How did we survive last time the climate changed? - start farming

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has, in the course of its research, seen the impacts on wildlife of current changes in our climate. Whilst there are plenty of column inches devoted to these impacts, it is interesting to think about what happened last time man was faced dramatic climate change.

Common sense suggests that humans probably didn't take up farming because they wanted to. After all, who would have wanted to be a farmer? These days it's comparatively easy thanks to modern technology such as: tractors, ploughs, machines for milking, threshing, bailing and harvesting. But that was not the case 12,000 years ago, when people began to sow wild seeds hoping for a half decent crop from which they could make their first loaves of bread.

Compared to the easy life of the hunter, with plenty of game around, the lot of a crop farmer was painful and arduous. For a start, crops could only be harvested at certain times of year, so arable farming was certainly no substitute for traditional fast-food culture of meat on demand.

Unpredictable, unpleasant and just plain hard work - that's what farming crops was like 12,000 years ago. Persuading wild animals to do what you wanted them to wasn't much easier. Thousands of years of genetic modification have led to sweet, easy-to-harvest crops and obedient, compliant domestic animals; but back then it was uphill all the way.

A two words can explain the reason for the rise in agriculture: climate change

There was a 'big melt' of ice which started 14,000 years ago as temperatures rose. This change was nothing to do with man but it had profound consequences for him. The oceans rose by a massive 25 metres in just 500 years. For mankind it meant that many traditional hunting grounds simply sank beneath the oceans. Regions of the world that were once rich forests, ideal for hunting and gathering, were reduced to barren deserts as patterns of rainfall and weather systems rapidly changed.

In many parts of the world people were forced to move upwards into hills, or closer to freshwater lakes and rivers. In some areas the traditional lifestyle of moving from place to place became just too risky. There was either too little good hunting available, or the land was too dry to sustain sufficient vegetation. This warming episode suddenly switched in just 50 years to another Ice Age which would last 1,300 years.

It sounds perfectly sensible that experimenting with sowing seeds themselves and deliberately clearing the land to make it suitable for cultivation grasses such as wheat, barley and rye was undertaken in the face of starvation. Skeletons of early farmers tell us how hard it was: twisted toes, buckled, arthritic knees and in some cases lower backs that are completely deformed due to the exhausting task of grinding grain into flour between slabs of stone.

The legacy of these early farming are dramatic. When the Ice Age suddenly finished, the effect on people living in Europe and the Mediterranean was profound. As the climate recovered to its previous balminess these people were equipped with a raft of potent new technologies, in the form of breeds and seeds that gave them the opportunity of living a radically different way of life.