Three Sisters, Essay Example

Mark Q. Sutton’s An Introduction to Native North America discusses the theories of origins of agriculture relative to native North America, the importance of agriculture as a subsistence system of the Iroquois and how this system played a significant role in agricultural development during that time.  In this book the corn, bean and squash are referred to as the three sisters who learn to adapt to flourish beautifully under temperate conditions to promote a lovely agricultural growth for the natives.

“To accomplish the set out goals hunters had to expeditiously gather and hunt food and animal supplies by eliminating predators that could limit the food supply. The same group wanted to eliminate plants from the environment because plants were a drain on the soil and water supply to the community.” (Sutton 2007).  The key was providing the plants with just enough availability of essentials needed for survival. This activity was conducted by placing plants in desirable environments such as placing seeds in a spread out environment to develop and nurture naturally and in places close to shelters for human consumption. Humans have a tendency to control their environment and nurture it so with that said it was ideal to plant in a closed system where humans could easily tend to the crops. Sutton states, “Theories suggest thought that domestication could even occur in the best suited environments so hunting and subsistence or food acquiescence was required to maintain life in some situations. Farming has known to require large subsistence but in a smaller space per person thus was hugely promoted for the survival of humans as compared to hunting (2007).” What this is essentially stating is that farming produces more food for a person with less effort than does hunting. This statement assumes environmental conditions were marginal for planting of crops.

Both of these theories are really fancy but they do not fully explain the full domestication facts of why some areas are domesticated and some are not. Animals, plants and humans interact together to make adaptation possible in some areas whereas they cannot adapt in some areas of the same under likely conditions. Historical process of adaptation condition are then brought to light to explain these differences of theories of why some environmental factors play a role in the success of domestication while other factors are not so important.

Works Cited

Sutton, Mark. An Introduction to Native North America New. York, NY: Allyn & Bacon, 2007

Sutton, Mark flipart.com “An Introduction to Native North America”. 2009. < http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img.flipkart.com/bk_imgs/870/9780205510870.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flipkart.com/introduction-native-north-america-mark/0205510876-nqw3f0hekd&usg=__T3BDBEd_X5sR_e2thSzIc4KGJjE=&h=150&w=114&sz=6&hl=en&start=1&sig2=1NAorgC91CYDuZK-ENaCQg&um=1&tbnid=38Bs-KDHXDNOzM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=73&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAn%2BIntroduction%2BTo%2BNative%2BNorth%2BAmerica.%2Bgoogle%2Bpreview%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=S3T9SoaOGJSvlAe6yoG0Cw>