where did agriculture emerge

The birth of agriculture About 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, humans began to mold nature to their needs and agriculture emerged in multiple places around the planet. We believe that it emerged independently and spread from places as varied as Mesopotamia, China, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

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Answer

Where and when did agriculture most likely begin?

 · Cattle, goats, sheep and pigs all have their origins as farmed animals in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a region covering eastern Turkey, Iraq and southwestern Iran. This region kick-started the Neolithic Revolution. Dates for the domestication of these animals range from between 13,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Where did farming first develop?

 · One may also ask, where was agriculture invented? Until now, researchers believed farming was “invented” some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization — Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran — an area that was home to some of …

Where was agriculture first started in?

The birth of agriculture About 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, humans began to mold nature to their needs and agriculture emerged in multiple places around the planet. We believe that it emerged independently and spread from places as varied as Mesopotamia, China, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

What was the first agriculture?

 · It was developed by Robert Braidwood and argues that the beginnings of agriculture took place in an upland location where crops would have received plenty of rainfall and therefore making irrigation unnecessary.

When did agriculture emerge?

approximately 10,000 years agoAgricultural communities developed approximately 10,000 years ago when humans began to domesticate plants and animals. By establishing domesticity, families and larger groups were able to build communities and transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle dependent on foraging and hunting for survival.

Where did agriculture arose?

Agriculture arose independently in at least three regions: South America, Mesoamerica, and eastern North America.

When did agriculture begin in Mesopotamia?

The regular flooding along the Tigris and the Euphrates made the land around them especially fertile and ideal for growing crops for food. That made it a prime spot for the Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, that began to take place almost 12,000 years ago.

Where did agriculture begin in India?

Indian agriculture began by 9000 BCE on north-west India with the early cultivation of plants, and domestication of crops and animals. Indian subcontinent agriculture was the largest producer of wheat and grain. They settled life soon followed with implements and techniques being developed for agriculture.

Where did agriculture originate?

By 8000 BC, farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop. Maize was domesticated from the wild grass teosinte in southern Mexico by 6700 BC.

How long ago did agriculture start?

Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago.

How did the Industrial Revolution affect 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 drive the Industrial Revolution. The productivity of wheat went up from 19 US bushels (670 l; 150 US dry gal; 150 imp gal) per acre in 1720 to around 30 US bushels (1,100 l; 240 US dry gal; 230 imp gal) by 1840, marking a major turning point in history.

What are the social issues that modern agriculture has raised?

Modern agriculture has raised social, political, and environmental issues including overpopulation, water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs and farm subsidies. In response, organic farming developed in the twentieth century as an alternative to the use of synthetic pesticides.

How has agriculture changed since 1900?

Since 1900, agriculture in the developed nations, and to a lesser extent in the developing world, has seen large rises in productivity as human labour has been replaced by mechanization, and assisted by synthe tic fertilizers, pesticides, and selective breeding.

What were the crops that were introduced in the Middle Ages?

In the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic world and in Europe, agriculture was transformed with improved techniques and the diffusion of crop plants, including the introduction of sugar, rice, cotton and fruit trees such as the orange to Europe by way of Al-Andalus.

Why was clover important to agriculture?

The use of clover was especially important as the legume roots replenished soil nitrates. The mechanisation and rationalisation of agriculture was another important factor.

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, …

How long does a plant live?

plant with a life cycle of no more than one year, and often much less.

Where was agriculture invented?

One may also ask, where was agriculture invented? Until now, researchers believed farming was “invented” some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization — Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran — an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations.

What did the first farmers do?

First farmers. Around 12,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers made an incredible discovery. They dug up the ground, scattered a few wild grains, and learned how to farm. Farming meant that early humans could control their sources of food by growing plants and raising animals.

When did hunter-gatherers start farming?

Sometime around 12,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors began trying their hand at farming. First, they grew wild varieties of crops like peas, lentils and barley and herded wild animals like goats and wild oxen. Eventually, they migrated outward, spreading farming to parts of Europe and Asia.

Why did humans domesticate plants?

One is that in times of abundance humans had the leisure to start experimenting in the domestication of plants. The other theory suggests that in lean times – thanks to population growth, over-exploitation of resources, a changing climate, et cetera – domestication was a way to supplement diets.

When did agriculture begin?

The first agriculture appears to have developed at the closing of the last Pleistocene glacial period, or Ice Age (about 11,700 years ago).

Why do archaeologists study agricultural origins?

Because some resource management practices, such as intensively tending nondomesticated nut-bearing trees, bridge the boundary between foraging and farming, archaeologists investigating agricultural origins generally frame their work in terms of a continuum of subsistence practices.

What is plant and animal management?

Plant and animal management was and is a familiar concept within hunting and gathering cultures, but it took on new dimensions as natural selection and mutation produced phenotypes that were increasingly reliant upon people.

Which Native American peoples developed complex methods to manage diverse sets of plants and animals?

For instance, Australian Aborigines and many of the Native American peoples of western North America developed complex methods to manage diverse sets of plants and animals, often including (but not limited to) cultivation.

Where do dogs get their meat from?

When considered in terms of food management, dogs may have been initially domesticated as hunting companions, while meat and milk could be obtained more reliably from herds of sheep, goats, reindeer, or cattle than from their wild counterparts or other game animals.

Does agriculture have to be a response to food scarcity?

Notably, agriculture does not appear to have developed in particularly impoverished settings; domestication does not seem to have been a response to food scarcity or deprivation. In fact, quite the opposite appears to be the case.

Overview

Agriculture likely began during the Neolithic Era before roughly 9000 BCE when polished stone tools were developed and the last ice age ended.

The world before agriculture

Based on current archeological evidence, anatomically modern humans have existed roughly 200,000-300,000 years. However, before roughly 15,000-20,000 years ago, we have no evidence that our ancestors had agriculture. Instead, we believe they strictly hunted or foraged for food.

The birth of agriculture

About 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, humans began to mold nature to their needs and agriculture emerged in multiple places around the planet. We believe that it emerged independently and spread from places as varied as Mesopotamia, China, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Why did agriculture emerge when and where it did?

The simple answer is that we’re not sure. We do, however, have several theories—can you think of more?

Pastoralism: a branch of agriculture

A branch of agriculture—called pastoralism—began around the same time as cultivation of plants. Pastoralism is the domestication and herding of animals such as goats, sheep, and cattle. In regions where plant cultivation proved difficult due to rocky terrain or climates that were inhospitable to plants, pastoralists herded animals.

Impact of agriculture

The impact of agriculture has been profound on humanity, most clearly in terms of population. This is because breeding plants and animals has significantly increased the availability of human consumable calories per square kilometer. One way to think about it is that we replaced things that weren’t consumable by humans with things that were.

What do you think?

What do you think is the most compelling theory about the birth of agriculture?

Where did the first crops come from?

The earliest evidence of crops appears between 9000 and 8000 bp in Mexico and South America. The first crops in eastern North America may be almost as old, but substantial evidence for crop use there begins between 5000 and 4000 bp. Corn, the crop that eventually dominated most of the agricultural systems in the New World, appears rather suddenly in Mexico between 6300 and 6000 bp but was clearly domesticated earlier than that. Indigenous peoples in the Americas domesticated fewer animal species than their Old World counterparts, in large part because the Americas were home to fewer gregarious, or herding, species of appropriate size and temperament. Substantial villages were built only after the development of most crops; this contrasts with Old World practices, in which settled villages and towns appear to have developed earlier than, or at the same time as, agriculture.

Which civilizations used swidden agriculture?

Complex societies such as the Maya and Aztec used swidden agriculture to some extent, but elaborate irrigation systems and tropical ecosystem management techniques were necessary to support their dense populations. In Peru the Inca built terraced fields on the steep Andean slopes.

What were the Incas’ fields?

In Peru the Inca built terraced fields on the steep Andean slopes. Foot plows and hoes were used to prepare these fields. Llama and alpaca dung, as well as human waste, provided fertilizer. Such fields were not limited to the Incas, however; terraced fields were also constructed in northern Mexico.

What was the most widely used crop in the Americas?

Chip and Rosa Maria de la Cueva Peterson. Corn , or maize ( Zea mays ), was the most widely used crop in the Americas and was grown nearly everywhere there was food production. Other crops had more-limited distributions.

Where did the indigenous peoples live in the Americas?

Indigenous peoples in the Americas created a variety of agricultural systems that were suited to a wide range of environments, from southern Canada to southern South America and from high elevations in the Andes to the lowlands of the Amazon River.

Did the Americas have draft animals?

Although the Americas had several indigenous animal species that were domesticated, none were of an appropriate size or temperament for use as draft animals; as a result, the plow and other technology reliant on heavy traction were unknown.

Overview

Modern agriculture

Origins

Civilizations

Middle Ages and Early Modern period

See also

Further reading

External links