Agriculture in History

At the end of the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), some 12,000 years ago, after hundreds of thousands of years of biological and cultural evolution, human societies were able to make increasingly varied, sophisticated and specialized tools.

Near 8000 BC, people made the major technological advance of domesticating animals and plants.

Observations of a very early date that bear on their relationship have come down today from the civilization that developed in the Sumerians valley of the Euphrates and Tigris.

Large scales of agriculture began when the valley first hooked animals up to a plow and to wheeled carts. These peoples also built ships, which mean they soon need to devise methods of navigation across the sea.

Thus the demand of agriculture, the first occupation, after hunting for which man became organized, led to the accumulation of knowledge and to processes of generalization. The advanced were purely practical but they were some of the earliest examples of people using logic and putting ideas together of understand some small part of the word.

The early part of this agriculture revolution or Neolithic revolution also occurred independently in the Middle East, the orient, New Guinea and the Americas.

A settled agricultural civilization demands tools. Technology developed. The age of stone passed into the age of metals.

The treatments of ores and the working of metals called for a class with special knowledge. Copper was the first metal to be employed and it was in use from as early as 64000 BC, initiating a period sometimes called the Copper Age.

The development of rights in land demanded some sort of surveying. Greek traditions has it that the inundation of the Nile, by obliterating all landmarks, forced on the Egyptian as annual re-measurement of their field. Thus geometry was born.

Major developments of the period following the agriculture revolution were largely in astronomy, mathematics and technology.
Agriculture in History