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Neolithic revolution
Essays on the impact of the agricultural revolution
Paleolithic to Neolithic
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It took many years for the tremendous change of lifestyle of the early human communities. At the begging of the Neolithic Period humans were nomads who followed their food source moving from one place to another. Early civilization used to hunt wild animals and gather wild plants to survive. It was until ca 10,000 years ago during the Neolithic Period when Agricultural Revolution began. Due to Agricultural revolutions humans begging to settle in one place and focus on particular economy, political, religion and activities. Agricultural revolution was the moving from foraging to producing animals and plants for human use through domestication. Agriculture was invented individually in different parts of the world and slowly spread to some areas …show more content…
Agriculture was very demanding because it required more regular work as difference as the hunting and gathering groups that existed before. Nevertheless, this life style was better; people got to have better food supply, they were able to build their own houses and agriculture generate stable communities were people could interact with one another. Agricultural societies contributed to a higher birth rate because young children were being used to cooperate in the labor of the land. But not everything was advantages in agriculture. Agricultural Revolution came with many disadvantages as well, disease was the mainly problem with agriculture. Many of the diseases were transmitted from animals to humans. Another negative consequence that came with Agricultural Revolution was a less varied diet. Some of the time farmers were just able to eat grins because they did not have any other source of food. Some of this grains lacked nutrients that the human body need to survive. Crop failure was other of the consequences of Agricultural revolution. Crop failure happened because some of the techniques that were being used were not being
The Neolithic Period was a shift to a more civilized man. The people had new ideas and were changing their environment making life easier. The adaptation of agriculture in the Neolithic Era was valuable because it created a stable life rather than a nomadic one. In Neolithic village life they grew crops and indulged
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
Farming was extremely important because less and less people were growing their own food. Urbanization meant that food production in rural areas was integral to the economy. It wasn't long before agriculture was industrialized, allowing for a huge population growth. This made the work monumentally simpler, and rather than having dozens of farmhands for a few acres, a farmer could use the same number of men for hundreds of acres of farmland. This meant that urban population grew and grew, while rural population only shrank. Heads turned from agriculture and artisanry to factories. For the first time in history, agriculture was no longer the main focus of the
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.
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 people of this time no longer roamed around some of the first signs of technology began to appear around this time as well.
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...
The Agricultural Revolution in the 20th Century Development of Agricultural Tools and Machines The development of machines began in the 1890's when the first steam tractor and combine were made in California (Meij 3). There was a need to make more efficient use of the labor; therefore, machines were developed ("Agripedia" 2). By 1914, the combine started to spread outside of California to the rest of the United States (Meij 4). Then in 1928 it spread to Great Britain and then to the Netherlands after World War II (Meij 4).
The new stone, or Neolithic Age, marked the beginnings of established society for modern man. Although only a few Paleolithic societies adapted to agriculture from hunting/gathering, this shift led the way for advancement with society, economy, and technology. Man began to raise small herds of sheep and goats and food crops such as wheat and barley were able to be domesticated in mountain foothills. As more of the nomadic bands began to settle as farmers instead of hunter/gatherers, an economic system emerged. Although most of the nomadic societies were still self-sufficient, trading was established from items like stones and shells.
During the Neolithic revolution around 11,000 B.C., people made the first semi-permanent settlements. Storing Grain in pits made it possible to survive without moving in the winter months. Around 6,000 B.C. Agriculture was becoming widely used as a primary means of survival. The first evidence of domesticated cattle was also found in this time frame. Primitive civilizations such as Jericho were growing at this time and a series of long distance trade routes were established. This was a step towards the first urban-based civilizations, as a significant number of people were becoming full time in a non-agricultural trade.
This can be related to population increase as well because with agriculture a society can support and sustain a much larger, higher density of peoples. With intensive agriculture, a market for the surplus can be established as well. This relates to the predominant mode of distribution of the crops and supplies readily available in the community. This also, again, contributes to the social stratification of the different classes in a society because some may not be able to afford the products being sold at a market compared to other members of society. This is a more “unfair” method of distribution when compared to the band and tribal methods of reciprocity or redistribution-- it was a much more equal way of distribution than the market-based system of the chiefdoms and states. However, this was inevitable because the reciprocity and redistribution methods could only work if a lower density population was the one being
Agricultural subsidies are defined as “payments by the federal government to producers of agricultural products for the purpose of stabilizing food prices, ensuring plentiful food production, guaranteeing farmers' basic incomes, and generally strengthening the agricultural segment of the national economy” (Encyclopedia.com). By definition, farm subsidies sound important and necessary, but our research shows that most of the farmers that actually need subsidies, do not benefit from them. As reported by ABCNews.com, “subsidies make it harder for smaller farms to compete because farm subsidies rarely go to poorer farmers struggling to make ends meet. In fact, the average farmer makes twice what the average American earns. One farmer dubbed the “King of Farm Subsidies,” Maurice Wilder, is
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.
So overall, Agriculture is playing a very important role in changing the lifestyle of different people. Agriculture might have made everything easy for us but it still has its cons. We see the effects of agriculture and how it affects the lives of other species and the environment.
To understand why is agriculture important in the world of today, then first of all we must know what agriculture is? Agriculture is the basic material production of society, the use of land for agriculture and livestock, mining plants and animals as raw materials and labor to produce mainly food and some raw materials for industry. Agriculture is a major industry, covering many disciplines: planting, breeding and processing of agricultural products; in the broadest sense, also including forestry and fisheries. Agriculture is an important economic sector in the economy of many countries, especially in the past century , when the industry has not yet developed. Since the dawn of history, agriculture has been one of the importance means of producing