From Hunter Gatherers to Agricultural Societies

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

The development of agriculture by Native Americans more than five thousand years ago sparked new cultures and innovations. Hunters who previously roamed the land like nomads established permanent villages. Corn, sun, and water became focal points for many societies and played

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

The start of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution led directly to the beginning of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution, which happened 10,000 years ago, was the shift from hunter-gathers to a food-producing culture meaning humans started to farm and domesticate animals. This was the catalyst to help create civilizations. We know now how to distinguish groups of humans from actual civilization if those groups have certain characteristics. Those characteristics are complex institutions, record keeping, advanced cities, specialized workers, and advanced technology. A result of the Neolithic Revolution is that more people were able to thrive since there was a surplus of food. These early civilizations were able to take advantage of the rivers and create irrigation systems to water their crops.

Approximately 2.5 million years ago humans lived as hunter-gatherers that would move in bands, later on, they would turn into the great civilization of the ancient world due to better technique and a more organized society. Starting from the neolithic age which consists of hunter-gatherers. There were basically early modern humans. Hunter-gatherers had populated a lot of the earth by 30,000 years ago, continued the hunter and gathering way of life. They would feed off of wild plants and animals and move from one location to another. They would also use the fur of their killings as clothes. In a hunting and gatherings economy, they would move from one location to another to secure their food supply. Hunter-gatherers were very self-sufficient.

The first people to start specializing their plants into actual agricultural crops were still working with mostly wild plants. Over time, they used experimentation to figure out how to make better crops. Controlling

One main change that societies experienced from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age was agriculture. Agriculture made it possible for communities to grow and always have a supply of food as opposed to using hunting and gathering and always moving from place to place. With agriculture communities began to grow and expand. Though agriculture was new and difficult to an extent, it was very appealing to many societies in different regions On page 7 of Traditions & Encounters: A brief Global History, it states that "...agriculture did not spread rapidly because it was easier than foraging. Agriculture involved long hours of hard physical labor..Yet agriculture had its own appeal in that it made possible the production of abundant food supplies,

The transition to farming was a turning point in human history since people who remained hunter/gatherers couldn’t produce food as quickly as farmers, and couldn’t produce food that could be stored for a long period of time. Instead of roaming to search different locations for food, farming allowed them to drop seeds in soil that grow next to their

Agriculture spread through verbal communication and the slow colonization of land caused by slowly growing populations. Some resisted the agricultural lifestyle since they preferred their free Paleolithic lifestyles more.

Early agricultural societies differed from those of the Paleolithic era in many different ways. They were two similar and different things. The Paleolithic era was more towards not staying in one specific area. They wanted to follow where their food went. In the agricultural societies, many people leaned towards being a lot less nomadic. They stayed in one spot and decided to farm for food.

The fifty years leading up to 1877 exemplified little successes for workers’ movements due to the drastic nature of change during this time period. The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial empire had challenged old American values such as outwork and interdependence found within rural communities. Specifically, division of labor and technological advancements during this time period had shifted society from being self-reliant (agrarian) to dependent on large businesses (industry). In Who Built America by Christopher Clark, Nancy Hewitt, Joshua Brown, and David Jaffee, they highlighted how this shift to large-scale manufacturing had led to the little impact of workers’ movements within the fifty years prior to 1877. Divided within their trades and collectively weak, many movements simply couldn’t compete with the power of large corporations who held a lot of power in this time period. However, by the last quarter of the 19th century, workers’ began adapting to this new labor structure and were able to have success against industrial capitalists. The very same technologies that benefitted large companies by expanding townships into inter-regional markets had given the opportunity for labor organizers to establish a national platform to confront labor and economic inequality.

The hunter-gatherer society had been around for thousands of years. In this type of environment the men are known to be the hunters and the women are the gatherers. In many cases this saying could be argued, but the actions of the two genders prove to be very different. This can be in todays world in simple activities such as shopping. Men and women differ in shopping by how they shop, why they stop, and what the stop for.

Agriculture is one of the best things that has happened to humans. For once, humans were freed from the bonds that nature had over them. Agriculture has allowed so much more efficiency in domesticating animals and plants and innovating technology. These major things have branched off into more advanced things we know of civilizations today.

Hunter gatherer and agriculturalist societies have many similarities and differences. Population of hunter and gatherer groups have decreased. Neither one of them didn't have much technology at the beginning. They started off using sticks and stones. Hunter gatherers were pretty healthy. Agriculturalist were not as healthy as hunter gatherers. They had some health problems.

A major driving force towards agriculture was the rapidly increasing population size dilemma that humans faced. Increasing population size was a critical reason why agriculture soon would replace hunting and gathering since that alone would not be able to sustain the growing population size. Thus, agriculture allowed for massive productions of food, resulting in an abundance of food. This abundance of food was stored meaning if one year the cultivation season didn’t produce sufficient nutriment due to any casual factors, the masses would still be able to survive on the food that was produced the year before. Unlike agriculture, hunting and gathering didn’t allow for this to happen since, they only hunted and gathered, as they needed in that specific moment. Additionally, another reason for the beginning of farming is politics. The distribution of food was