Who invented farming and agriculture

It has often been called the "Cradle of Civilization" as well, since both the wheel and writing first appeared there. Humans invented agriculture between 7, and 10, years ago, during the Neolithic era, or the New Stone Age.

There were eight Neolithic crops: emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, hulled barley, chickpeas, and flax. The Neolithic era ended with the development of metal tools. Evidence suggests that irrigation first appeared in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B. 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. 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. Various groups of people began digging and repairing older, more primitive canal networks to help regulate the flow of rivers, such as the Nile River in Egypt.

The canal networks eventually developed into sophisticated irrigation systems. 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. List 5 advantages and 5 disadvantages to a community that may arise when communities become sedentary.

Can you find out using the internet the percentage of UK households that grow any of their own food? The world was formed ca 4, million years ago. Eukaryotic life forms: ca. First hominid life forms 4 million years ago hunter gatherers. First human farmers: about 12, years ago. Global Agricultural Evolution: — AD. Modern Agricultural Evolution: - present. Social structure promote cooperation.

Knowledge of cultivation techniques. Cultivation involves the deliberate sowing or other management of plants which do not necessarily differ from wild populations. In short, domestication involves genetic change through conscious or unconscious human selection. Near East Fertile Crescent. South China Yangtze River.

North China Yellow River. Sub-Saharan Africa. South-central Andes. Central Mexico. Eastern USA. Not necessarily because it was a better diet. Until now, researchers believed farming was "invented" some 12, 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. A new discovery by an international collaboration of researchers from Tel Aviv University, Harvard University, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Haifa offers the first evidence that trial plant cultivation began far earlier -- some 23, years ago.

The study focuses on the discovery of the first weed species at the site of a sedentary human camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University, among other colleagues. Although weeds are considered a threat or nuisance in farming, their presence at the site of the Ohalo II people's camp revealed the earliest signs of trial plant cultivation -- some 11 millennia earlier than conventional ideas about the onset of agriculture.

The plant material was found at the site of the Ohalo II people, who were fisher hunter-gatherers and established a sedentary human camp. The site was unusually well preserved, having been charred, covered by lake sediment, and sealed in low-oxygen conditions -- ideal for the preservation of plant material. We still face many of the same challenges as our ancestors, in addition to new and even greater threats.

To successfully navigate an uncertain future, we can begin by learning from the past. 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. All images cropped from originals. Fried insect pupae.

While the ancestral hunt for wild animals is often depicted as an epic conflict against woolly mammoths, early humans also took to foraging for humble insects. Today, some traditional cultures get as much as 20 percent of their calories from insects. Johnson, The San are among the first people to have lived in southern Africa, and are one of the few societies that still follow a hunter-gatherer diet. To sustain their lifestyle, San typically spend 12 to 19 hours per week gathering food from the wild—what many might consider a life of leisure.

When one San person was asked why he hadn't adopted farming, he replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world? Paleoanthropologists have estimated that the earliest fossil evidence of Homo sapiens— anatomically modern humans—is roughly , years old.

From as early as 11, 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.

Why did people give up hunting and gathering for farming? There are many plausible reasons, all of which likely played some role at different times and across different parts of the world:. An ox-drawn plow prepares a rice paddy field in Vietnam. The plow and the various improvements upon its design were innovations that transformed human history, allowing farmers to cultivate land with a fraction of the labor they once used.

Pulled by animals or tractors, plows are used to turn over the top layer of soil, helping destroy weeds, bury residues from previous crops, bring nutrients and moisture to the surface, and loosen soil before planting. Photo credit: Thomas Schoch, Grave chamber of an Egyptian public official, circa BCE.

The plow is believed to have been used as early as 4, years ago in ancient Egypt. Although it brought tremendous gains in short-term productivity, it has also been a major contributor to soil erosion. The loss of fertile topsoil has played a role in the decline of numerous civilizations.

Farming probably involved more work than hunting and gathering, but it is thought to have provided 10 to times more calories per acre. Small settlements grew into towns, and towns grew into cities. Agriculture produced enough food that people became free to pursue interests other than worrying about what they were going to eat that day.