Neolithic Agriculture

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

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.”

Agriculture is the main reason we have civilization today, for without food surplus people would spend their days finding food and water constantly. Native Americans started like all other people in the world, doing just that, until over time they turned food production into an art. Without the elaborate specialization of crops over time, people would not have reached the point that they had before the Europeans had arrived. The allowance of food surplus led to the ability to advance culturally, scientifically, and economically.

During the Neolithic Revolution, food was obtained by producing it. They developed the ability to farm and domesticate animals to help them with agricultural chores. Getting food was easier than ever. However, life around 8000 BCE was not always so efficient. According to Document 1, “So long as they relied on foraging, hunting, fishing, and trapping, they were dependent on the natural food supply.” Control was weak and guarantee was slim in the Paleolithic era. People had no

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because

The Neolithic Revolution made food easily accessible. Document 3 states, “But it means, rather, a state of culture in which food is planted and bred, not hunted and gathered — in which food is domesticated, not wild.” This shows that the Neolithic Revolution was a time in which people moved from

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 only hunter-gatherers to continue to exist were those who were separated geographically or lived in areas not fit for food producing. One theory of why people first started producing food was just as a back-up plan. Another theory is that there are different factors in different parts of the world that caused the decision to move to farming.

Hunter-gatherers were fine without agriculture, and they lived many years without it. Agriculture may have provided a more effective way of more food, but along with it brought non-nutrient diets, social inequality, and the risk of disease spreading easier because the population is

First, I would like to discuss the strategy of hunting and gathering, the sole strategy until twelve thousand years ago. Hunting and gathering is a form of subsistence dependent upon wild plants and animals for the majority of the calories of the diet. While its name underscores the importance of hunting in this lifestyle, this is misleading as the majority of caloric needs in societies practicing this strategy are met by gathering wild edible plants and berries.

In Neolithic village life, population sizes were quite small, containing a few hundred people. Inhabitants were susceptible to raids and wild attacks, thus a life full of danger. Additionally, the inhabitants held occupations fitted to support the village. Farming was discovered when discarded seeds sprouted and flourished, and herders came to be when herds of animals were trapped and fenced off to be killed as needed. Over the course of time, domesticating those animals came into light and humans started to breed and raised them for resources. As long as the farmers and herders were successful, the more food they had and the more people in the village, life expectancy being quite high. As food was starting to become a surplus, fewer people were needed to hunt, so that resulted into two new jobs: potters and weavers. The potters began creating pottery to

A major driving force towards agriculture was the rapidly increasing population size dilemma that humans faced. Increasing population size was a critical reason why agriculture soon would replace hunting and gathering since that alone would not be able to sustain the growing population size. Thus, agriculture allowed for massive productions of food, resulting in an abundance of food. This abundance of food was stored meaning if one year the cultivation season didn’t produce sufficient nutriment due to any casual factors, the masses would still be able to survive on the food that was produced the year before. Unlike agriculture, hunting and gathering didn’t allow for this to happen since, they only hunted and gathered, as they needed in that specific moment. Additionally, another reason for the beginning of farming is politics. The distribution of food was

When societies began farming, food surpluses were often developed. This caused an urgency to develop proper food storage so food could be kept until needed. These surpluses meant that societies would always hold enough food to feed everyone, so that no one would starve or be forced to skip meals. With proper food storage, food could be kept longer than it had been until this point. Again, though, for each of these positive results of agriculture there is a negative one to counterbalance it.

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.