| Abejas phase | The period of time in the Tehuacán Valley
in highland Mexico from 5400 to 4300 B.P. Characterized
by increased sedentism and the first appearance
of domesticated maize, beans, and squash.
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| accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating | A variety
of radiocarbon dating. In conventional radiocarbon
dating, the amount of carbon-14 left in a
sample is measured indirectly by the amount of radioactivity
the sample gives off. In AMS dating, the
amount of carbon-14 left in a sample is measured
directly by an actual count of atoms.
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| Agricultural Revolution | Period of fundamental
change in human economy marked by a shift from
foraging wild foods to the production of domesticated
plants and animals. This revolution in subsistence
occurred in multiple world areas beginning
after about 12,000 years ago. This term is
synonymous with Neolithic Revolution and Food-
Producing Revolution.
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| Ajalpán phase | The period of time in the Tehuacán
Valley in highland Mexico from 3500 to 2850 B.P.
Characterized by increased sedentism and increasing
reliance on domesticated maize, beans, and
squash, though still more than half of the diet consisted
of wild foods.
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| Ajuerdo phase | The period of time in the Tehuacán
Valley in highland Mexico from 12,000 to 9000 B.P.
Human groups in the valley lived in small, nomadic microbands of fewer than 10 people, subsisting
on wild plant and animal foods.
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| artificial selection | The process used in the domestication
and refinement of plants and animals by
which human beings select which members of a
species will live and produce offspring. Humans
make such decisions on the basis of their needs or
desires concerning the form or behavior of the
species—for example, plants that produce larger
seeds, animals that produce woollier coats, or animals
that produce more milk.
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| carrying capacity | The number of organisms a given
region or habitat can support without degrading
the environment.
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| cereal | Plants, especially grasses, that produce
starchy grains. These were among the first domesticated
foods produced during the Neolithic.
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| complex foraging | A system of hunting animals and
gathering wild plants in which subsistence is focused
on a few highly productive resources. These
foods are collected and stored, allowing for a more
sedentary settlement system. (Compare to simple
foragers.)
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| Coxcatlán phase | The period of time in the
Tehuacán Valley in highland Mexico from 7000 to
5400 B.P. that is characterized by a reliance on wild
foods.
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| domesticated | A plant or animal that has been altered
by human beings through selective breeding.
Some plants and animals have been so altered in
this way, they can no longer survive without
human intervention.
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| domestication | Through artificial selection, the
production of new species of plants and animals
that owe their existence to human intervention.
Some domesticated species become so highly specialized
to the demands of human beings that they
can no longer survive and propagate without
human assistance.
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| egalitarian | Social systems in which all members of
the same age/sex category are equal in the sense
that they all possess the same wealth, social standing,
and political influence.
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| einkorn | A variety of wheat, Tripsicum monococcum,
that possesses hulled grains and was an important
domesticate in the Neolithic. Today it is not a significant
agricultural crop. (Compare to emmer.)
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| El Riego phase | The period of time in the Tehuacán
Valley in highland Mexico from 9000 to 7000 B.P.,
which was characterized by a subsistence focus on
wild plants, including squash, beans, chili peppers,
amaranth, and avocado. During this period, people
traveled in microbands for part of the year but
gathered in macrobands in the spring and summer
months.
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| emmer | A variety of wheat, Tripsicum turgidum, that
became the primary stock of early agricultural
wheat. It is the source of cultivated wheat in the
modern world. (Compare to einkorn.)
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| Fertile Crescent | A crescent-shaped region extending
from the Mediterranean coast of modern Israel,
Lebanon, and Syria, north into the Zagros
Mountains and then south toward the Persian Gulf
(see Figure 10.4), marked by an abundance of wild
cereal grain at the beginning of the Holocene
epoch. Not coincidentally, this region is where
some of the world’s first domestication of plants
took place.
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| foraging | A subsistence system based on the collection
of wild foods, including any combination of
hunting wild game, gathering wild plants, fishing,
and shellfish collecting.
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| Geometric Kebaran | Pre-Neolithic culture in the
Middle East, dating to the period 14,500–12,500 B.P.
Located in the moist Mediterranean woodlands of
the central Levant and extending into the margins
of the Negev and Sinai Deserts and across southern
Jordan, subsistence was based on foraging.
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| glume | The case in which an individual cereal grain
is enclosed.
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| Jomon | Ancient Japanese culture dating from 13,000
years ago. The Jomon people were foragers, relying
on hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants,
and, especially, collecting food from the sea. The
earliest pottery in the world has been found at
Jomon sites dating to more than 11,000 years ago.
The rich resource base exploited by the Jomon allowed
for dense population and complex social
patterns before their adoption of agriculture.
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| Karim Shahirian | Pre-Neolithic culture located in
the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in modern
Turkey.
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| legume | A large family of flowering plants, all of
which produce fruits that grow in the form of a
pod that splits along its seams when mature and
opens to reveal the seeds. Garden peas, snap beans,
lima beans, lentils, and chickpeas are all legumes
domesticated during the Neolithic.
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| Levant | The name applied to the areas along the eastern
shore of the Mediterranean, including presentday
Greece,Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt.
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| Linienbandkeramik | An early Neolithic culture
of central Europe dating to about 6500 B.P.
The subsistence base was domesticated emmer
wheat, barley, and pulses.
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| macroband | Hunter-gatherers often arrange themselves
into communities or “bands” of 25 to 75
people. A group of bands of people who interact
on a regular basis—they may intermarry, conduct
group hunts, share resources—is called a macroband.
Compare to microbands.
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| microband | Small cohabiting groups, commonly
10 to 15 people, who move together seasonally and
nomadically. Compare to macrobands.
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| Mushabian | Pre-Neolithic culture located in the
steppe and arid zones of the Negev and Sinai
Deserts in modern Israel and Egypt. Contemporary
with the Geometric Kebaran, dating from
14,500 to 12,500 B.P.
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| Natufian | A Middle Eastern culture dated from
13,000 to 9000 B.P., located in the Mediterranean
woodland zone. The Natufian reliance on wild
wheat and barley set the stage for the Neolithic.
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| Neolithic | The “New Stone Age.” In the past, Neolithic
was defined on the basis of the appearance
of ground-stone tools as opposed to chipped-stone
tools. Today, Neolithic refers to the period after
12,000 years ago when food producing through the
domestication of plants and animals replaced foraging
as the dominant mode of subsistence.
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| pastoralists | People who raise and tend livestock, such
as sheep or cattle, as the focus of their subsistence.
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| Peiligang | Earliest Neolithic culture in northern
China, with well-established farming villages dating
to 8,500–7,000 years ago.
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| Phytolith | Microscopic, inorganic mineral particles
produced by plants. Phytoliths are exremely
durable and their morphology is species-specific.
Enormous databases have been compiled that allow
the researcher to examine individual phytoliths recovered
in the soils or adhering to artifacts recovered
at archaeological sites and to identify the
species from which the phytoliths originated.
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| pluvial | A period of increased rainfall in areas far
south of large glacial masses during the Pleistocene.
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| Qadan | Sites along the Nile in Egypt dating to the
period 15,000 to 11,000 years ago. Evidence at
Qadan sites shows a reliance on fishing, hunting,
and the collection of wild grains. Microblades
found at Qadan sites exhibit polish that
may indicate their use in the harvesting of wild
cereal crops.
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| rachis | The area of attachment between seeds and
other seeds or between seeds and other parts of the
plant. A brittle rachis is an adaptive feature under
natural conditions, but, since it makes harvesting
more difficult, it is selected against by humans
through artificial selection.
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| sedentism | A pattern of settlement in which a community
of people tends to remain in one place over
the course of a year or years. A sedentary settlement
pattern differs from nomadism, in which a
community may move seasonally, following the
availability of resources.
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| seedbed selection | Process wherein the seeds of wild
plants are tended in planted seedbeds. As latergerminating
and slower-growing plants are weeded
out of the seedbed, plants that sprout and grow
quickly because they have larger seeds and thinner
seed coats are selected for unintentionally. This can
be a first step in the domestication of plants.
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| simple foragers | Hunters and gatherers with no particular
focus on or commitment to any one food
source.
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| Tehuacán | A valley in central highland Mexico that
was the focus of a multidisciplinary research project
that produced important archaeological data
concerning the domestication of plants in the New
World, particularly the domestication of maize and
squash.
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| teosinte | The wild ancestor of domesticated maize;
grew and grows wild throughout the American
tropics. The mutation of a very few teosinte genes
changes the spikey stem, with its small, encased
seeds, into a cob with a larger number of bigger,
naked kernels.
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| tubers | have long contributed to the human
food quest.
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| Yang-shao | An early Neolithic culture of China, dating
to about 7000 B.P. Yang-shao settlements appear
to have been planned out. Subsistence was
based on the cultivation of foxtail millet. Domesticated
rice, initially a minor dietary component, becomes
an important part of the diet at this time.
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| Zarzian | A pre-Neolithic culture identified in the
foothills of the Zagros Mountains in Turkey.
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2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education