Grazing of unripe crops by caprines helps prevent cereal stems collapsing under their own weight , which can be a danger in highly fertile plots; it also results in shorter, denser crop plants less prone to this problem.Grazing has an additional benefit in that it helps convert stubble into manure which is deposited by the animals on arable land.Although direct archaeological evidence is lacking, the more deliberate application of manure to land by people is also suggested by the evidence of the use of dung for other purposes such as fuel, and indications that livestock were kept quite close to the settlement.The Kachi plain is an alluvial fan created by the Bolan River that is situated in modern-day Baluchistan, Pakistan.The archaeological site of Mehrgarh, which lies at the northern end of the Kachi plain, has been key to understanding early agriculture in this region.The Kachi region is generally quite arid and agricultural activity is heavily affected by patterns of rainfall that lead to flooding of the alluvial fan.However, evidence from pollen analysis suggests that the region may have been considerably wetter in the Neolithic than it is today.The archaeological site is actually comprised of a number of distinct areas of occupation along the right bank of the Bolan River, covering an area of about 300 ha.The populations that occupied the site appear to have been sedentary, however, it seems that from time-to-time the location of settlements shifted to new areas within the site.Occupation of the site stretches from 7000 or 6000 BCE to 2000 BCE and is commonly divided into eight major phases.The discussion here will focus on the agricultural practices during the ‘Neolithic’ occupation at the site, which runs to approximately 4300 BCE.We will also touch upon when important changes occurred in the transition to the ‘Chalcolithic’ occupation: Periods III, IV and V.Naked six-row barley was the predominant cereal crop at Period I, making up more than 90% of the identified crop remains.

Domestic, hulled six-row and wild and domestic, hulled two-row barley were also present,flood tray whilst domestic strains of emmer and einkorn wheat have also been detected at very low levels.Animal remains from this early stage are mainly wild species, including bovines, deer, gazelle, goat, and sheep, but there is also evidence of domesticated goats.Period IIA sees a switch from hunting of these wild animals to the exploitation of domesticated cattle, and some sheep and goats.In contrast to sheep and goat, which appear to have been domesticated farther to the west, cattle domestication almost certainly happened locally.Period II sees the appearance of fired ceramic vessels, and also evidence of grain storage structures, which are relatively small and compartmented.A growth in population in Period IIA is indicated by an increase in the number and size of settlements, and the overall size of the settled area.These new settlements tended to be situated on alluvial fans, which suggests that groups were targeting these specific ecological niches in preference to other potential areas.The agricultural area and therefore the carrying capacity were somewhat limited, so overall population size would have remained relatively small.However, in Mehrgarh Period III,there was a further increase in the number of settlements, which reveals how the sedentary population of western South Asia was increasing dramatically at this time.The system of farming in this region can be characterized as the cultivation of crops in small, permanent fields or gardens located in the alluvial plains, with periodic flooding providing the necessary nutrients to the crops.Initially, this is likely to have been a passive process in which crops were planted in the naturally occurring flood plains.However,during Period III deliberate field systems appear be in place, and there is direct evidence of manipulating water flow through channels in order to actively irrigate the land in other parts of Baluchistan.It is possible that this method may have been practiced from as early as 6000 BC.The use of stone, bone, and wood tools is in evidence in early periods, but metal tools, in the form of copper, only appear in the Chalcolithic period.

Tilling the soil does not appear to have occurred in early phases, with no evidence of tools for tillage such as digging sticks, hand hoeing, or use of the light plough.Cattle-driven ploughing technologies were probably absent during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic, as we only have robust evidence of the use of the plough from the Harappan period as attested by Miller’s analysis of cattle bone pathologies, and the discovery of a terra-cotta model light plough at the Banawali site in the state of Haryana, India.Apart from irrigation, there is little evidence of agricultural practices designed to increase productivity, such as crop rotation, fallowing, multi-cropping, and mulching.Although wheat and barley were both grown, there is no compelling reason to suggest they were grown together, and there was no obvious combination of crops that would enhance productivity by being grown together.There is no direct evidence of the deliberate use of cattle dung in manuring at Mehrgarh, but research at Indus Civilization sites elsewhere has shown that dung was probably used as fuel.The history of Egyptian civilization is intimately linked with the Nile River, which flows through north-eastern Africa.In this section, we concentrate on the historical evidence from the period of Pharaonic rule between the Old and New Kingdoms5 , although comparisons are also drawn with earlier or later periods to illustrate important changes.Far from a uniform landscape, the Nile Valley was, in Pharaonic times, an aggregation of several micro-regions, each one with its own physical and irrigation particularities.For instance, the valley was narrower in most of Upper Egypt and, consequently, agricultural land was scarcer, whereas Middle and Lower Egypt included about 80 percent of potential agricultural areas.However, population density was lower in Middle and Lower Egypt, and alternative uses of soil are well-attested.In fact, the abundance of agricultural soil in Middle and Lower Egypt is often invoked as an explanation as to why pharaohs founded domains regularly in these regions since the very beginnings of Egyptian civilization.Our knowledge of the organization and management of the landscape during this period is somewhat incomplete.It is important to note that most of the available historical sources were produced by institutions like temples, crown domains, and landholdings of the elite, whereas peasant tenures are still poorly understood.That is why crops highly demanded by the state and its tax system enjoy an overwhelming importance in the written record, whereas other agricultural produce, including more perishable products , appear more difficult to detect.Such an unbalanced picture has had heavy consequences for the knowledge of crop rotation, agricultural tools and irrigation techniques.Nonetheless, cereals and extensive agriculture, as well as the use of ploughs and draught animals , were characteristic of the institutional sphere.This is probably not representative of the agricultural practices and production techniques prevailing in the domestic sphere, where intensive horticulture and cerealiculture, the use of the hoe , and pig-and goat-rearing were probably the norm.Having these limits in mind, it appears that since the late Neolithic, two main crops were cultivated in Egypt: barley and emmer.

Later on, sometime around the sixteenth century BCE, an important shift occurred.Emmer became the main crop, dates became more common , and olive plantations and vineyards created by the crown became widespread, including in the oases of the Western Desert.These innovations were concomitant with the intensification of international exchanges and with new irrigation technologies mainly used in small plots devoted to horticulture.Literary texts suddenly evoke peri-urban areas and villas belonging to the elite, where gardens, wells, and horticulture played an important role.Archaeology confirms this picture of gardens planted with vines, date palms, and fruit trees as common in urban and peri-urban villas.As for administrative sources, New Kingdom texts evoke fleets sent by temples, the royal palace, and dignitaries to collect dates, flowers, fruits, wine, and other goods, while texts from around 1100–700 BCE confirm that horticulture was common in small plots around wells and that, in some cases, purchase strategies focused on such coveted pieces of land.Finally, extensive cerealiculture expanded in New Kingdom times, especially in areas with low population density, such as northernmost Middle Egypt and the Eastern Delta.Historical sources such as the Wilbour Papyrus and Ostracon Gardiner 86 describe in detail the agricultural activities, yields,ebb and flow tray and taxes collected from the institutional domains founded in those areas.Institutional sources also reveal information about the practice of fallowing and crop rotation in the Egyptian agricultural system.Extensive institutional fields planted with cereals prevailed in land called qayt , where the annual flood of the Nile did not always reach and yields were lower than in kheruand maufields.In fact, from an administrative point of view, “high” fields were supposed to produce five sacks per year, but some quotations in the Wilbour Papyrus suggest that the expected standard yield was actually 10 sacks but only once in two years.This document also suggests that, in some cases, fields were left fallow, but contemporary letters reveal that land planted one year with cereals was cultivated with “plants” or “fresh plants” the following year.These could refer to alternative crops, such as pulses or plants that would be used for fodder, but unfortunately, the Egyptian terms are rather imprecise.In any case, some kind of crop rotation and/or fallow system was probably necessary in order to restore the fertility of the soils rarely reached by the seasonal Nile flood.Crop rotation was common in Greco-Roman times and later, but the choice of the crops to be planted also obeyed profit considerations, as the letters written by Heqanakhte, a well-off potentate living around 1950 BCE, demonstrate.Finally, crop processing is well-attested in the institutional sphere.Cutting cereals low on the straw leaves cereal stubble in the fields for livestock to graze and also leaves a long length of straw attached, a harvesting method well-known in the Old Kingdom.However, the practice of reaping high on the straw seems to have prevailed in New Kingdom times, and Pliny reported that, in Egypt, wheat was cut twice.

According to the iconography and the textual evidence, trampling by animals was the method usually employed for threshing; beating with a stick might have been the prevalent method when small quantities were processed, but it has been hardly represented at all in Egyptian art.Thus, threshing floors appear conspicuously in the administrative record, usually linked to institutional domains and to the delivery of taxes in cereal.Although the regions and time periods covered in the above examples are somewhat limited , nonetheless, a number of insights can be drawn from comparing these case studies.First, there are both similarities and differences between the agricultural systems described above.Among the similarities, all of the case studies are drawn from regions where periodic flooding by rivers has created conditions that allow for productive agriculture in places that were otherwise somewhat arid.In Egypt, this natural process has been supplemented by extensive irrigation systems that actively control the flow of water to crops.In the Kachi and Konya examples, we lack direct evidence of active irrigation during the earlier time periods considered, although there remains the possibility that such techniques were practiced.The Kachi and Konya examples show a number of similarities, which is not surprising, given that they are relatively small-scale and represent the some of the earliest agricultural societies in their respective regions.Although all cases ultimately share historical links with the origins of agriculture in the Near East, certain features, such as the native domestication of cattle in Kachi, the potential importance of dry farming in Konya, and the elaboration of agricultural systems in Egypt, illustrate how these systems developed differently in each region.The case studies also reveal important differences in the sources of information that we have to understand past agricultural systems.Both archaeological and historical sources have their strengths and weaknesses.The textual sources from Egypt provide rich information, but are somewhat biased towards the institutional sphere and have less to say about what the majority of the population were doing.Archaeology, which is our only source of information in the Kachi and Konya examples, can reveal the material remains of what most people in societies were doing.On the other hand, it can be difficult to discern features of interest, such as direct evidence of crop rotation or fallowing, with archaeological data alone.We return to the limitations of studying past societies in the discussion.As we move forward and continue to collect more information on agricultural systems in the past, including those that derive from other independent centers of plant domestication , this kind of systematic comparative perspective will provide further insights into the patterns and processes of agricultural development and human socio-cultural evolution.