Summarise and Compare the Evidence for the Development of Agriculture in South West Asia and North America.

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

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.

Agricultural spread out by diffusion and colonization. It was resisted by migration of agricultural peoples.

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.

Agriculture was such a prominent part in every civilization since the beginning of time. It was a way for humans to be one with their land for it gave them means to survive. As agriculture became much more recognized in Africa, “cultivators and herders displaced many of the hunting, gathering and fishing peoples who previously inhabited Saharan Africa.” (Bentley,384) With the progression of new technology; iron axes, adzes, and hoes were created, and revolutionized agriculture on their land. The introduction of bananas from sea lanes became popular in Africa and increased the supply of food that was available. Likewise for Medieval Europe, cultivation on Europe grounds allowed more room for agricultural techniques, the utilization of developed tools and technologies, and the institution of new crops. Similar to Africa, population pressure rose and space for more agriculture became necessary. Beans were important to the diets of Europeans as were the bananas to African diets. They also dug ponds to raise fish which in turn led to new

Journal #1. Page 32-“The era of human history when agriculture was the most important of all productive technologies and the foundation for most human societies.”

In the beginning of this book Yali asked Jared Diamond a question, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”, and in the epilogue Diamond answers. The answer to Yali’s question is that the geography and environment of Europe was an advantage which they used to dominate and conquer people of New Guinea and other remote areas. The difference in animal and plant domestication, rates of diffusion, and migration due to ecological barriers between continents has contributed to Europe as an advanced continent. Europe also came to dictate the Fertile Crescent and China which were the first to develop the earliest food production. The Fertile Crescent underwent

“Breaking the Land” discusses three major components throughout the book; cotton, tobacco, and the rice culture. Pete Daniel, the author, discusses the transformation of these three subjects throughout history. The different agriculture crops are described by explaining the environment that they are in and the difficulties they come across. The book explains how the crops and the environment have changed because of the difficulties they have faced. Diseases, race, inflation and deflation of crop prices, laws, and the economy are some of the main problems that helped transform the environment of the crop industry. The book explains in great detail the challenges that each crop undertook to become a more modern industry, along with the increase of technology. Technology plays a large role in creating a more modern life for the agriculture industries. Daniel goes on to explain the new technology that is used during the timeline of events for the development of agricultural crops.

The civilizations that thrived prior to the arrival of the Europeans, employed many complex agricultural methods that benefited organisms within their ecosystems, in addition to erecting magnificent metropolises. The most common agricultural methods included “slash and char” in densely forested regions, terracing on steep hillsides and milpas-small plots-found in lower wetlands. “Slash and char” a term dubbed by Christopher Steiner-a soil scientist from the University of Bayreuth- created “terra preta” a very nutrient rich soil that increases the fertility of the land and provides habitats for a diverse variety of microorganisms (Mann 345-346). Other features like the “forested islands” in the Beni (Mann 344), and the “fallows” in the Amazon (Mann 286) were anthropogenic creations mistaken for geological landforms due to lack of examination of the degrading man-made ceramics in the mounds, which indicate they were produced by an advanced civilization. Although Milpa’s and terracing were managed differently than the regions where terra preta transformed infertile areas into old-growth orchards called “fallows,” all three methods fortified the soil quality and manipulated crops to amplify productivity in order to support major populations. Without large-scale agricultural systems, a massive society could not have existed. Another key line of evidence supporting this idea, that Indians sculpted their own environment, is perhaps the most visible. Pyramids and plazas akin to ones in Teotihuacan and Huaricanga would not exist

The disadvantages of farming without metal tools were compounded by the absence of the plow, the wheel, and large domesticated mammals. Like much of Africa, isolation and local conditions in the Americas produced an agriculture that relies solely on hoes and digging sticks. Could stone tools, hoes come and wooden cultivation sticks proficient enough to generate the needed food surpluses to produce great cities? Such restrictions on food production again raises the question of how civilization could have developed under such conditions. The fact that civilization did develop in the Americas, therefore requires some explanation (Wellach, 191).

The ongoing argument concerning the rise of civilization is centered almost wholly around the domestication of plants and animals. The prevailing view of V. Gordon Childe’s principle “that social structure and organization were bent to the demands of technology.” (Childe 1954:23-4), is now directly challenged by what archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is determining from the excavation of Gobekli Tepe; “that far from causing sedentism, agriculture actually responded to it.” (James

The beneficial continental circumstances enjoyed by Eurasians first appears in vegetation. The Fertile Crescent was endowed with diverse, abundant, and highly productive cereals and pulses such as wheat, barley, and pea that yielded both starch and protein. These food staples were domesticated very quickly and with little effort by Eurasians, whose newfound farms gave rise to specialization and division of labor. Conversely, in the Americas, the sole cereal crop of corn took many more thousands of years of domesticated refinement to prove useful to humans. Mr. Diamond also places great emphasis on the geographic East-West orientation of Eurasia. A plant growing at a given latitude can grow at that latitude the world over. Thus, Eurasia's East-West orientation was highly conducive to the rapid spread (by trade) of productive domesticated grains across the continent. Conversely, the Americas, Africa, and Australia were impaired by their North-South orientation, which dictated that domesticated plants from people of one latitude were of little use to their neighbors to the North and South. Compounding the effect, the trade of agricultural technology in Eurasia ultimately led to trade in other things, such as technological advances, including writing and language

The revolutionizing transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture was a central shift in the way homo sapiens lived that occurred twelve thousand years ago. Consequently, several factors contributed to this astonishing modification of life including increasing population size, favorable environments such as the Nile River in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture allowed for mass production of food in order for the sustainability of the increasing population size, but with agriculture also came specialization and the division of labor ultimately leading to moral inequality.

Agriculture was the most important economic activity in America from the founding of Virginia in 1607 to about 1890. Although farming declined rapidly in relative economic importance in the twentieth century, U.S. agriculture continued to be the most efficient and productive in the world. Its success rested on abundant fertile soil, a moderate climate, the ease of private land ownership, growing markets for farm produce at home and abroad, and the application of science and technology to farm operations.