Vipul Singh
effective. The tool technology enabled greater exploitation of plant and animal resources. Another feature of the early society which seems to have distinguished humans from the surviving non-human primates was their seemingly omnivorous diet. Tools recovered from settlements in many different parts of the world point towards the fact that in the Palaeolithic Age humans secured a wide range of animal meats. One consequence of enlarging the range of their diet was that, in the long run, humans were able to explore a much wider range of environment. The fire was another significant discovery which worked as a major agent for humans for which they have to influence their environment. It was one of the greatest achievements of Palaeolithic man around 250,000 years ago. Man learnt to produce fire by rubbing one stone with the other. Fire provided him with light, warmth and protection from wild animals. Later, they also learnt to cook food. Besides the effects of fire, early civilizations may have caused diffusion of some seeds and nuts, and through hunting, activities may have had some effects on animal extinctions. Another major difference that set humankind above the animals was the development of communicative skills, such as speech, and later, writing.
The Mesolithic period, which lasted from about 10,000 bc to 8000 bc, witnessed a rise in temperature and the climate became warm and dry. This, in turn, affected human life and brought about changes in flora and fauna. Though Mesolithic man was still in the hunting and gathering stage of subsistence, there was a shift in the pattern of hunting which changed from big game to small game hunting and to fishing and fowling. Around the beginning of the Holocene, about 10,000 years ago, besides gathering food plants and hunting animals, humans began to domesticate through the controlled breeding of animals and plants. It first began in the areas where the soil was not so fertile for farming and supported only scrubs and grasses. The man observed that grazing animals like sheep, goat, cows, etc., could eat those grasses that he could not and he could eat the flesh of these animals. As a result, human beings increased the number of grazing animals through herding and domestication. Humans settled in a particular area and created a secure basis for survival through it. It led to cultural advancement, that included the beginning of civilization and the ‘urban revolution’ as suggested by V. Gordon Childe.
About the same time, the human beings also discovered that they could replace inedible forests with edible crops. They observed that a plot of land that could produce only enough food to feed few people could be used to produce food for more than a hundred people. This led to the beginning of cultivation or agriculture. One of the popular theories among historians on the origin of domestication is that it was born due to crowding, possibly brought about by a combination of climatic deteriorative conditions (post-Glacial progressive desiccation) and population growth. Such pressure, according to V. Gordon Childe, forced communities to intensify their methods of food production. In fact, food production or the cultivation of grains and edible plants is a phenomenon of the last 12,000 years of human existence. A large portion of earth’s surface was earlier covered with ice sheets. At the onset of the Neolithic Age, these areas became habitable and climatic conditions were much warmer. As a result, forests had dense growth and many areas which had earlier been dry became open grasslands. The hunter-gatherers of the earlier times in Mesolithic period were quick to learn from the new climatic conditions through observation. They came to know about the places where edible plants were found or grew naturally in a particular season. They also observed how seeds broke off from the stalks, fell on the ground and new plants sprouted. Gradually people started producing cereal grasses and became farmers. At the same time, people learnt to domesticate animals for their own use and they became herders. The stone tools made by men of Neolithic Age were well-shaped and polished in comparison to the tools of Palaeolithic Age. They also made hand axe with wooden handle and digging sticks for tilling the soil. During this phase, people entered a new stage of culture. Instead of depending entirely on the resources of nature for survival, they started producing their own food by cultivating cereals, such as barley, wheat and rice. They also started domesticating some species of animals. The beginning of domestication and herding is quite significant in the sense that men did it both for supplies of milk and meat as well as for their daily work. People domesticated animals to use them in their agricultural work. And for this purpose, they selected relatively gentle animals such as sheep, goats, cattle, dogs and horses. These animals also supplied them wool and skin which he used for making clothes.
Implication of Domestication and Food Production
Domestication of plants and animals led to the emergence of village communities based on sedentary life, beginning of new ways of agriculture and exploitation of natural resources. The transition from hunting-food gathering to food production meant that through human intervention some plants were grown more while others were not. When people began producing food (beginning of agriculture) for themselves and for their cattle, it meant that they had to live at the same place for a longer time to look after the plants till the grain ripened. After the grains were collected, they had to be stored at a proper place so that it could be used till the next cultivation. Probably this need for storage of grains led to the beginning of pottery-making in the Neolithic Age. Earthen pots were also used for cooking food. Slowly people began weaving cotton into clothes. The making of pottery, weaving, spinning and transportation was also made possible due to another major achievement of the Neolithic man — the invention of the wheel.
One of the related important development in agriculture was irrigation which had a rapid and early effect on the environment. The use of plough and carts led to more intensive fanning and enabled the transportation of its products. Environmental historians believe that domestication of animals and cultivation of plants have been among the most significant causes of the human impact on the environment. Pastoralists have had many major effects on soil erosion. Many historians argue that agriculturalists deliberately transform nature in a way which nomadic pastoralists could not do. By ploughing and seeding the grasslands, farmers eliminated a hundred species of native herbs and grasses and replaced them with wheat or corn. Whereas people once enjoyed a highly varied diet, and used several thousand species of plants and several hundred species of animals for food, with domestication their sources were greatly reduced. For example, today four crops (wheat, rice, maize and potatoes) at the head of the list of food supplies contribute more tonnage to the world total than the next twenty-six crops altogether.
Implication of Modern Urban and Industrial Society
A major development in human cultural and technological life was the introduction of new techniques to enhance human power. Humans discovered to extract mineral ores from the earth. They learnt to smelt pure metals from it and then made powerful tools from these metals. Metalworking required enormous amounts of wood to generate heat. This led to huge amount of wood-cutting from the forests. Later, however, about 900
years ago, humans discovered coal below the surface of the earth. The exploitation of coal reduced their dependence on wood. This also allowed them to cut more forest land and convert it into cropland to produce more food for themselves and the cattle. If we look at the global level, the historical movement of people had been away from the equator. Many historians connect this to the availability of fuel. Thorn Hartmann went to the extent of suggesting that the availability of a fuel helped in the emergence of a population that depends on it. It would have suffered if it was taken away. Had our ancestors ran out of the coal, nature would have taken over and limited their population.’ When oil replaced coal as the alternative fuel in the late nineteenth century, our ability to produce food increased immensely. Oil was also used for the synthesis of synthetic fabrics, like nylon, rayon, polyester, etc., and plastics. Now since we could produce clothes from oil, the lesser land area was required for sheep-grazing and cotton production. It allowed men to use the maximum area for food crop. Oil was also used to enhance food production through the use of fertilizers and tractors for irrigation. Many believe that ever since the use of oil has dominated, the population of the world has exploded. When we compare oil production and population growth curve we can observe such a trend.
Very much attached to this proposition is the fact that with the decline in oil supplies, food production will be affected. It is probable that in the coming years, most nations will preferentially allocate oil and natural gas resources to agriculture. Over the next few decades, the food supply which is a key to maintaining our burgeoning population, will come under increasing pressure and will be subject to its own inescapable decline. Ever since the ancient times, the surplus production of food allowed humans to feed a large non-producing class who lived in cities. As a result, a large number of cities grew with a considerable human population. Such cities exercised a considerable influence on their environment, but this influence was not as far-reaching as the last few centuries particularly since the eighteenth century that witnessed the growth of machine-based industries. This change over the large-scale production is known as Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution brought with it huge engine, like the internal combustion engine. This meant a colossal increase in human access to energy, and thus the human beings dependence on animal power lessened. Modern science and technologies were now used for agricultural production. There were humongous signs of progress made through the use of fertilizers and the selective breeding of plants and animals ever since the nineteenth century. But all these came with a huge cost. It is from this phase of human history that the real and irrecoverable impact of human activities on environment began. The process is still on and it has started showing its cascading effect on the local as well as global climatic conditions. Thus, we are able to recognize certain trends in human manipulation of the environment in the modern era. We shall find in the ensuing case studies, how did the environmental impact related issues that were once confined locally, later on, became regional or even global problems.
[The article is based on my book The Human Footprint on Environment, Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd., 2012]
Speaking History 
Leave a comment