Emily Eastlack
Mrs. Emami
Humanities
Final draft essay
Enduring issues are problems or challenges that occur across time. The enduring issue that is presented throughout these documents is population growth. Population growth is a significant enduring issue in many ways. Starting from early civilizations to modern day, population growth has been a reoccurring problem that numerous people face. The enduring issue of population growth can be shown by people changing in ancient history from the Paleolithic lifestyle to the Neolithic lifestyle which led to populations increasing in civilizations. With populations increasing in civilizations people had to innovate and create new technologies to solve the problem of having a stable food supply by controlling water and by creating new machines and technologies to increase agricultural output.
As many people in ancient history shifted from Paleolithic lifestyle to Neolithic lifestyle, they formed civilizations in the fertile lands that were best for farming. According to document two, “Charles F. Gritzner, Exploring our world,” many civilizations began to form along rivers and in areas where it would be easy to start a new Neolithic lifestyle. With more and more people settling and domesticating animals and livestock, the population started to rise. People needed to innovate, to create a stable food supply and lifestyle since populations were now growing.
Innovations are new mechanisms or technologies that help solve issues. In document three, “Larry W. Mays, irrigation systems, ancient,” gave information about how the innovation of irrigation was developed to help make Neolithic lifestyle more manageable, by having a resource like water that is easily accessible to create a stable food source. Irrigation made it so water could get places faster and in a more efficient way. For example, the document stated “In ancient Egypt, the construction of canals was a major endeavor…” Meaning that the innovation of irrigation, and the construction of canals and new technologies like the shaduf, made it easier to get water to fields and civilizations in order to feed and hydrate the people of the new civilizations. This created a stable food supply, which allowed civilizations to grow, and with civilizations growing more and more innovations were needed.
Irrigation was not the only innovation Neolithic people created. In document 4, “How did planting seeds change in the 1700’s” the document shows the difference from before the agricultural revolution, to during the agricultural revolution and the innovation of the horse-drawn seed drill that affected the way farmers planted. According to the document “farmers could plant and grow more crops.” This relates to population growth because with more people in civilizations farmers needed to innovate to produce enough food for those people.
In document 5, “James Killoran et al., the key to understanding global history” the document presents that in some regions population growth had such an effect, resulting in not enough food and/or crops being produced in those regions. With this concern people had to innovate to meet their needs. According to the same document “Production of crops increased drastically as a result of new technological advances such as mechanical equipment, new farming techniques, and chemical fertilizers.” This evidence and the “impact of green revolution in India” chart provides an understanding that people innovated in the green revolution, and their innovations of mechanical equipment, new farming techniques, and chemical fertilizers benefited them greatly in the production of crops. This shows that population growth is a major enduring issue, because it affects so many people in all different ways. For example population growth affects farmers by needing more crops and resources, yet also affects people within a civilization by not having enough goods and resources, but also having to adjust to living with lots of people and having enough occupations in order for people to make a living. This issue of population growth is enduring and still happens today.
As many people changed from the Paleolithic lifestyle to Neolithic lifestyle in ancient history and new civilizations formed, it lead to the issue of population growth that is enduring, and still is a major issue today. In document two, “Charles F. Gritzner, Exploring our world,” it showed that many early civilizations formed along rivers because of the fertile land and easy access to water. With civilizations forming and populations growing people had to innovate to have a stable food supply and controlled resources like water. In document three, Larry W. Mays, “irrigation systems, ancient,” it gave us information about the development of the innovation called irrigation was developed. Irrigation is a system of waterways that make getting water to fields and villages faster and more efficient. People also needed to innovate to create and maintain a stable food supply. With this in mind Neolithic people innovated and created mechanisms like the horse-drawn seed drill. In document 4, “How did planting seeds change in the 1700’s” it showed us the difference from before the agricultural revolution, to during the agricultural revolution and how the innovation of the horse-drawn seed drill that affected the way farmers planted in a positive way. And in document 5, “James Killoran et al., the key to understanding global history” the document referenced that in very populated places on earth, there wouldn’t be enough food and crops for people. With this problem people needed to create new technologies like mechanical equipment, new farming techniques, and chemical fertilizers. Throughout all these documents population growth is an enduring issue that just as much affects people today as it did in ancient history. We can see an issue of population growth today in cities like New York City (modern day). People are having to innovate and solve some of the problems that come along with population growth and living in very populated places like New York City, one of them being a scarcity of green space and having to create innovations like rooftop gardening to farm and have a stable food supply in cities.
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