Discovery of the factors that drove the agricultural transition 8,000 years ago

A new Israeli study finds that humans' transition to agriculture about 8,000 years ago in the southern Levant was linked to wildfires and soil erosion caused by climate change.

According to an announcement on April 22 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this study was published in The Journal of Soils and Sediments, based on analysis of coal samples, soil and climate data.

Through analysis, scientists discovered that about 8,200 years ago, changes in solar radiation due to fluctuations in the Earth's orbit caused large lightning storms, leading to vegetation fires and hilly land degradation.

The fertile alluvial soil was then washed down the valley, forcing the hunter-gatherer tribes of the southern Levant to settle down and practice agriculture.

The Levant is a term that refers to the vast area that includes present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

It has long been hypothesized that the transition from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture was a purely cultural process.

However, in this study, the authors argue that climate-induced environmental collapse is the main factor driving the process.

In addition, scientists also believe that the agricultural model based on sedentary farming may have been formed from the need for survival, and not entirely from advances in the techniques of creating working tools or domesticating animals./.

(Vietnam News Agency/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/phat-hien-ve-nhan-to-thuc-day-chuyen-doi-nong-nghiep-8000-nam-truoc-post1034620.vnp