The Origin of the Neolithic Revolution and the Oasis Theory

Neolithic Revolution
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Neolithic Revolution
History has it that, initially, humankind lived in scattered and nomadic groups of hunters and gatherers. However, this trend changed when man transited into agriculture in what is known as the Neolithic revolution. The transition was critical as it took people from living in scattered groups into technologically sophisticated societies (Mann, 2011). In short, humankind stopped foraging and wandering and settled in permanent villages. Observers view the Neolithic revolution as a single event that happened in a single place. They contend that it began around 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia, now southern Iraq, before spreading to India, Europe, and beyond. Archeologists and anthropologists have invented several theories that necessitated the critical transition, but many concur that the blossoming of civilization resulted from climate change. That being the case, the oasis theory, which asserts that people turned to agriculture due to climate change, has more credibility in explaining the shift to agriculture.
Opposing Views
The oasis theory was the brainchild of R. Pumpelly in 1908 and popularized by V.G. Childe in 1936. It states that human beings were living as hunter-gatherers in an environment that could adequately satisfy their basic needs. However, this was rudely interrupted by a phenomenal climate change around 15 to 12 thousand years BC. (Holocene) (Svizzero & Tisdell, 2014). Since global warming was one of the characteristics of climate change, some places that were initially savannahs turned into arid deserts, rendering them unfit for habitation. This constrained people to migrate to oases and banks of large rivers in the Levant, where human sustenance was possible. Moreover, the theory suggests that desiccation forced plants and animals to gather around the oasis and other areas with permanent water sources. This forced communities to associate closely with animals and plants (LibreTexts Chemistry, 2020). It paved the way for humans to observe and familiarize themselves with these animals and plants, enabling them to understand their growth cycles.
The oasis theory is persuasive but generates opposition from different quarters for several reasons. First, some detractors argue that it does not explain why people had not invented agriculture before this time. To give heft to this contention, they hold that since the occurrence of man, climate changes of similar proportions have occurred without necessitating food production (Svizzero & Tisdell, 2014). Further, the detractors fault the theory because it implicitly assumes that humankind did not know about plants and animals before the Holocene. To this end, they hold that massive evidence exists to prove the contrary. Moreover, opponents of the theory opine that there is no evidence of a major climate change in the Levant in the period indicated by Childe. To sum up their criticism of the theory, they contend that regions that experience moderate climatic volatility evolve faster than those with either high or low inter-temporal volatility. This goes contrary to what the oasis theory suggests.
Persuasive Argument
The c...