The Role Of Public Health During The Neolithic Revolution

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

Before the Neolithic Revolution, there was nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering food for survival. People stayed in one place as long as the sources they needed to survive was present. If sources weren’t available, people would move to another place for survival. Therefore, there was no permanent or final settlement.Due to the discovery of farming, the Neolithic Revolution began. Once the techniques of

All throughout history, humans have come up with innovations that have brought both positive and negative changes to the way people live. This all started around 10,000 BCE, when people developed agriculture. The first nomads started off by moving from place to place, hunting and gathering food… but as people developed agriculture, they saved a lot more time. After agriculture developed, the humans learned many things such as farming and taming wild animals for their own use. This time in history was called the Neolithic Revolution… which lasted about 6,000 years, until 4,000 BCE. The big change in the way people got their food and how they lived, resulted to positive and negative changes of human innovations of the Neolithic Revolution. So,

The main idea of Howell’s arguments about the Neolithic Revolution is that the adoption of agriculture is beneficial because hunting life makes nature in control of humans. Nature controls the limit on animals and plants. When it reaches its limit in a given place, humans are forced to move to survive. Nature requires humans to spread themselves out across the land and limit the number of people they band themselves with to not use all the natural resources in short amount of time. Moreover, the limited resources cause groups to kill off the young, sick, and elderly to lower the amount of humans exploiting the land. As a result of isolation amongst each other, humans rarely become civilized or social and the sexual division of labour does not change. As a result of agriculture, food is domesticated and grown rather than gathered. Also, humans are able to create civilizations with hundreds of people.

The Neolithic revolution was a period of time that occurred during 10,000 - 9,000 B.C.E. Humans made the transition from hunting and gathering and being nomadic to being sedentary. During the neolithic revolution humans also developed social classes where the people who watched others work were at the top and the people who worked at the bottom. People have different opinions on the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture during the neolithic revolution. Thinking about all of the things humans received from the neolithic revolution, it was not worth it. Human society would have been better off without the disease, the social classes, and starvation. Therefore, while the neolithic revolution brought many beneficial things to human society such as agriculture, and permanent housing, it brought more harm than good like modern day diseases and social classes.

The Neolithic Revolution took place from around 10,000 B.C.E. to 4000 B.C.E. and was thought to be one of the largest transformations in human culture. The transition in lifestyle centered around the shift from a life of hunting and gathering as the main source of food to a life of agriculture through the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants, and fungi as the main source of food. The planting and growing of crops allowed for a dependable and steady source of food and income for many individuals in several parts of the world. This transition was known as the Agricultural Revolution, a movement enabling more people to put a halt to their nomadic ways and settle in one location. This revolution is so important to the evolution of human

McNeill argues that disease and human populations had reached equilibrium before the Neolithic Revolution. The evolution of agriculture and human expansion brought many changes, an environment that encouraged the more rapid evolution of disease organisms for both humans and their animal servants. There is a relationship between host and disease agents; evolution of culture produces disruption. Humans begin to shape the environment. Diseases become much easier to spread.

Political, economic, and social conditions have often led to turning points that have changed the course of history for nations and people. The Paleolithic Era and Neolithic Revolution was a turning point that changed the orbit of history for mankind. In Documents 1, 2, and 4, they explain life before the Neolithic Revolution and what changed during the period and provide an analysis of results of the revolution. They introduce food supply and settlement, and civilization and trade.

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because

The Neolithic Revolution made food easily accessible. Document 3 states, “But it means, rather, a state of culture in which food is planted and bred, not hunted and gathered — in which food is domesticated, not wild.” This shows that the Neolithic Revolution was a time in which people moved from

Over 10,000 years ago humans’ lives were spent hunting and gathering just to survive. That all changed when some humans figured out how to capture animals and plant wild seeds so that they could control their food supply. This change in how people lived is known as the Neolithic Revolution and it ultimately led to the beginnings of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution is considered a turning point in human history because it led to permanent settlements, improvements in technology and the development of social classes and job specialization.

The Neolithic Era lasted from about 9,000-3,000 BCE. We are not exactly sure of when it started but this is the best estimate. The Neolithic Era was a period of human history when the start of agriculture arose and came before the first civilizations. The Neolithic Revolution took place in many different regions of the world. They where not that advanced so they made tools out of wood, stone and bone.

The author states, " Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. " Diseases were more likely to spread in these agricultural societies because they were clumped together and also because they did not move around a lot since their society is built to become a permanent settlement. Diseases would not affect the hunter-gatherers as much because these people were nomadic. Diamond states, "Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp." This quote helps reveal that it would not have an effect on the hunter-gatherers as much as it would to a population because they constantly shifted around looking for animals to hunt and for plants to gather. In conclusion, agriculture is shown to have many downsides compared to hunting and gathering which helps demonstrate that agriculture was an error in human

The first epidemiological transition, according to Newman, came with the Neolithic revolution around 6,000 B.C. Populations exploded as agricultural technologies advanced, but the supply of food rarely exceeded the growing need. The widespread effects of resultant malnutrition “are most readily observable in the altered growth and maturation rates of the children surviving dietary crises, their disease susceptibilities, and in the vitality of the adults. […] Another consequence of chronic undernutrition is reduced resistance to [infectious] disease” (Newman, 62). This can be seen in civilizations overly reliant on maize, such as depression-era Southerners in the United States (Bock, 14). Maize comes up short in amino acid content, which in this case led to a condition called pellagra, a niacin deficiency characterized by diarrhea, dermatitis, and dementia. Unfortunately, malnutrition has not subsided with the passing of time, and industrialized agriculture has supplanted infectious disease with its chronic counterpart, at an alarming rate of morbidity.

People living in sedentary villages in the Neolithic experienced worsened health and mortality. Sedentary life brought with it sanitation problems like garbage and human waste accumulate, which contributed to disease. The close association between humans and animals was also key to the transmission of many infectious diseases. Higher mortality rates were offset by increased fertility. (Haviland et al 2011: 249)