What is the importance of discovery of agriculture in history

☺The importance of the discovery of agriculture in history is that it helped human beings develop settlements and civilizations and opened up more options for survival other than hunting and killing. ☺Agriculture gave humans choice to stay in one place and grow the food they needed.

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Answer

How did people discover agriculture?

• high fertility of ground;
• very hostile and unpleasant surrounding territory for wide stretches;
• relatively stable climate.

How was agriculture likely discovered?

The beginnings of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, are thought to have started 12,000 years ago in the Near East, in the area known as the Fertile Crescent. Climate change may have made it possible to start the cultivation of cereals.

What was the first agriculture?

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor told Mike Yardley they’ve tried to prioritise local jobs first. “We have shifted as many young New Zealanders as we can into those jobs. I was at a course in Wairarapa last year, we simply can’t do it fast enough.”

What was the origin of Agriculture?

The origins of agriculture occurred from about 10 000 years ago in certain suitable regions, known as “core areas” or “nuclear zones.” The key factor in this process was the biological domestication of targeted plants and animals through selective breeding and other forms of selection (see Domestication and Development of Plant Cultivars).

What is the history of agriculture?

Agriculture, also known as farming, is the production of food, fiber, animal feed, and other goods by means of growing and harvesting plants and animals. Agriculture is practiced throughout the world. Many agricultural products are used every day, from the clothes we put on in the morning to the sheets we sleep …

When was agriculture invented?

Humans invented agriculture between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the Neolithic era, or the New Stone Age.

What were the inventions of the Bronze Age?

During the Bronze Age and the eras that followed, civilizations all over the world gradually invented or acquired advanced metalworking techniques, creating ever-stronger farming implements. Humans continued domesticating animals and plants to serve as food sources or sources of other useful products. During the Middle Ages, European farmers began using complex irrigation systems such as dams, reservoirs, and water-raising machines. They also developed a three-field system of crop rotation and the moldboard plow. These inventions greatly increased the efficiency of agriculture.

How did hybrid seeds contribute to agriculture?

Hybrid seeds contributed to the increased agricultural output of the second half of the 20th century.

What is the oldest method of irrigation?

Conversely, when the waters were low, the land dried up, killing crops. The oldest method of irrigation made use of man-made underground streams, called qanats, and is still being used in parts of the Middle East.

When did irrigation start?

Evidence suggests that irrigation first appeared in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. Floods caused by the yearly inundation of the Nile would have had disastrous effects for ancient farmers, washing away dikes and swamping fields. Conversely, when the waters were low, the land dried up, killing crops.

Where did agriculture originate?

The history of agriculture begins in the Fertile Crescent. This area of Western Asia comprises the regions of Mesopotamia and Levant while being confined by the Syrian Desert to the south and the Anatolian Plateau to the north. In the early 1900s, University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted coined the term “Fertile Crescent” to describe this location’s role as the birthplace of agriculture. It has often been called the “Cradle of Civilization” as well, since both the wheel and writing first appeared there. Modern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories all include some land within the Fertile Crescent.

How did farming start?

The three field crop rotation system was replaced with a four field system and sweeping enclosure acts regulated land management, selective cross-breeding began on an industrial scale to increase crop size as well as yields creating several cultivars in the process. Animal husbandry also improved, leading to a greater surplus than had been permissible under the old system. It is said that these changes permitted the industrial revolution and even greater concentration of urban development, fueling the empire. How so? More crops for fewer workers, better methods of keeping and replacing nutrients in the soil meant that more people could work in industry. When the Corn Laws in England were repealed, it began the global food economy; about the same time, Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution put agriculture on the modern path of a science as we began to understand the development of crops.

When did agriculture start in North America?

It is likely that agriculture came to the North America relatively late, perhaps between 2500 and 2000 BC and we see it extensively with such civilizations as the Hohokam, the Anasazi and ancient Pueblos (17), possibly developing in Mesoamerica around 6000 BC with the domestication of maize.

What were the crops of Mesoamerica?

In Mesoamerica and South America, with the Inca, the Maya, Olmecs and the Aztecs, relatively early development of agriculture permitted the building of enormous cities that impressed the European colonizers; it was quickly identified that these civilizations had an impressive agriculture-based economy that stood on a par with Europe, challenging what was then understood about the development of civilization. In Mesoamerica it was corn and in South America it was the humble potato (18) – today the staple crop of most people in the western world, along with coca and the domestication of animal species such as llama and alpaca.

What did hunter-gatherers do?

For most of our existence, humans were hunter-gatherers. This means that people lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving with the seasons to follow the food supply. As the glaciers retreated and plant life patterns and growth areas changed in response, it meant that the need to move so often became slightly less essential – though undoubtedly the lifestyle carried on for thousands of years as people sought to maximize their resource acquisition (4, p574-5). Hunter-gatherer societies would have known which crops were best to exploit with each season.

What was the Middle East’s agricultural revolution?

The Middle East continued to see much innovation in the agricultural industries, something that historians refer to as The Arab Agricultural Revolution (10). This was thanks to the diversity of the local topographies, the crops grown in the Middle East and Indus Valley that European societies coveted, and later acted as a trade bridge between Far East and Europe (11).

What is the early civilization?

Early Civilization. Early civilization can be considered a boom time in agricultural science and technology. Around 5500 BC (7, p26-28), the Sumerian civilization of the Middle East and other early pre Greco-Roman civilizations understood the need for a specialized agricultural workforce for their societies to thrive.

What is agriculture in the US?

Agriculture is defined as the cultivation and exploitation of animals, plants (including fungi) and other forms of organic life for human use including food, fiber, medicines, fuel and anything else. It is, and has been since there was an agricultural market, one of the largest employers of people; in the USA today, agriculture represents 20% of the US economy (1). Before organised agriculture, it is believed that the food supply could provide for just 4 million people globally (21).

Why did people start farming?

In the Near East, for example, it’s thought that climatic changes at the end of the last ice age brought seasonal conditions that favored annual plants like wild cereals. Elsewhere, such as in East Asia, increased pressure on natural food resources may have forced people to find homegrown solutions. But whatever the reasons for its independent origins, farming sowed the seeds for the modern age.

What was the farming revolution?

Taking root around 12,000 years ago, agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that its development has been dubbed the ” Neolithic Revolution.”. Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles, followed by humans since their evolution, were swept aside in favor of permanent settlements …

What mutation occurred during the spread of farming into southeastern Europe?

But at some point during the spread of farming into southeastern Europe, a mutation occurred for lactose tolerance that increased in frequency through natural selection thanks to the nourishing benefits of milk.

Where did wheat come from?

The wild progenitors of crops including wheat, barley and peas are traced to the Near East region. Cereals were grown in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago, while figs were cultivated even earlier; prehistoric seedless fruits discovered in the Jordan Valley suggest fig trees were being planted some 11,300 years ago.

When did corn cobs first appear?

While maize-like plants derived from teosinte appear to have been cultivated at least 9,000 years ago, the first directly dated corn cob dates only to around 5,500 years ago . Corn later reached North America, where cultivated sunflowers also started to bloom some 5,000 years ago.

How long ago did goats come to Europe?

Dates for the domestication of these animals range from between 13,000 to 10,000 years ago. Genetic studies show that goats and other livestock accompanied the westward spread of agriculture into Europe, helping to revolutionize Stone Age society. While the extent to which farmers themselves migrated west remains a subject of debate, …

When did rice and millet farming start?

The origins of rice and millet farming date to around 6,000 B.C.E.

When did agriculture start?

From as early as 11,000 BCE, people began a gradual transition away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle toward cultivating crops and raising animals for food. The shift to agriculture is believed to have occurred independently in several parts of the world, including northern China, Central America, and the Fertile Crescent, a region in the Middle East that cradled some of the earliest civilizations. 1 By 6000 BCE, most of the farm animals we are familiar with today had been domesticated. 1 By 5000 BCE, agriculture was practiced in every major continent except Australia. 2

How long has agriculture been around?

It is thought to have been practiced sporadically for the past 13,000 years, 1 and widely established for only 7,000 years. 2 In the long view of human history, this is just a flash in the pan compared to the nearly 200,000 years our ancestors spent gathering, hunting, and scavenging in the wild. During its brief history, agriculture has radically transformed human societies and fueled a global population that has grown from 4 million to 7 billion since 10,000 BCE, and is still growing. 3

What is the name of the wild food that nourished our hunter-gatherer ancestors?

Left to right: Gingerbread plum ( mobola ), baobab seed, carissa fruit. These wild foods, native to Africa, may resemble the fruits, nuts, and seeds that nourished our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There is growing interest in cultivating these “lost” crops on a larger scale—the carissa fruit tastes a little like cranberry …

How did small settlements grow into cities?

1. Agriculture produced enough food that people became free to pursue interests other than worrying about what they were going to eat that day. Those who didn’t need to be farmers took on roles as soldiers, priests, administrators, artists, and scholars.

What was the driving force behind the growth of civilizations?

For better or for worse, agriculture was a driving force behind the growth of civilizations.

When was the plow used in Egypt?

Grave chamber of an Egyptian public official, circa 1250 BCE. The plow is believed to have been used as early as 4,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. Although it brought tremendous gains in short-term productivity, it has also been a major contributor to soil erosion.

When was synthetic fertilizer invented?

First introduced in the early 1900s, synthetic fertilizers dramatically increased crop yields (though not without consequences ), and have been credited with providing the lion’s share of the world’s food over the 20 th century. 27 The use of these and other chemicals has become a hallmark of industrial agriculture.

What is the history of agriculture?

The history of agriculture (the production of food by plant cultivation and animal husbandry and control of productivity) can be organized around several themes (such as time, productivity, environmental impact, and genetic diversity). The most obvious is time and the sequence of events from gathering wild plants for food to crop plant …

Where did agriculture originate?

The origin of agriculture was around ten thousand years ago or approximately four hundred human generations back in time and prehistory, before written records were kept. What is known is based on evidence gathered from archaeological sites. Agriculture started independently in at least three places in the world, each with a distinctive cluster of plants drawn from the local flora: Mesoamerica (Mexico/Guatemala: corn, beans, squash, papaya, tomatoes, chili, peppers), the Fertile Crescent ( Middle East from the Nile Valley to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: wheat, barley, grapes, apples, figs, melons, lentils, dates), and north China (mid-reaches of the three-thousand-mile-long Yellow River: rice, soybeans, peaches, Chinese cabbages such as bok choy). From these regions and possibly others, notably Africa (sorghum, cowpeas, yams, oil palm), South America (potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, peanuts, pineapples), and a broad band of tropical southeast Asia (oranges, mangoes, bananas, coconuts, sugarcane), the invention of agricultures spread to encompass the entire world by two thousand years ago.

What were the first crops grown in Southeast Asia?

The earliest agriculture of southeast Asia was typically based on roots and tubers such as yams and taro, tree crops such as coconut and banana, and perennials such as sugarcane. In the Americas, vegeculture developed with cassava, sweet potatoes, arrowroot, and peanuts, and moved up the eastern slopes of the Andes, ultimately domesticating the potato. These crops spread quickly throughout the world after European contact. Potatoes displaced wheat and barley in cold soils of northern Europe and bananas became the fruit of choice in the New World tropics.

Why is fallowing important?

Fallowing is an important technology perfected in the Middle Ages as part of the crop rotation pattern. The first year a legume is planted and the soil is enriched by the nitrogen-fixing crop; the next year a cereal is planted. The third year the land is rested to regain soil moisture and restore soil health.

What is the hypothesis that plants are cultivated?

Cultivation of plants may have arisen accidentally. According to the “dump heap hypothesis,” wandering peoples discarded remains of plant foods in piles in cleared areas, then returned to the sites and discovered that the same types of plants they had eaten the year before grew again. Eventually, people connected the leaving of seed one season to finding of edible plants the next. Farming began when people intentionally saved and planted seeds of their favorite plants.

How did farming begin?

Farming began when people intentionally saved and planted seeds of their favorite plants. By selecting characteristics that make a plant a good crop, early farmers altered the genetic makeups of plant populations.

What is the term for the raising of domesticated animals and the planting, cultivation, and preservation of crops?

Agriculture is the raising of domesticated animals and the planting, cultivation, and preservation of crops.

Why is agriculture important?

Here are ten reasons why agriculture is important: #1. It’s the main source of raw materials. Many raw materials, whether it’s cotton, sugar, wood, or palm oil, come from agriculture. These materials are essential to major industries in ways many people aren’t even aware of, such as the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, diesel fuel, plastic, …

How does agriculture help in developing countries?

In developing countries, agricultural jobs help reduce high rates of unemployment. When it comes to reducing poverty, evidence shows that focusing on agriculture is significantly more effective than investing in other areas. #5. It’s crucial to a country’s development.

How does agriculture help the environment?

It can help heal the environment. Agriculture possesses the power to harm or heal. When farmers prioritize biodiversity on their land, it benefits the earth. Having more biodiversity results in healthier soil, less erosion, better water conservation, and healthier pollinators.

What happens to agriculture when it suffers?

Countries with plenty of those supplies export them and trade for materials they don’t have. If a country’s agriculture suffers for some reason, prices can go up and it disrupts the flow of trade.

Why is economic development important?

When trade, national revenue, and employment are combined in a positive way, a country enjoys reduced poverty and boosted economic growth.

Is agriculture a source of employment?

The agricultural industry is still one of the biggest sources of employment and in many areas, it’s actually booming. Whether it’s working as a farmer, harvester , technician for farm equipment, scientist, and so on, there are plenty of jobs available in this field. In developing countries, agricultural jobs help reduce high rates of unemployment. When it comes to reducing poverty, evidence shows that focusing on agriculture is significantly more effective than investing in other areas.

Do developing countries depend on agriculture?

Speaking of trade, developing countries still get most of their national income from agricultural exports. While developed countries don’t depend on agriculture as much as they used to, their economies would definitely take a hit if all exports suddenly stopped.

What is the origin of agriculture?

origins of agriculture, the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms—wet-rice production in Asia, wheat farming in Europe, cattle

Why is agriculture a cultural phenomenon?

Because it is a cultural phenomenon, agriculture has varied considerably across time and space. Domesticated plants and animals have been (and continue to be) raised at scales ranging from the household to massive commercial operations.

What is the process of domestication?

Domesticationis a biological process in which, under human selection, organisms develop characteristics that increase their utility, as when plants provide larger seeds, fruit, or tubers than their wild progenitors. Known as cultigens, domesticated plants come from a wide range of families (groups of closely related genera that share a common ancestor; seegenus). The grass(Poaceae), bean(Fabaceae), and nightshadeor potato(Solanaceae) families have produced a disproportionately large number of cultigens because they have characteristics that are particularly amenableto domestication.

Why are domesticated animals more docile than wild animals?

Domesticated animals tend to have developed from species that are social in the wild and that, like plants, could be bred to increase the traits that are advantageous for people. Most domesticated animals are more docile than their wild counterparts, and they often produce more meat, wool, or milk as well.

Why do grasses have cultigens?

The grass ( Poaceae ), bean ( Fabaceae ), and nightshade or potato ( Solanaceae) families have produced a disproportionately large number of cultigens because they have characteristics that are particularly amenable to domestication.

What happens to plants and animals over time?

Over time, some plants and animals have become domesticated, or dependent on these and other human interventions for their long-term propagation or survival.

Is agriculture an environmental engineer?

Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms—wet-rice production in Asia, wheat farming in Europe, cattle ranching in the Americas, and the like—but a more holistic perspective holds that humans are environmental engineers who disrupt terrestrial habitats in specific ways.

Overview

The history of agriculture records the domestication of plants and animals and the development and dissemination of techniques for raising them productively. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.

Origins

Scholars have developed a number of hypotheses to explain the historical origins of agriculture. Studies of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies indicate an antecedent period of intensification and increasing sedentism; examples are the Natufian culture in the Levant, and the Early Chinese Neolithic in China. Current models indicate that wild stands that …

Civilizations

Sumerian farmers grew the cereals barley and wheat, starting to live in villages from about 8000 BC. Given the low rainfall of the region, agriculture relied on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Irrigation canals leading from the rivers permitted the growth of cereals in large enough quantities to support cities. The first ploughs appear in pictographs from Uruk around 3000 BC; seed-ploughs that funneled s…

Middle Ages and Early Modern period

From 100 BC to 1600 AD, world population continued to grow along with land use, as evidenced by the rapid increase in methane emissions from cattle and the cultivation of rice.
The Middle Ages saw further improvements in agriculture. Monasteries spread throughout Europe and became important centers for the collection of knowled…

Modern agriculture

Between the 17th century and the mid-19th century, Britain saw a large increase in agricultural productivity and net output. New agricultural practices like enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation to maintain soil nutrients, and selective breeding enabled an unprecedented population growth to 5.7 million in 1750, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped …

See also

Further reading

External links

Prehistory

For most of our existence, humans were hunter-gatherers. This means that people lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving with the seasons to follow the food supply. As the glaciers retreated and plant life patterns and growth areas changed in response, it meant that the need to move so often became slightly less essential – though und…

See more on environmentalscience.org

Early Civilization

Early to Modern Civilization

• The Middle East continued to see much innovation in the agricultural industries, something that historians refer to as The Arab Agricultural Revolution (10). This was thanks to the diversity of the local topographies, the crops grown in the Middle East and Indus Valley that European societies coveted, and later acted as a trade bridge between Far E…

See more on environmentalscience.org

The Americas

Modern Farming

The Ecological Age