The Development of Agriculture

The Neolithic Revolution was what moved humanity from a nomadic hunter-gatherer community to a settled agrarian one. During this period, these nomadic tribes would settle down for enough time to inspect and study the flora and fauna around them, gaining an understanding of how to grow and harvest the plants for food, and how to domesticate both plants and animals. With a mostly steady supply of food, communities would not have to focus most of their time hunting and scavenging for food, always on the move to wherever the food was.

This took in varying times in different regions, all mostly during the Neolithic Age, about 12,000 years ago until 1700 B.C.

In the Stone Age, stone tools were already being used, but during the Neolithic Age, they began to be improved and modified for new usage. Rocks with a high percentage of silicium dioxide tended to be the best material suited for tools. Tools like blades began to replace scrapers for butchering and skinning animals, arrows and bows were being used along with improved spears.

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The polished stone axe was one of the most important Neolithic inventions, as it made the clearing of the land for agricultural purposes much easier. Adzes began appearing, which were useful for hollowing out a log and crafting canoes, while larger ones were good for digging holes, removing roots from the ground, and planting seeds. Hammer and chisels were mostly used for woodwork.

After the discovery of agriculture and the domestication of livestock, other developments started occurring with the Neolithic Revolution, such as trade, writing, political structures, basic architecture, organized militias, private property, specialized and division of labor, and much more.

It was necessary for these developing societies to adopt the use of numbers, calendars, laws, alphabets, etc… if they wanted to evolve from a semi-civilization to a full-fledged civilization. Numbers and letters made it much easier to record transactions, important messages, orders, laws, and other essential components of civilization, than relying on memory and word of mouth. Laws were necessary to keep order in such a densely populated community. Calendars made it easier to record important dates, commitments, religious ceremonies, eclipses, and others. With the growth of trade and interaction with nearby tribes, these components were very useful for establishing order in their own land and dealing with hostility from other communities.

Unfortunately, the change of a dietary lifestyle in the Neolithic Revolution did lower the quality of life for the average settled person. Their diets were narrowed down to mostly cereals and milk, and it also promoted a sedentary lifestyle, in contrast to hunter-gatherer societies. The average person was now smaller than the average hunter-gatherer, and they also developed a wide variety of diseases, such as chronic, inflammatory, or degenerative diseases, and nutritional deficiencies. It may look like a contradiction that settled communities that grew faster than hunter-gatherer communities lived shorter lives, but that's because settled communities, despite the malnutrition, had a surplus of food that hunter-gatherers just didn't. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the average person in the West grew back to hunter-gatherer era heights.

The world population did not rise for millennia after the Neolithic Revolution, humans were still getting accustomed to their new lifestyle and finding ways to improve their communities. Although, not all were purely agrarian societies, as many of those living in less fertile regions, survived on a mix of agriculture, hunting, and raiding nearby tribes. These ones tended not to have developed numbers and the alphabet.

Harlan, Jack R. (1992). Crops & Man: Views on Agricultural Origins ASA, CSA, Madison, WI. https://web.archive.org/web/20060819110723/http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture03/r_3-1.html

Kuijt, Ian; Finlayson, Bill. (2009). "Evidence for food storage and pre domestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley". PNAS, Vol. 106, No. 27, pp. 10966–10970.

Waugh, Rick. (2018, April 23). List of Neolithic Stone Tools.
https://sciencing.com/list-neolithic-stone-tools-8252604.html