The Ant and the Grasshopper: Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture | Andrea Matranga, Chapman

Speaker: Andrea Matranga, Assistant Professor of Economics, Chapman University

During the Neolithic Revolution, seven populations independently invented agriculture. Andrea Matranga of Chapman University argues that this innovation was a response to a large increase in climatic seasonality. In the most affected regions, hunter-gatherers abandoned their traditional nomadism in order to store food and smooth their consumption. Their new sedentary lifestyle greatly simplified the invention and adoption of agriculture. In this Quantitative History Webinar, Andrea Matranga presents a model that captures the key incentives for adopting agriculture, and explain how the resulting predictions are tested against a global panel dataset of climate conditions and Neolithic adoption dates. Andrea Matranga finds that invention and adoption were both systematically more likely in places with higher seasonality. The findings of his paper imply that seasonality patterns 10,000 years ago were amongst the major determinants of the order in which different regions received agriculture, which in turn had a decisive influence on the rise of civilizations and subsequent human history.

Discussant: Yan Xiaojun (University of Hong Kong)

Quantitative History Webinar Series
Conveners: Professor Zhiwu Chen & Dr. Chicheng Ma

© 2022 International Society for Quantitative History
Live on Zoom on August 12, 2021
Released on August 13, 2021 by Asia Global Institute's channel (105 views as of September 25, 2022)

#QuantitativeHistory #QuantHist #QH #neolithic #huntergatherer #agriculture #seasonality