植物学及园艺学（英文版） 第10章 新石器时代的变迁：动植物的驯化 Chapter 10 The Neolithic TransitionThe Domestication of Plants and Animals.pptVIP

What Were the Consequences of the Neolithic Transition? Consequences of Domestication Crops become more productive and more vulnerable. Periodically population outstrips food supplies and people are apt to move into new regions. In this way, farming has often spread from one region to another, as into Europe from Southwest Asia. The Spread of Food Production Although domestication increases productivity, it also increases instability. Varieties with the highest yields become the focus of human attention, while other varieties are less valued and ultimately ignored. Farmers become dependent on a rather narrow range of resources, compared to the wide range utilized by food foragers. The Spread of Food Production From Southwest Asia, for instance, farming spread northwestward eventually to all of Europe, westward to North Africa, and eastward to India. Domesticated variants also spread from China and Southeast Asia westward. Sorghum and other domesticates also spread from West Africa, to the southeast, creating the modern far-reaching distribution of speakers of Bantu languages. The Spread of Food Production Those who brought crops to new locations brought other things as well, including languages, beliefs, and new alleles for human gene pools. Neolithic Culture: Jericho The best known Neolithic site is Jericho, a farming community in the Jordan River Valley of Palestine. Excavations revealed the remains of a sizable farming community inhabited as early as 10,350 years ago. Crops could be grown almost continuously, due to the presence of a spring and the rich soils of an Ice Age lake that had dried up some 3,000 years earlier. Flood-borne deposits originating in the Judean highlands to the west regularly renewed soil fertility. Neolithic Culture: Jericho To protect against floods, mudflows, and invaders, the people of Jericho built massive walls of stone around it. Inside the walls (6 1/2 feet wide and 12 feet high), as well as a l