Food Security part two.
It began a long time ago - humans began this cycle way- way- way back when. It is a fact that food security actually depends upon a surplus of food. Some of my favourite Neolithic peoples are the Sumerians, from ancient Mesopotamia. They, at about the same time as the Chinese, developed, what is thought to be, the first stable agricultural system. Around 3500 BC the Sumerians constructed a mesh of dykes/ditches through the swamps of what was to be Mesopotamia. And turned the area into a land of agricultural surpluses.
It began a long time ago - humans began this cycle way- way- way back when. It is a fact that food security actually depends upon a surplus of food. Some of my favourite Neolithic peoples are the Sumerians, from ancient Mesopotamia. They, at about the same time as the Chinese, developed, what is thought to be, the first stable agricultural system. Around 3500 BC the Sumerians constructed a mesh of dykes/ditches through the swamps of what was to be Mesopotamia. And turned the area into a land of agricultural surpluses.
Agriculture
had begun in this area before 7000 BC, in the uplands of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. After that first ditch had been dug, there
were great wheat fields across the land and the first cities that we know off
had started to be built such By 3000 BC it was a city of great stone walls
temples, and palaces. Ruled by priests and kings. Don't forget, this was way
back in Neolithic times.
Growing
grains, setting up a network of roads, conquering the sea and establishing
trade routes made the area very wealthy indeed. Good on them, you may think. They
only had land, water and agriculture and became Empire builders because of it,
and because they lacked other vital resources needed for power. They used their best resource for trade, and
did so in an arc which is believed to have encompassed 3,000 miles. Reaching from Anatolia to near the Indian
Ocean and to the present day Indus
Valley.
The
area became enormously wealthy by trading their food surplus to other areas by
their trade routes in exchange for all the pleasures that could be had in the
Bronze Age. Such as vital textiles and semiprecious metals, stone and weapons. Records
written approximately 2100 BC show that there were shipments of as much as 20,000
litres of grain at a time. That's a lot of grain! With this trading the coastal
towns grew, populations increasing, the inland towns became richer. The
Mesopotamians had to look after those fields.
A
food surplus depends on:
Reliable
water sources
Fertile
ground: and in those days
Intensive
farming with backbreaking work.
That
last task very soon fell to the lowest of the low in society and to slaves.
This
very early agricultural revolution produced not healthier living as one would
suppose but a
dip in the quality of the diet compared to that of the hunter gatherers they
had been, causing:
Tooth
decay
Deficiencies
And
stunted growth.
Also
in the increasingly crowded towns and cities that sprang up all along the trade
routes
Diseases
such as TB
Joints
and bone disorders, due to the long hours of hard labour
Another
consequence of this agricultural revolution was an increase in warfare, as
populations grew so more land was needed. For the defence of land already possesed
Standing
armies were formed
they could be used to gain more land - by invasion
Empire building began
An
underclass was formed as inequalities between the wealthy and the poor, the well
fed and the underfed became more common
To
control the empires, the armies, the underclass, the slaves, strong dictatorial
governments became the norm.
More
and more hunter gatherers became agriculturalists, probably because they had no
choice. Because the farming communities became aggressive and territorial,
gathering food surplus, and invading new lands, enclosing these lands, they
either joined or died.
Climate
change helped to fuel this revolution as well as destroy it.
Until
8,000 BC this area had been cold and not that promising. Small scale agriculture
had been practised here. Then there was a period of wet warmer climate which
encouraged excessive growth.
The
downfall was caused by various reasons some of which included
Over
grazing livestock on the hills
De-forestation
on the hills
These
two resulted in loosening top soil which was washed down into the canals
silting them up. When the rainwater went through this denuded hillside soil it
left high sodium levels which dried out in the sunshine of the Middle East into salt deposits on the earth, which blocked
vital minerals from being absorbed into the soil.
Between
3000 and 2350 BC Mesopotamia was achieving 2,000
litres per hectare. In 2,000 BC this had dropped to 1,130 litres per hectare.
300 years later it was 370 litres per hectare. The bottom had dropped out of
this particular market.
Climate
again had helped this fall, between 3,100 BC and 1,200 BC it had suddenly
become very hot and dry.
The
Sumerians apparently were the first people in history to come to blows over
irrigation structures, although we only believe they were the first because
they left written records of disputes. Who
knows what was going on before. A series of tablets have been dug up which
record the story of clashes over boundary marking canals. The owners and their
followers waged war over this dispute, slaughtering and vandalising in an ever
increasing vendetta.
The
intensive farming, deforestation, and vandalization of the fertility of the
soil all led to the Sumerians downfall. They had a good innings, but once food
supplies began to dry up they lost their power, began to lose their riches, and
were ripe for a takeover by someone else more powerful.
