The Discovery Of Farming, Domestication, And Trade

It is said that farming is "the worst mistake in the history of the human race."(2). In An Edible History of Humanity, chapter two, Tom Standage explained the reasoning behind this statement. The explanation is, farming took longer, created health issues and changed the structure of our bodies.

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 most significant development during the Neolithic Era was the development of agriculture. This occurred approximately 10,000 years ago in human history. Humans began to domesticate animals and engage in selective breeding. With the end of the Ice Age, new plants became available and were cultivated to provide a more stable food source than hunting and gathering. Humans began to domesticate plants as well. "People had long observed wild plants as they gathered

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.

Farming initially developed in the Middle East, the Fertile Crescent. Grains such as barley and wild wheat were abundant. Also, not heavily forested, and animals were in short supply, presenting a challenge to hunters. 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE. Notice: it took thousands of years for this “revolution” so not fast but profound for history. Agriculture was hard for many hunting and gathering peoples to adopt – lots of work. Those in agricultural communities developed diseases, which they became immune. The agricultural people would unintentionally infect the hunters.

Farming is a very important job. Humans didn’t start with framing thougth. At first we were hunters and gatherers moving with the food. Over time we started to farm; after the Ice Age there was a huge drought. Humans started to farm and live at one spot. Document 1-1

This shift from gathering berries and hunting wild animals to producing food by themselves was major because it resulted in the developement of permanent settlement, social classes, and technology. As mentioned once before, there was a great change in the way food was produced. Mankind shifted from being mere hunter-gatherers to complex and

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

The sort of changes that farming brought were: people benefiting from a further steady and dependable food source, settling down and building vaster communities, concentrating on contemporary skills (architecture, arts and crafts, social organization), and elaborated societies eventually emerging.

In the beginning of agriculture and with the growth and cultivation of crops in order to feed a group of people, this marked the end of the hunter gather lifestyle and was the beginning of small farming villages. These small groups of people had began to be more rooted and stay in distinctive regions, they were proceeding to start being more dependent on agriculture in order to be able to sufficiently feed themselves. First, people had lived a very nomadic lifestyle; they had to keep following their food in order to eat. So, staying in one place for a long period was very rare. Once they started to plant crops and were cultivating the land to survive, they started to build more sturdy homes that were stationary and started to develop the start of a civilization.

Summary: The article “Where did agriculture begin? Oh boy it’s Complicated” was written by Rhitu Chatterjee from NPR news. She talks about how about 12,000 years ago, our hunter- gatherer ancestors began farming. First, humans grew crops like peas, lentils, and barley. They also herded wild animals like oxen and goats. As time went on, humans switched to farming full time and created new breeds of plants and animals. Eventually, they migrated to parts of Europe and Asia and spread the use of farming. The first farmers lived in the Fertile Crescent, in areas of the Middle East that had soil perfect for farming. It has been long believed that farming was started by one group of ancestral humans. A new study, however, says that multiple groups in the Fertile Crescent started farming, and that these groups were genetically distinct from one another.

Going from gatherer to farming occurred gradually, the decision was made by the availability of game and gatherables, and the pressures of population to how much is going to be grown

How did early civilizations effectively develop and utilize early plants and vegetables to move from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists, and what were the impacts socially, politically, and technically? “Agriculture did not emerge from an untapped resource base or randomly distributed family or tribal units of Homo sapiens sapiens. It emerged as the result of efforts by highly organized ecologically canny communities composed of skilled hunter-gatherers.” In the beginning of what is considered burgeoning civilization, humanities ancestors were what were called hunter-gatherers. They moved from place to place, following the source of their food in order to survive the brutal aspects of early life. If they could not find food, or not find it in sufficient amount, they would starve and eventually die off. Thus, the only decision facing them was to relocate their tribes in order to better take advantage of the available game. As the second portion of their name implied, they were also considered gatherers, in which they subsisted on whatever grains and green vegetables or fruits they could find to eat. It was this kind of lifestyle which led to a smaller, tribal mindset in which you ate what you could, when you could. Over time this began to change, with the establishment of agricultural practices which allowed for availability of much needed crops and the decision of tribes to establish permanent communities, as well as the increase in both number of members and life terms.

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.

Agriculture is a vital part of society, and Agribusiness is of course the business behind it. While agricultural needs were different in ancient times, farming was always necessary. With agriculture came the domestication of plants and animals. This domestication allowed the human civilization to flourish. With time, new technologies and lifestyles changed the course of agriculture.