big History project. This is an important step in the process and will keep you focused on completing the task and working toward completing your Little Big Histories.

Activity Tasks

Your LBH project needs a research question as a title that will guide the whole project. Write down 3-5 research questions for your Little Big History Project on this worksheet.
Before you write and share your questions, think about what makes a good research question:
1. A good question supports the possibility of answers from multiple perspectives. In other words, the problem should be framed in a way that would generate a variety of viewpoints with different kinds of support.
2. A good question must be researchable. Don’t ask something you can’t find an answer to!
3. A good question is not a yes/no question. A good question should require more explanation—there should be a why that helps answer the question.
4. A good question has the appropriate scope—it’s not too big or too small for the intended outcome.
5. A good research question should be interesting to the researcher.

Activity 9 - The Rise, Fall, and Collapse of Civilisations

Activity Objectives
In this activity, you will explore the rise, fall, and collapse of civilizations. In particular,you will examine three theories of why civilizations collapse. This will help you understand that civilizations don’t always end for the same reason, and that multiple viewpoints can be taken for explaining the ending of civilizations. Understanding how to analyse the end of civilizations is an important skill for students of history and historians, and can also help to forecast how modern societies might end.

Activity Tasks

Complete this worksheet by researching the fall and collapse of three different civilisations. Use your worksheet from Activity 13 in Lesson 7.1 to help you get started. You need to record information on the following:
1. Reason for Collapse - How did the civilisation collapse?
2. Claim Testers Used - Which claim testers were used? Intuition, Authority, Logic, Evidence
3. Theory Alignment - Internal Weakness, External Conquest, Environmental Disaster
4. Citations - Which sources did you use to find out this information?
Once you have finished the worksheet, discuss these questions as a group:
1. Do any of the societies’ collapses clearly point to one theory over another?
2. Could a society collapse due to multiple factors?
3. Did anyone research a society whose collapse did not fall in line with any of the three theories of collapse?

Investigation 7 - Was Farming an Improvement over Foraging?

Investigation Objectives
Your job in this investigation is to develop your own ideas about quality of life and apply these ideas to what we know about the lives of hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists. You will be using a variety of different texts and images to compare these contrasting ways of life. Some of the sources you examine will offer very direct opinions. Other sources will require you to think about how they relate to the question. In the end, we hope you will be able to use the evidence provided and your own visions of what makes a good life to form your own view.

Investigation Tasks
You will create either a PowerPoint presentation or poster on the question: 'Was Farming an Improvement over Foraging?', using evidence of hunter-gatherer and farming lifestyles. Complete the following steps to finish your investigation:

Initial Conjectures - Think about the factors that contribute to a good quality of life.
1. Take 5 minutes to write down your ideas on the factors that contribute to your quality of life.
2. List 7-10 factors, like health and access to food, that affect someone's quality of life.
3. Discuss your list with the class and agree upon the 3 most important factors in judging quality of life.
4. Make your initial conjectures on who had the better quality of life - hunter-gatherers or farmers?
Research - Now research this investigation library of 13 sources. Think about how the readings support, extend or challenge your initial conjectures and make notes from each source on the evidence you could use to support your thinking.
Create - Finish by creating a PowerPoint presentation or poster to make an argument about whether hunter-gatherers or agriculturalists had a better quality of life. Your presentations/posters should include:
1. Your list of the three agreed-upon factors for evaluating quality of life
2. A paragraph explaining why you chose those three factors
3. Comparisons of hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists based on evidence from the Investigation Library
4. A summary of your conclusions about whether hunter-gatherers or agriculturalists had the better quality of life

Challenge Yourself! - Optional Activities

1. A short intro to methods, materials, and questions that make up the discipline of history.
2. The written word was invented independently and at different times by four distinct groups around the world: Sumerians, Egyptians, Chinese, and Mesoamericans.
3. Need to brush up on your ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics?

TAKE THE QUIZ!

7.2 - WAYS OF KNOWING: AGRICULTURE AND CIVILISATION