1.2 The origin of agriculture
Characteristic aspect: the emergence of agriculture and agricultural societies.
Agriculture first emerged in Southwest Asia, in an area that included parts of Syria and Iraq. It is also known as the Fertile Crescent.
People went here about 10,000 B.C. growing food for the first time. After arable farming, livestock farming also arose. Around 6,500 B.C. it reached southern Europe and around 3,500 B.C. it reached America.
Causes?
- Climate change: a climate with mild wet winters and warm dry summers arose in the fertile crescent after the last ice age.
- Less large game that could be hunted.
- Agriculture started to yield more and more.
- Breeding grain varieties into better variants and breeding cattle that yielded more meat.
- Producing dairy (milk, butter, etc.)
A sedentary way of life arose (permanently settling in fields by the farmers in farms). Farmers could now also collect property (eg: finds of band ceramics 5000 BC in Z-Limburg). Larger groups of people live together.
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