Exam 2: Out of the Mud: Farming and Herding After the Ice Age

What are the main ideas behind the theories that agriculture arose because of population pressure or as a result of an abundance of food resources in certain areas? What are the objections that could be raised to these theories?

What animals and plants made up the staple foods in the Pacific islands?

What is a climacteric, and how might it be a useful way of understanding the development of agriculture and the changes it brought about?

The naturalist David Rindos explained early farming as a

How did human migration lead to the spread of agriculture into Europe and the South Pacific?

What evidence exists that aboriginal Australians could have chosen to develop agriculture?

African grasslands are called

How did environment affect the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica?

Which of the following statements is most true about the diets of herding communities compared with those of agrarian communities?

Despite the advantages of agriculture for growing populations, not all societies elected to make the transition. Discuss at least one example of a society that retained hunting and foraging and explain why this may have been advantageous.

In what ways were the differences between pastoral and agrarian societies complementary? How did these two different types of societies have formed symbiotic systems?