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Food Revolution
In today’s world, it doesn’t take much work to figure out where food is located. If the snack you’re craving isn’t in your kitchen, you can probably find it at a corner shop. Finding our food has not always been quite so simple, however. Researchers say that the search for food was once one of the most important activities in people’s lives. This all began to change around twelve thousand years ago, during a time period known as the Agricultural Revolution.
Before the Agricultural Revolution, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. These people spent much of their time searching for roots, nuts and fruits they could eat. They also invented ways to catch wild animals. Hunter-gatherers moved around in small groups to follow food sources through different seasons. Though some groups had seasonal camps, they didn’t have homes for year-round use. Then, beginning around twelve thousand years ago, several different small groups around the world found new ways to obtain food.
In the Middle East, people began planting their own wheat and barley so they wouldn’t have to search for it. They also learned to tame goats and sheep, which were once wild animals. East Asians grew rice as a crop and tamed water buffalo, pigs and chickens. In the Americas, squash, potatoes and corn were early crops, and some groups domesticated wild turkeys and guinea pigs. Now all these people had stable food supplies. This revolutionary change meant humans could settle into permanent villages, building homes where they could live their whole lives. Populations grew, and villages slowly became cities.
Larger societies, or civilisations, grew at different rates in different parts of the world. In the Middle East, large civilisations came soon after people started farming. In the Americas, there was a larger gap between the start of the Agricultural Revolution and the first large civilisations. Some researchers think this difference may have been connected to the types of plants and animals available. For example, corn was an important crop in the Americas, but early corn had tiny cobs. It took a long time for people to develop modern corn with large cobs. It might be that large Central American cities could only develop after corn became large enough to feed more people.
Most of the new agricultural societies developed in similar ways across the globe. The larger settlements led to a new kind of life. Since not everyone had to focus on getting food, people could spend time in other ways. Though some people still grew food and herded animals, others became builders, artists, priests and merchants. Trading became a way of life in many places. People created governments to run the new societies, as well as armies to keep them safe. Though these changes happened over time, many historians agree that they were all sparked by the invention of agriculture. This new way of getting food changed human history. And it continues to be an important part of the way we live today.