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Examine the impacts of the Neolithic revolution
Essays on agricultural revolution
Agricultural revolution conclussions
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The first Agricultural Revolution began within the Neolithic Age ranging from 10,000 BC to 2000 BC. Often the first agricultural revolution may be also known as the “Neolithic Revolution”. The agricultural revolution is the transformation of human society from hunting and gathering to understanding a new world of farming along with advancements of technology and laws, with the earliest known developments taking place within the Middle East. During the transformation, our world that we know today had gone through many trials and tribulations from basing food off hunting to understanding a whole new evolving era. Even though the agricultural revolution has big contributing factors such as expanding the population, new technology, a new understanding of men and women, and government and religion factors. But even factors such as that still had it falls and rises depending on how each colony was ruled. …show more content…
Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles followed by humans since their evolution were swept aside in favor of permanent settlements and a reliable food supply. The need for a demand for food supply was growing since the agriculture revolution was occurring the population in colonies and cities began to rise. Farming and their raising of livestock fastened people to land for cultivation and grazing ground, this transition gave rise to a permanent settlement. Since the demand for farming was rising, citizens had to think of new ideas to help with farming duties. Leading to new inventions such as sophisticated tools for farming. One main important invention was pottery, which helps store food along with water and other essentials needed to be stored in case famine was to occur. Advances in tool-making and domestic technology had led to better advances in
12,000 years ago, the discovery of agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that we now call this important era in time the “Neolithic Revolution.” Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles were cast away in favor of more permanent settlements and a reliable food supply. Agriculture helped form cities and civilizations, and because crops and animals could now be farmed to meet growing demand, populations skyrocketed from around five million people 10,000 years ago, to more the more than seven billion people that walk this earth today.1
“The development of agriculture was a radical change in humans’ way of life.” (Stearns, 2) It set the basis for faster change in human societies. Metalworking allowed farmers to work more efficiently. The development of languages increased the chances of civilizations because people were able to communicate with each other. Record keeping and innovated technology also brought people together because they began discovering new things about the society.
Agriculture was the prevailing economic activity in England and Europe through the early modern era. The agricultural revolution laid a fundamental base for the industrial revolution. If agricultural productivity in England grew between the middle ages and the nineteenth century, then most of it occurred before the mid-eighteenth century. It all started with the “Bing-Bang”, the Black Death of 1348. Followed by new crops and techniques, increases in output and land improvement but also urban growth, agriculture became much more productive. Institutions such as enclosures and large farms are said to have increased productivity by encouraging farmers to adopt those new crops and techniques. However, there is little direct evidence for the actual impact of changes in land tenure on agricultural productivity. Indeed, the consequences of the enclosure movement on agricultural productivity has been a deeply debated topic in English economic history.
Before the land of what we no class Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and other countries in the middle east grains, such as wheat and wild barley, could be seen growing in the wild without human hand to cultivate and nurture it (Authors 2007). Over time, humans began to recognize the benefit of the plants and began the first signs of human agriculture. The skill of farming took time and trial and error, but along the way, humans began to settle down to tend to their crops. Though the first crops were nothing more than seed s thrown about without rhyme or reason to the process we know today such as fields having, rows and sorting out the seeds to create a higher yield each harvest (Authors 2007). Because of the trial and error process, agriculture of plants did not take place of a short period but took many, many years to evolve to what we know today as agriculture; the new fa...
The factors of irrigation, inherent topography, and useful bronze-age technical innovations paved the way for the agricultural revolution to occur in the land of Sumer and Akkad. The people of the Tigris and the Euphrates basin, the ancient Sumerians, using the fertile land and the abundant water supply of the area, developed sophisticated irrigation systems and created what was probably the first cereal agriculture. This historical factor resulted in an excess of production of cereals, dates, and other commodities. The consequence of excess is the emergence of a productive peasant agricultural system and a redistributive economy that fuels the progress of civilization.
The blessing and curse of the Agricultural Revolution is advocated with its augmentation and dissemination. Taking the stipulative definition of “blessing” and “curse” from the original premise, one can only superimpose the layman’s terms of “negative” and “positive”. Upon examination of the two classifications within the Neolithic Period and ancient Mesopotamian civilization one can confirm the premise. Therefore, the agriculture revolution was a blessing and a curse for humanity. Human society began to emerge in the Neolithic Period or the New Stone Age. This new age began around 9,000 B.C.E. by the development of agriculture in the region surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is commonly referred to as “The Fertile Crescent” located in West Asia.1 The very development of agriculture had benefited humans by no longer having to move about in search of wild game and plants. Unencumbered by nomadic life humans found little need to limit family size and possessions and settled in a single location for many years. One negative aspect of this settling is that the population increased so much so that wild food sources were no longer sufficient to support large groups. Forced to survive by any means necessary they discovered using seeds of the most productive plants and clearing weeds enhanced their yield.2 This also lead humans to develop a wider array of tools far superior to the tools previously used in the Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age. The spread of the Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Period also cultivated positive aspects by creating connections with other cultures and societies. Through these connections they exchanged knowledge, goods, and ideas on herding and farming.3 Another major positive aspec...
One of the most significant inventions was introduced during the Neolithic period. It was the shift from hunting animals and gathering plants to the production of food. People no longer had to travel long distances to search for water and food because they learned how to grow
The Industrial Revolution was a movement that shifted England’s economy from one that is focused on agriculture to an economy that is based on manufactured goods. Although, the Agricultural Revolution began around 1500 and ended around 1850, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that the changes significantly took off.
Cipolla calls it the first great economic revolution (Cipolla 18). The development of agriculture leads to the development of communities, city-states, civilizations, and other settlements. The social structure that formed around agriculture brought about the possibility of specialization within a society, since not everyone had to hunt and gather all the time. Instead of living in an ecologically sustainable manner like the hunter/gatherers, people started living in an economic manner (Southwick 128). Specialization enabled the development of social institutions such as religion and government, and agriculture necessitated the development of irrigation.
The Ancient world was in demand of technology as it saw a rise in complications to the world generation after generation. One very important form of rise in technology was in agriculture. The Agricultural Revolution saw a number of inventions in Medieval Europe. It saw the introduction of tools like the Heavy plough, the harrow and the mills to name a few. They also came up with new techniques in farming. These inventions and changes had a huge impact on Medieval Europe. It lead to more jobs and also more produce which eventually lead to more income.
Farming has been an occupation since 8,500 B.C. On that year in the Fertile Crescent farming first began when people grew plants instead of picking them in the wild. Then nearly 5,000 years later oxen, horses, pigs, and dogs were domesticated. During the middle ages, the nobles divide their land into three fields. The reasoning for this was to plant two and leave one to recover. This was the start of crop rotation which is a big part of farming today. Burning down forest and then moving to another area is a farming technique used by the Mayans called Slash and burn. Mayan farmers also were able to drain swampy areas to farm them buy building canals. In 1701 Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and a horse drawn how that tilled the land. In Denmark they would plant turnips in the previously unplanted field. The turnips help restore the nutrients in the ground thus crop rotation is born. In England people began moving there fields closer to each other for a more efficient way of planting. Later in the 18th century selective breeding was introduce which made bigger, stronger, and more milk producing livestock. In the mid 1800’s a steam plough was invented. By the 1950 tractors, milking machines, and combines were used by almost farmers. The latest f...
Civilization began with agriculture, it allowed nomads to settle down, and form relationships, societies and eventually nations. But as our society developed, so did our means of farming. Whilst modern society greatly differs from our nomadic past, humanity still has fundamental dependence on agriculture.
Agriculture has been around for about 11,000 years. Around 9.500 BC, the first signs of crops began to show up around the coastlines of the Mediterranean. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the first crops that started to show up in this area, with barley, peas, lentils, chick peas, and flax following shortly. For the most part, everyone was a nomad and just travelled along with where a herd went. This went on until around 7.000 BC, and then the first signs of sowing and harvesting appeared in Mesopotamia. In the first ...
The average person gives little thought to where the food they eat comes from. One would even say that the subject of anything other than consuming food is on the lack luster side of a conversation. The vast majority of people know nothing about growing and raising food, and most would not care to know, because it isn’t “sexy” or overly controversial. One could say that even less care about how we got to this point and where we have been in history. The human race has come a long way, from nomadic life, to planting and herding, fine tuning and recording of crops and harvest, setting the path for the future, developing many tactics we use today.
The first people that started to depend on farming for food were in Israel and Jordan in about 80000 B.C.. Farming became popular because people no longer had to rely on just searching for food to get their food. In about 3000 B.C. Countries such as Egypt and Mesopotamia started to develop large scale irrigation systems and oxen drawn plows. In about 500 B.C. the Romans started to realize that the soil needed certain nutrients in order to bare plants. They also realized that if they left the soil for a year with no plants, these important nutrients would replenish. So they started to leave half of a field fallow (unplanted). They then discovered that they could use legumes, or pulses to restore these vital nutrients, such as nitrogen, to the soil and this started the process known as rotating crops. They would plant half the field one year with a legume...