Introduction

One of the most radical changes in human history is the domestication of plants and
animals, which has been called, quite vaguely, the Neolithic Revolution. It spread all over
many continents between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago and radically changed relationships
between people and their environments, societies, and technology. These details of dates
and determinants differed from one region to another, but environmental, technological,
social, and cultural factors as a whole paved the way for human societies to cultivate
agriculture and domesticate animals.

Environmental Changes

This is probably one of the most important factors that determined the onset of agriculture
as human societies went from a life of hunting and gathering. Global climatic conditions
became stabilized around 11,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Favorable and
hospitable conditions for plant and animal life emerged with advancements in retreating
glaciers, higher temperatures, and more rainfall. This allowed conditions favorable for the
cultivation of wild grains, and it was highly conducive to sustain huge populations of
animals, especially in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, the Yangtze River Valley in
China, and the highlands of Mesoamerica.

This includes much wild wheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent, which are large herbivores
like sheep and goats, an opportunity for early domestication. When climatic conditions
improved such that human populations settled in one place for a longer period
appropriating predictable resource availability, it invited stability to experiment on seed
planting and animal domestication, thus slowly leading away from foraging into farming.

Not all of the regions, however changed overnight to their new environmental conditions.
Parts of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as the Americas had much more unstable climates or
were deserts. Their transition to agriculture was slowed or took the form of something very
different than what we see today. Maybe human societies were pastoral or mixed
economies, operating on a combination of hunting, gathering, and small-scale farming until
conditions became favorable to a more sedentary agricultural way of life.
Technological Change

High technology was the principal driving force in this first transition to food-producing economies.
Pristine societies in early adapting to improve their environments formed the foundation for
agriculture. First, their use of stones as early as the sickle in harvesting wild grains to combine with
digging sticks and, finally, the plow in land preparation. Then, there's the irrigation methods
developed. And while this was of special significance during arid periods-an arid period
Mesopotamia and Egypt certainly were-artificial canals for water enabled agriculture to be practiced
in areas that otherwise would not have supported farming.

Crop and animal domestication was the third most significant technological innovation. Humans
selected which plants and animals were bred specifically to create plants and animals that favored
desirable characteristics, such as higher yields or docility. Domestication of wheat, barley, lentils, and
peas was done by farmers in the Fertile Crescent, and wild sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs were
domesticated as well. Maize or corn, as it is known in Mesoamerica, was domesticated from wild
grasses through patient selection of plant species with desirable traits over many generations.

There was a shift in storage technologies with the advent of agriculture, namely granaries, leading to
an accumulation of surpluses. Now that surplus was needed to sustain big populations and ensure
the security of food when scarce. Pottery developing at this point went further in offering better
storage and food preparation in order to facilitate easier and quicker processing and preservation of
agricultural crops
Social Structures

Actually, the shift from hunting-gathering to food production fundamentally altered social
structures, as compared to hunter-gatherers, small, mobile and egalitarian on the other
hand, hunter-gatherer groups had an active limit placed on social hierarchies enforced on
them by the imperatives of constant mobility and the scarcity of resources. Societies that
transformed into settled agricultural communities witnessed population growth take off in
hyperdrive. With the production of surplus food, more massive, sedentary populations
could now be created to sustain permanent settlements and increasingly complex social
hierarchies.

The division of labor becomes much more pronounced in early agricultural societies. For
many people, it wasn't necessary to work in food production. New roles emerge, with such
artifacts as artisans, traders, and religious leaders. This division of labor created room for
innovation in technology and growth in special skills that would fuel the developments of
these complex societies. In addition to this, food surpluses led to agriculture, which brought
about another factor contributing towards social inequalities. Land and surpluses of food
would therefore be found to be a source of power and influence over others and lead to
social stratification and eventually the development of political leaders such as the chieftain
or king.

Settlements also led to new forms of social organization. For example, with the emergence
of Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Uruk, approximately 4,000 BCE, was the birth of
urbanization, and these cities soon became regional hubs of trade, religion, and politics-this
leads to enhanced social stratification and politico-institutional systems. In Egypt and the
Indus Valley, among others, the same processes occurred; agriculture provided the
economic underpinning for the rise of the state and urban life.
Cultural Factors

Settling down to agriculture and domesticate had in large part been influenced by the cultural
practices and beliefs. Often a change of worldview would follow settling down and cultivating the
land. For hunter-gatherers, landscape is shared commons whose resources are held in common.
Agriculture as an activity concept, though requires the notion of property because land becomes a
source one comes to possess and cultivate and hand down to future generations. This would, of
course, require far-reaching cultural and ideological shifts.

Most early farming societies reflect the fact of farming in religious lives and cosmologies. Fertility
gods, harvest gods, and gods of the cycles of nature come centrally in religious life. For example, in
Mesopotamia, the goddess Inanna is connected with fertility and harvest. For the Egyptians, Osiris
was the god of agriculture and, specifically, of the Nile flood, which must happen every year to
ensure conditions for crop cultivation. Such religious systems legitimized the "agricultural mode of
living" and secured social structures which grew around food production.

This together with diffusion through trade and contact with other societies went to further diffuse
knowledge about agriculture. For example, the diffusion of horse domestication and pastoral know-
how in Central Asia has been eased with distribution of products accompanying knowledge such as
techniques knowledge about agriculture. In other areas especially Southeast Asia, the civilization of
rice is definitely a consequence of contact with their neighboring agricultural societies.
Conclusion

It took many thousand years to transition from hunting-gathering to food-producing economies, so

in different parts of the world. Environmental changes that provided an initial condition for plant
and animal domestication are not only the environmental changes but also technological
innovations of tools, irrigation, and other methods of storing food. The appearance of agricultural
societies marked the beginning of major changes in social structures of growth in population,
permanent settlement, and complex hierarchies. Cultural factors yield with beliefs in religion and
through the dispersal of knowledge by trade that promotes practice in agriculture.

This brought the modern civilizations about and still effects the societies today. Understanding the
cause and effects that came by with this change allows one to better understand the human
transformations in the way of how to adapt, environmental innovation of technology and best
configuration that later gave shape to the course of human history.

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References

1. Childe, V. G. (1936). Man Makes Himself. Watts & Co.

2. Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton &
Company .

3. Smith, B. D. (1998). The Emergence of Agriculture. Scientific American Library .

4. Barker, G. (2006). The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers?
Oxford University Press .

5. Bellwood, P. (2005). First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Blackwell Publishing