Agriculture, the domestication of plants and animals, began in the early years of the Neolithic age, and the shift to agriculture is undoubtedly one of the most important events in human history (Reilly, p. 19-25). The widespread use of agriculture brought about fundamental changes in the way humans exist, and civilization as we know it would not occur without it. The use of agriculture had widespread effects on the world, most of which still effect civilization today. This paper will discuss the shift made in the Neolithic Revolution from hunting and gathering societies to agricultural societies, and the main positive and negative effects that shift had on humankind.
The use of agriculture did not happen quickly, or at the same time in all
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These new changes include urbanization, changes in demographics, economical advancements, advances in politics, and more intellectual thinking. Urbanization was one of the main results that came from agriculture, as agriculture allowed people to stay in one place, they needed to build homes to live in (Reilly, p. 32-34). People began living in compounds together, then villages that had fixed property, public space, and were ruled by the elders. Finally, once societies were fully agrarian, city-states began to emerge with social stratifications, militaries, and ceremonial centers (Eichler, 9 Sept. 2016). Agriculture also increased demographics across the world, since people could now produce an abundance of food. This abundance of food meant that societies could sustain more people. The increase in population meant that not everyone had to farm, because one farmer could provide food for a multiple people, leaving people with more free time that was eventually used to make economic, political, and intellectual advances. The free time that agriculture provided people with was used to create political and legal systems, and from that came a need for writing because city-states needed a way of keeping records. Furthermore, as city-states grew and interacted with each other, they began to trade, which led to the first monetary systems. Finally, the shift …show more content…
These negative aspects of agriculture include a less varied diet, social inequality, a shorter life span, and a higher probability of spreading disease. Although agriculture provided an abundance of food, that abundance consisted largely of carbs, and less nutritious foods and this effected the overall health of people in a negative way. This lack of variety in diets was harsh on people’s teeth and stomachs because of the high sugar found in many of the early agriculturalists’ crops, and resulted in weaker bones and malnutrition. All of these factors, along with a lack of exercise and harsh, repetitive work, ultimately caused people in agriculturalist societies to have shorter life spans (Kern, 13 Sept. 2016). Social inequality was also a negative result that came from the shift to agriculture. Agriculture lead to private ownership of land, and it was impossible for everyone in an agriculturalist society to own land, because of this some people would have access to more economic power as a result of their landownership (Eichler, 7 Sept. 2016). The final downside of agriculture is that it allows disease to spread easier and faster throughout a society. Before people domesticated plants and animals they hunted and gathered, traveling in small groups. The movement in general aided in preventing disease
Humans have used hunting and gathering for many years, it did the job to feed family's. As population grew humans evolved and switched to agriculture. Some may argue that “Agriculture came with the gross and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.” This causes some to argue that, switching
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
Health problems did not only stop at diseases, but continued on to physical health as well. Both hunter-gatherers and farmers have to work to obtain food, however farming requires a lot of hard physical labor. Farmers have to work hard to maintain their crops because that is their only food source, and taking care of crops is not easy and it took a toll on their health. It is shown in evidence that farmers had “an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor” (Diamond, 118). Between diseases and physical defects farming was making a huge impact on humans’ ability to survive, so much that even life expectancy went down from twenty six years in hunter-gatherers to nineteen years in farming communities (Diamond, 118).
Most people would argue that the transition from hunting and gathering of food to agricultural food production was the best innovation in human history. We are taught to believe that this innovation gave rise to civilization, allowed for more leisure time in which people could then focus on arts and allowed for a higher yielding, more consistent and reliable food source. Despite some of the innovations that sprang from agriculture, upon a closer look, we can see that with the advent of agriculture came class division, gender inequality, less leisure time, overpopulation, diseases, deficient diets and starvation. The transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural food production may have been the worst mistake in human history.
According to Document 1, the Neolithic Revolution was good for the society because humans learned new skills and ways to live. Document 1 states, “The ability to acquire food on a regular basis gave humans greater control over their environment and enabled them to give up their nomadic ways of life and live in settled communities.” This shows that the humans learned many new things. In addition, based on Document 2, the context mentions, “Domestication means taming animals for human use. This was one of the most important innovations of the Neolithic Revolution.” This shows that the humans had good use of the animals. Also, the chart in Document 2 shows how common animals such as cows, goats, pigs, and sheep were used as advantages depending on their location, and for meat, milk, wool, and hide. As a result, Document 1 and Document 2 both support that the innovations of the Neolithic Revolution were good for
In addition to agriculture success, new technological advancements came from crop exchangement. New farming equipment , such as the plow, improved the New World’s economy and health. This technology advancement is important because it allowed a large area of land to be cultivated at a time, speeding up the farming process. This enabled towns to be developed around farms from crops being grown at a faster rate and land that could now be cultivated.
The Neolithic revolution was a period of time that occurred during 10,000 - 9,000 B.C.E. Humans made the transition from hunting and gathering and being nomadic to being sedentary. During the neolithic revolution humans also developed social classes where the people who watched others work were at the top and the people who worked at the bottom. People have different opinions on the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture during the neolithic revolution. Thinking about all of the things humans received from the neolithic revolution, it was not worth it. Human society would have been better off without the disease, the social classes, and starvation. Therefore, while the neolithic revolution brought many beneficial things to human society such as agriculture, and permanent housing, it brought more harm than good like modern day diseases and social classes.
From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”
Political, economic, and social conditions have often led to turning points that have changed the course of history for nations and people. The Paleolithic Era and Neolithic Revolution was a turning point that changed the orbit of history for mankind. In Documents 1, 2, and 4, they explain life before the Neolithic Revolution and what changed during the period and provide an analysis of results of the revolution. They introduce food supply and settlement, and civilization and trade.
Brilliant farming ideas came out of the Agricultural Revolution, but there were also negative effects. One negative effect would have to be that farmers would need larger amounts of raw goods in order to maintain their increasing outputs.
Key Concept 1.2. The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies II. Agriculture and pastoralism began to transform human societies. B. Technological innovations led to improvements in agricultural production, trade, and transportation. Pottery improved agricultural production because it gave a way to store a surplus of food.
When humans turned to agriculture, they had to depend on the weather for crop production and a good harvest, which did not always turn out to their favour. Neolithic farmers faced drought,
One of the greatest revolutions in the history of homo sapiens was the adoption of agriculture, which changed the face of communities at every level of class. Though this change was built upon new ideas and allowed us to provide more food for more people, was it in fact a positive change at the time? Today in 2017, we can all look around and see where the agricultural revolution has gotten us in the long run, but authors such as Yuval Noah Harari (2011) claim that during the infancy of the agricultural revolution, life for the average citizen was often a worse one than that of the common forager. A change in food production created many other changes, such as permanent human settlement, biologically unconventional labor, and a larger population density. This paper explores the pros and cons of the agricultural society and the hunter-gatherer society
The Neolithic revolution had a big impact on the society. However, instead of focusing on the good, as follow are some social disadvantages of this big transition. To start with, agriculture is considered much harder work than hunter gathering is, and individuals had to work much longer hours farming. This reduced the land availability for living on by handing it to farmers. It reduced space for wild animals and plants, which were used for food, meaning that, the fauna was becoming less diverse and animals were becoming weaker since
Without the rise of agriculture, numerous societies may not have been able to feed their people, and therefore may have died out before reaching modern times. The rise of agriculture not only increased the life expectancy of societies, it also increased the volume of food produced, necessitating the development of food storage.