topic 1: the origins of food Flashcards
(23 cards)
Agratian
Agrarian means relating to the ownership and use of land, especially farmland or relates to the part of a society or economy that is concerned with agriculture
BCE
before the common era
CE
before christ
Chinampas
Agricultural system is aset of artificial floating islands primarily in southern Mexico
Cultivate
prepare and use land for crops
Domestication
The process of using selective breeding to make plant and animals more useful to humans
Food System
A complex series of activities involving food journey from the farms its movement to food processors then on to the food retailers and family on to the consumers plates at home or in a restaurant
Foraging
gathering of wilds food to eat
hunter-gatherer
The way of living that involves hunting wild animals and gathering plant and insects
Nomad/nomadic
A group of family / people who travel, often with the change of seasons to avoid exhausting their food supply
Swidden Farming
An agricultural technique that involved slashing and burning the plants in a forest to create fields for cropping
Hunter gather
- All member of the society contributed to hunting and gather
- Small social group easier to travel
- Carried all possession with them as they moved fromplace to place
- Dependent on the natural/wild food available in the area
- Nomadic
- Obtained their food from nature hunting animals and gathering wild plants
- Egalitarian - equal share of resources
Agrarian society
An agrarian society, or agricultural society, is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation’s total production is in agriculture
Hunter gather Advantages
They also have food available because they move on when they food supplies in the area were exhausted
Hunter gather challenges
The made simply shelters with whatever material was available in the new region
Agrarian society advantages
The most obvious advantage to a society with agriculture is increased food security humans acquired greater control over their food supply and even managed to produce a food surplus for the first time. Agrarian societies also supported larger populations
Agrarian society challenges
Despite the advantages it provided, agrarian culture also came with significant disadvantages. People in a hunter-gatherer society had access to a variety of food throughout the year, but those in early agrarian societies ofter had to survive off of monoculture crops that provided limited nutritional value
Mesopotamia location
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
Mesopotamia’s use of tools and Development of farming practices
Mesopotamia used ploughs consisting of a beam are which is a simple machine that scratched a furrow without turning the soil
Mesopotamia Types of food produced
Mesopotamia learn how to grow and dry grains that could be ground into flour
Mesoamerica location
Middle America, Mesoamerica extends from south-central Mexico southeastward
Mesoamerica use of tools and development of farming practices
Mesoamerican farmers did not use heavy ploughs or horses to help them prepare the land but only sharp-bladed wooden digging sticks. Their ticks were called uictlii and were used for planting seeds and hoeing weeds
Mesoamerica types of food produced
Wild plants cultivation and domestication of these plants allowed them to store surplus food for use when hunting was poor
