View source for Neolithic Revolution

{{Short description|Transition in human history from hunter-gatherer to settled peoples}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
[[File:Fertile crescent Neolithic B circa 7500 BC.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Map of Southwest Asia showing the main archaeological sites of the [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic]] period, {{circa|7500&nbsp;BCE}}, in the "[[Fertile Crescent]]". Black squares indicate pre-agricultural sites.]]
{{Human history}}
{{History of technology sidebar}}

The '''Neolithic Revolution''', also known as the ''' First Agricultural Revolution''', was the wide-scale transition of many [[human culture]]s during the [[Neolithic]] period in [[Afro-Eurasia]] from a lifestyle of [[hunter-gatherer|hunting and gathering]] to one of [[agriculture]] and [[sedentism|settlement]], making an increasingly large population possible.<ref name=SCNDR>{{cite journal |title=When the World's Population Took Off: The Springboard of the Neolithic Demographic Transition |journal=Science |date=29 July 2011 |volume=333 |issue=6042 |pages=560–561 |doi=10.1126/science.1208880 |author=Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel |bibcode=2011Sci...333..560B |pmid=21798934 |s2cid=29655920}}</ref> These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |title=Worlds together, worlds apart |edition=concise |volume=1 |last1=Pollard |first1=Elizabeth |last2=Rosenberg |first2=Clifford |last3=Tigor |first3=Robert |publisher = W.W. Norton & Company |year = 2015 |isbn = 978-0-393-25093-0 |location= New York |page = 23}}</ref> This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants into [[crop]]s.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Compare:{{cite book| last1 = Lewin| first1 = Roger| author-link1 = Roger Lewin| orig-date = 1984| chapter = 35: The origin of agriculture and the first villagers| title = Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xryuw8sqNsoC| edition = 5| location = Malden, Massachusetts| publisher = John Wiley & Sons| publication-date = 2009| page = 250| isbn = 978-1-4051-5614-1| access-date = 20 August 2017| quote = [...] The Neolithic transition involved increasing sedentism and social complexity, which was usually followed by the gradual adoption of plant and animal domestication. In some cases, however, plant domestication preceded sedentism, particularly in the New World.| date = 18 February 2009}}</ref>

Archaeological data indicate that the [[domestication]] of various types of [[plant]]s and animals happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the [[Geologic time scale|geological epoch]] of the [[Holocene]] around 11,700 years ago, after the end of the last Ice Age.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.westfalen-blatt.de/nachricht/2012-11-25-klimaschutz-die-ziele-schmelzen-dahin/613/
 |archive-url= https://archive.today/20130212172350/http://www.westfalen-blatt.de/nachricht/2012-11-25-klimaschutz-die-ziele-schmelzen-dahin/613/ |archive-date= 12 February 2013 |title= International Stratigraphic Chart  |publisher= [[International Commission on Stratigraphy]]  |access-date= 6 December 2012 }}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=November 2025|reason=Archived version is not on this same topic}} It was humankind's first historically verifiable transition to agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available, resulting in a decrease in the quality of human nutrition compared with that obtained previously from hunting and [[foraging]].<ref name=Armelagos2014>{{cite journal|last1= Armelagos|first1= George J.|title= Brain Evolution, the Determinates of Food Choice, and the Omnivore's Dilemma|journal= Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition|volume= 54|issue= 10|year= 2014|pages= 1330–1341|issn= 1040-8398|doi= 10.1080/10408398.2011.635817|pmid= 24564590|s2cid= 25488602}}</ref><ref name=":1" /><ref name=Larsen2006/>  However, because food production became more efficient, it released humans to invest their efforts in other activities and was thus "ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Weisdorf |first1=Jacob L. |title=From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution |journal=Journal of Economic Surveys |date=September 2005 |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=561–586 |doi=10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00259.x <!--|access-date=29 March 2023--> |s2cid=42777045 |url=https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/32255640/0341.pdf |access-date=12 June 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720010122/https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/32255640/0341.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Neolithic Revolution encompassed much more than just the introduction of various food production techniques. The cultivation of large areas of land and the erection of monumental structures such as [[Göbekli Tepe]] required a level of labour that the small groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers who had had hitherto dominated [[human prehistory]] could hardly have achieved on their own. Therefore, some modern scientists assume that the era discussed here was also accompanied by the establishment of cross-group organisations. The small communities, which had previously lived autonomously and often in armed competition with each other decided instead to cooperate, forming the first alliances (tribes),<ref>{{Cite web |last=Linsmeier |first=Klaus-Dieter |date=2005-10-14 |title=Eine Revolution im großen Stil |url=https://www.spektrum.de/magazin/eine-revolution-im-grossen-stil/836862 |website=Spektrum}}</ref> that began to [[Sedentism|settle down]] and build permanent villages near their agricultural land. Over the following millennia, the most successful of these may have grown into the [[City-state|city-states]], which are mentioned in the oldest written documents of mankind (cf. [[Shuruppak]]). These proverbially antediluvian societies radically modified their [[natural environment]] by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as [[irrigation]] and [[deforestation]] which allowed the production of surplus food. Other developments that began to spread during this period are the [[domestication of animals]], creating [[pottery]] and polished stone tools, and the change from round to rectangular dwellings. In many regions, the agricultural increase in soil productivity led to rapid population growth, a phenomenon known as the [[Neolithic demographic transition]].

These developments are sometimes called the '''Neolithic package'''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nowak |first=Marek |date=2022 |title=Do We Finally Know What the Neolithic Is? |journal=Open Archaeology |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=332–342 |doi=10.1515/opar-2020-0204 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Including earliest political alliances – whose massive influence on the landscape of ''[[:de:Eden_(Mesopotamien)|Eden]]'' may be impressively described in the [[Atrahasis epic]] –, they form the backdrop to an increasing [[division of labour]], leading to the emergence of centralised administrations and specialised crafts, corresponding to hierarchical [[ideologies]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000043086 |access-date=2023-10-18 |title=Violence and its causes |website=unesdoc.unesco.org}}</ref> expanding trade and military operations, depersonalised systems of knowledge (e.g. [[history of writing|writing]]), aggregation of [[property]]<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Childe |first=Vere Gordon |date=1950 |title=The Urban Revolution |journal=The Town Planning Review |publisher=[[Liverpool University Press]] |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=3–17 |doi=10.3828/tpr.21.1.k853061t614q42qh |issn=0041-0020 |jstor=40102108 |s2cid=39517784 }}</ref> and [[architecture]] in [[Population density|densely populated]] settlements, whose often halfsculpturally formed monumental [[art]] primarily proclaim the power of the founders depicted. 

Among the [[Cradle of civilization|oldest known large-scale structures]] in human history are the enclosures at Göbekli Tepe in southern Mesopotamia (built around [[12,000 BP]]); the earliest written records originate from the Sumerian [[Civilization|civilisation]], which also emerged in this part of the [[Fertile Crescent]] ({{circa| 6,500 [[Before Present|BP]]}}) and heralded the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url= https://www.worldhistory.org/Neolithic/|title= Neolithic Period|encyclopedia= [[World History Encyclopedia]]|first = Cristian |last=Violatti|date=2 April 2018}}</ref> The relationship of the aforementioned Neolithic characteristics to the onset of agriculture, their sequence of emergence, and their empirical relation to each other at various Neolithic sites remains the subject of academic debate. It is usually understood to vary from place to place, rather than being the outcome of universal laws of [[Sociocultural evolution|social evolution]].<ref>[http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/neolithic_agriculture.htm "The Slow Birth of Agriculture"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110101201656/http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/neolithic_agriculture.htm |date=1 January 2011 }}, [[Heather Pringle (writer)|Heather Pringle]]</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/middle_east/zawichemishanidar.html |title=Wizard Chemi Shanidar |work=EMuseum |publisher=[[Minnesota State University]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618214404/http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/middle_east/zawichemishanidar.html |archive-date=18 June 2008}}</ref>
==Background==
Prehistoric [[hunter-gatherer]]s had different [[subsistence]] requirements and lifestyles from agriculturalists. Hunter-gatherers were often highly mobile and migratory, living in temporary shelters and in small tribal groups, and having limited contact with outsiders. Their diet was well-balanced{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} though heavily dependent on what the environment could provide each season. In contrast, because the [[surplus product|surplus]] and [[food security|plannable supply]] of food provided by agriculture made it possible to support larger population groups, agriculturalists lived in more permanent dwellings in more densely populated [[human settlement|settlement]]s than what could be supported by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The agricultural communities' seasonal need to plan and coordinate [[resource management|resource]] and [[manpower]] encouraged [[division of labor|division of labour]], which gradually led to [[skilled worker|specialization of labourers]] and [[complex societies]]. The subsequent development of [[trading network]]s to exchange surplus commodities and services brought agriculturalists into contact with outside groups, which promoted [[Cultural globalization|cultural exchange]]s that led to the rise of [[civilization]]s and [[technological evolution]]s.<ref name=cambridge>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge World History of Food |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=46}}</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=August 2024 <!--Need at least the publication year and the volume.-->}}

However, higher population and food abundance did not necessarily correlate with improved health. Reliance on a very limited variety of [[staple crop]]s can adversely affect health even while making it possible to feed more people. As an example from the Americas, [[maize]] is deficient in certain essential [[amino acids]] ([[lysine]] and [[tryptophan]]) and is a poor source of [[iron]]. The [[phytic acid]] it contains may inhibit [[digestion|nutrient absorption]]. Other factors that likely affected the health of early agriculturalists and their domesticated [[livestock]] would have been increased numbers of [[parasites]] and disease-bearing pests associated with human waste and contaminated food and water supplies. [[Fertilizer]]s and [[irrigation]] may have increased crop yields but also would have promoted proliferation of [[insect]]s and [[bacteria]] in the local environment while grain storage attracted additional insects and [[rodents]].<ref name=cambridge/>

==Agricultural transition==
{{See also|Ancient grains}}
{{stack|
[[File:Evolution of temperature in the Post-Glacial period according to Groeanland ice cores.jpg|thumb|upright=2|Evolution of temperatures in the Post-Glacial period after the [[Last Glacial Maximum]] (LGM) according to [[Greenland ice cores]]. The birth of agriculture corresponds to the period of quickly rising temperature at the end of the cold spell of the [[Younger Dryas]] and the beginning of the long and warm period of the [[Holocene]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zalloua |first1=Pierre A. |last2=Matisoo-Smith |first2=Elizabeth |title=Mapping Post-Glacial expansions: The Peopling of Southwest Asia |journal=Scientific Reports |date=2017-01-06 |volume=7 |article-number=40338 |doi=10.1038/srep40338 |pmid=28059138 |pmc=5216412 |language=en |issn=2045-2322|bibcode=2017NatSR...740338P }}</ref>]]
[[File:Centres of origin and spread of agriculture.svg|thumb|upright=2.0|Map of the world showing approximate centres of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistory: the Fertile Crescent (11,000 BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins (9,000 BP) and the Papua New Guinea Highlands (9,000–6,000 BP), Central Mexico (5,000–4,000 BP), Northern South America (5,000–4,000 BP), sub-Saharan Africa (5,000–4,000 BP, exact location unknown), eastern North America (4,000–3,000 BP).<ref name="DiamondandBellwood2003">{{Cite journal |  doi = 10.1126/science.1078208 | last1 = Diamond | first1 = J.|author-link1=Jared Diamond | last2 = Bellwood | first2 = P. | title = Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions | journal = Science | volume = 300 | issue = 5619 | pages = 597–603 | year = 2003 | pmid = 12714734|bibcode = 2003Sci...300..597D | citeseerx = 10.1.1.1013.4523 | s2cid = 13350469 }}</ref>]]
[[File:Associations of wild cereals and other wild grasses in northern Israel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Associations of wild cereals and other wild grasses in Israel.{{Explain|date=August 2024|reason=Which ones are cerals, which ones are grasses?  They are obviously similar, but what is this supposed to explain?}}]]
}}
The term 'neolithic revolution' was invented by [[V. Gordon Childe]] in his book ''Man Makes Himself'' (1936).<ref name = ManChilde>{{Cite book|title=Man Makes Himself|last=Childe|first=Vere Gordon|publisher=Watts & Company|year=1936|location=London|language= en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brami|first=Maxime N.|date=1 December 2019|title=The Invention of Prehistory and the Rediscovery of Europe: Exploring the Intellectual Roots of Gordon Childe's 'Neolithic Revolution' (1936)|journal=Journal of World Prehistory |language= en |volume=32|issue=4|pages=311–351|doi=10.1007/s10963-019-09135-y|s2cid=211663314|issn=1573-7802}}</ref> Childe introduced it as the first in a series of agricultural revolutions in [[Middle East]]ern history,<ref name="7.6: Neolithic Revolution">{{Cite web |date=2018-04-28 |title=7.6: Neolithic Revolution |url=https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Anthropology/Cultural_Anthropology/Cultural_Anthropology_(Evans)/07%3A_Economic_Organization/7.06%3A_Neolithic_Revolution |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Social Sci LibreTexts |language=en}}</ref> calling it a "revolution" to denote its significance, the degree of change to communities adopting and refining agricultural practices.<ref name="7.6: Neolithic Revolution"/>

The beginning of this process in different regions has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BCE in the [[Fertile Crescent]],<ref name=Barker2009 /><ref name=Thissen2002>Thissen, L. "Appendix I, The CANeW 14C databases, Anatolia 10,000–5000 cal. BC." in: F. Gérard and L. Thissen (eds.), '' The Neolithic of Central Anatolia. Internal developments and external relations during the 9th–6th millennia cal BC'', Proc. Int. CANeW Round Table, Istanbul 23–24 November 2001, (2002)</ref> and perhaps 8000 BCE in the [[Kuk Swamp|Kuk Early Agricultural Site]] of Papua New Guinea in [[Melanesia]].<ref name="Denham2003">{{cite journal |last1=Denham |first1=Tim P. |year=2003 |title=Origins of Agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea |journal=Science |volume=301 |issue=5630 |pages=189–193 |doi=10.1126/science.1085255 |pmid=12817084 |last2=Haberle |first2=S. G. |last3=Fullagar |first3=R |last4=Field |first4=J |last5=Therin |first5=M |last6=Porch |first6=N |last7=Winsborough |first7=B |s2cid=10644185 |url=http://faculty.washington.edu/plape/pacificarchaut12/Denham%20et%20al%202003.pdf |access-date=4 December 2019 |s2cid-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/887|title = Kuk Early Agricultural Site|website = UNESCO World Heritage Centre|access-date = 26 December 2019|archive-date = 22 January 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230122191357/https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/887/|url-status = live}}</ref> Everywhere, this transition is associated with a change from a largely [[nomadic]] [[hunter-gatherer]] way of life to a more [[settler|settled]], agrarian one, with the [[domestication]] of various plant and animal species – depending on the species locally available, and influenced by local culture. Archaeological research in 2003 suggests that in some regions, such as the Southeast Asian peninsula, the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist was not linear, but region-specific.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kealhofer |first=Lisa |title=Looking into the gap: land use and the tropical forests of southern Thailand |s2cid-access=free |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/bca88418-eefc-4bc9-aa07-cf7dd48b5eb7 |via=ScholarSpace |journal=Asian Perspectives |date=2003 |volume=42 |issue=1|pages=72–95 |doi=10.1353/asi.2003.0022|hdl=10125/17181 |s2cid=162916204 |hdl-access=free |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240922001547/https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9544b606-9484-4a40-853d-e6df3341849b/content |archive-date= Sep 22, 2024 }}</ref>
*

==Domestication==
{{Main|Domestication}}

=== Crops ===
Once agriculture started gaining momentum, around 9000 BP, human activity resulted in the [[selective breeding]] of cereal grasses (beginning with [[emmer]], [[einkorn]] and [[barley]]), and not simply of those that favoured greater caloric returns through larger seeds. Plants with traits such as small seeds or bitter taste were seen as undesirable. Plants that rapidly shed their seeds on maturity tended not to be gathered at harvest, therefore not stored and not seeded the following season; successive years of harvesting spontaneously selected for strains that retained their edible seeds longer.

[[File:Orange slice1.jpg|thumb|left|An "Orange slice" sickle blade element with inverse, discontinuous retouch on each side, not denticulated. Found in large quantities at Qaraoun II and often with [[Heavy Neolithic]] tools in the flint workshops of the [[Beqaa Valley]] in [[Lebanon]]. Suggested by [[James Mellaart]] to be older than the [[Pottery Neolithic]] of [[Byblos]] (around 8,400 cal. BP).]]
[[Daniel Zohary]] identified several plant species as "pioneer crops" or [[Neolithic founder crops]]. He highlighted the importance of wheat, barley and rye, and suggested that domestication of [[flax]], [[pea]]s, [[chickpea]]s, [[Vicia ervilia|bitter vetch]] and [[lentil]]s came a little later. Based on analysis of the [[gene]]s of domesticated plants, he preferred theories of a single, or at most a very small number of domestication events for each [[taxon]] that spread in an arc from the [[Levantine corridor]] around the [[Fertile Crescent]] and later into Europe.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRi1AAAAIAAJ&q=The+Origins+and+Spread+of+Agriculture+and+Pastoralism+in+Eurasia|title=Origins & Spread Agric Past |editor-first=David R |editor-last= Harris |date=17 April 1996|publisher=Smithsonian|isbn=978-1-56098-676-8 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=Monophyletic vs. polyphyletic origin of the crops on which agriculture was founded in the Near East|first=Daniel|last=Zohary|date=1 April 1999|journal=Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution|volume=46|issue=2|pages=133–142|via=Springer Link|doi=10.1023/A:1008692912820|bibcode=1999GRCEv..46..133Z |s2cid=9529895 }}</ref> [[Gordon Hillman]] and Stuart Davies carried out experiments with varieties of wild wheat to show that the process of domestication would have occurred over a relatively short period of between 20 and 200 years.<ref>{{cite book | editor-last=Anderson | editor-first=PC | last1 = Hillman | first1 = G. C | last2 = Davies | first2 = M. S.  | title=Préhistoire de l'agriculture: nouvelles approches expérimentales et ethnographiques | publisher=Editions du CNRS | publication-place=Paris | date=1992 | isbn=978-2-222-04546-5 | pages= 124–132 | chapter = Domestication rate in wild wheats and barley under primitive cultivation: preliminary results and archaeological implications of field measurements of selection coefficient | series = Monographie du CRA 6 }}</ref>

Some of the pioneering attempts failed at first and crops were abandoned, sometimes to be taken up again and successfully domesticated thousands of years later: [[rye]], tried and abandoned in Neolithic [[Anatolia]], made its way to Europe as weed seeds and was successfully domesticated in Europe, thousands of years after the earliest agriculture.<ref name="Weiss2006">{{cite journal |last1=Weiss |first1=Ehud |last2=Kislev |first2=Mordechai E. |last3=Hartmann |first3=Anat |year=2006 |title=Autonomous Cultivation Before Domestication |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=312 |issue=5780 |pages=1608–1610 |doi=10.1126/science.1127235 |pmid=16778044 |s2cid=83125044 }}</ref> Wild lentils presented a different problem: most of the wild seeds do not germinate in the first year; the first evidence of lentil domestication, breaking dormancy in their first year, appears in the early Neolithic at [[Jerf el Ahmar]] (in modern Syria), and lentils quickly spread south to the [[Netiv HaGdud]] site in the [[Jordan Valley (Middle East)|Jordan Valley]].<ref name="Weiss2006" /> The process of domestication allowed the founder crops to adapt and eventually become larger, more easily harvested, more dependable{{clarify|date= November 2016}} in storage and more useful to the human population.

[[File:Molino neolítico de vaivén.jpg|thumb|Neolithic grindstone or [[quern-stone|quern]] for processing grain]]
Selectively propagated [[ficus|figs]], wild barley and wild oats were cultivated at the early Neolithic site of [[Gilgal I]], where in 2006<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060602074522.htm|title= Tamed 11,400 Years Ago, Figs Were Likely First Domesticated Crop|website= ScienceDaily|date= 4 June 2006|access-date= 28 February 2018|archive-date= 6 October 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20191006225516/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060602074522.htm|url-status= live}}</ref> archaeologists found caches of seeds of each in quantities too large to be accounted for even by [[intensive gathering]], at strata datable to {{circa}} 11,000 years ago. Some of the plants tried and then abandoned during the Neolithic period in the Ancient Near East, at sites like Gilgal, were later successfully domesticated in other parts of the world.

Once early farmers perfected their agricultural techniques like [[irrigation]] (traced as far back as the 6th millennium BCE in [[Khuzistan]]<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Flannery
 | first1 = Kent V.
 | author-link1 = Kent V. Flannery
 | year = 1969
 | chapter = Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East
 | editor1-last = Ucko
 | editor1-first = Peter John
 | editor1-link = Peter John Ucko
 | editor2-last = Dimbleby
 | editor2-first = G. W.
 | title = The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals
 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6lY9Q4vnrCEC
 | location = New Brunswick, New Jersey
 | publisher = Transaction Publishers
 | publication-date = 2007
 | page = 89
 | isbn = 978-0-202-36557-2
 | access-date = 12 January 2019
 | quote = Our earliest evidence for this new technology comes [...] from the lowland steppe of Khuzistan. [...] Once irrigation appeared, the steppe greatly increased its carrying capacity and became, in fact, the dominant growth centre of the Zagros region between 5500 and 4000 B.C.
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Lawton
 | first1 = H. W.
 | last2 = Wilke
 | first2 = P. J.
 | year = 1979
 | chapter = Ancient Agricultural Systems in Dry Regions of the Old World
 | editor1-last = Hall
 | editor1-first = A. E.
 | editor2-last = Cannell
 | editor2-first = G. H.
 | editor3-last = Lawton
 | editor3-first = H.W.
 | title = Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environments
 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e67tCAAAQBAJ
 | series = Ecological Studies
 | volume = 34
 | edition = reprint
 | location = Berlin
 | publisher = Springer Science & Business Media
 | publication-date = 2012
 | page = 13
 | isbn = 978-3-642-67328-3
 | access-date = 12 January 2019
 | quote = Archeological investigations on the Deh Luran Plain of Iran have provided a model for the internal dynamics of the culture sequence of prehistoric Khuzistan [...]. Somewhere between 5500 and 5000 B.C. in the Sabz phase of the Deh Luran Plain, irrigation water was apparently diverted from stream channels in a fashion similar to that employed in early Mesopotamia.
}}
</ref>), their crops [[Crop yield|yielded]] surpluses that needed storage. Most hunter-gatherers could not easily store food for long due to their migratory lifestyle, whereas those with a sedentary dwelling could store their surplus grain. Eventually [[granary|granaries]] were developed that allowed villages to store their seeds longer. So with more food, the population expanded and communities developed specialized workers and more advanced tools.

The process was not as linear as was once thought, but a more complicated effort, which was undertaken by different human populations in different regions in many different ways.
[[File:Genetic analysis on the spread of barley from 9000 to 2000 BCE.jpg|thumb|Genetic analysis on the spread of barley from 9,000 to 2,000 BP<ref name="BHE" />]]

One of the world's most important crops, [[barley]], was domesticated in the Near East around 11,000 years ago ({{circa|9,000 BCE}}).<ref name="BHE" /> Barley is a highly resilient crop, able to grow in varied and marginal environments, such as in regions of high altitude and latitude.<ref name="BHE" /> Archaeobotanical evidence shows that barley had spread throughout Eurasia by 2,000 BCE.<ref name="BHE" /> To further elucidate the routes by which barley cultivation was spread through Eurasia, genetic analysis was used to determine genetic diversity and population structure in extant barley taxa.<ref name="BHE" /> Genetic analysis shows that cultivated barley spread through Eurasia via several different routes, which were most likely separated in both time and space.<ref name="BHE">[[File:CC-BY icon.svg|50px]] Material was copied from this source, which is available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |date=16 October 2017 }} {{cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Martin K. |last2=Kovaleva |first2=Olga |title=Barley heads east: Genetic analyses reveal routes of spread through diverse Eurasian landscapes |journal=PLOS ONE |date=18 July 2018 |volume=13 |issue=7 |article-number=e0196652 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0196652 |pmid=30020920 |pmc=6051582 |language=en |issn=1932-6203|bibcode=2018PLoSO..1396652L |doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Livestock ===
{{Main|Domestication of animals}}

When hunter-gathering began to be replaced by sedentary food production it became more efficient to keep animals close at hand. Therefore, it became necessary to bring animals permanently to their settlements, although in many cases there was a distinction between relatively sedentary farmers and nomadic herders.<ref>{{Cite news |title=The Development of Agriculture |url=https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/development-of-agriculture/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414142437/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/development-of-agriculture/ |archive-date=14 April 2016 |access-date=21 July 2017 |work=Genographic Project |language=en-US}}</ref>{{original research inline|date=November 2016}} The animals' size, temperament, diet, mating patterns, and life span were factors in the desire and success in domesticating animals. Animals that provided milk, such as cows and goats, offered a source of protein that was renewable and therefore quite valuable. The animal's ability as a worker (for example ploughing or towing), as well as a food source, also had to be taken into account. Besides being a direct source of food, certain animals could provide leather, wool, hides, and fertilizer. Some of the earliest domesticated animals included [[Origin of the domestic dog|dogs]] ([[East Asia]], about 15,000 years ago),<ref>{{Cite news |last=McGourty |first=Christine |date=22 November 2002 |title=Origin of dogs traced |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2498669.stm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102051347/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2498669.stm |archive-date=2 November 2019 |access-date=29 November 2006 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> sheep, goats, cows, and pigs.[[File:Menare.jpg|Dromedary caravan in Algeria|thumb|right]]

West Asia was the source for many animals that could be domesticated, such as sheep, goats and pigs. This area was also the first region to [[domesticate]] the [[dromedary]]. [[Henri Fleisch]] discovered and termed the [[Shepherd Neolithic]] [[flint]] industry from the [[Bekaa Valley]] in [[Lebanon]] and suggested that it could have been used by the earliest [[nomad]]ic [[shepherd]]s. He dated this industry to the [[Epipaleolithic]] or [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic]] as it is evidently not [[Paleolithic]], [[Mesolithic]] or even [[Pottery]] [[Neolithic]].<ref name="CopelandWescombe1966" /><ref>Fleisch, Henri., Notes de Préhistoire Libanaise : 1) Ard es Saoude. 2) La Bekaa Nord. 3) Un polissoir en plein air. BSPF, vol. 63.</ref>

The presence of these animals gave the region a large advantage in cultural and economic development. As the climate in the Middle East changed and became drier, many of the farmers were forced to leave, taking their domesticated animals with them. It was this massive emigration from the Middle East that later helped distribute these animals to the rest of [[Afroeurasia]]. This emigration was mainly on an east–west axis of similar climates, as crops usually have a narrow optimal climatic range outside of which they cannot grow for reasons of light or rain changes. For instance, wheat does not normally grow in tropical climates, just like tropical crops such as bananas do not grow in colder climates. Some authors, like [[Jared Diamond]], have postulated that this east–west axis is the main reason why plant and animal domestication spread so quickly from the [[Fertile Crescent]] to the rest of Eurasia and North Africa, while it did not reach through the north–south axis of [[Africa]] to reach the Mediterranean climates of [[South Africa]], where temperate crops were successfully imported by ships in the last 500 years.<ref name="diamond" /> Similarly, the African [[Zebu]] of central Africa and the domesticated bovines of the fertile-crescent – separated by the dry sahara desert – were not introduced into each other's region.

==Centers of agricultural origin==
{{Main|Vavilov center}}

===West Asia===
{{main|Origins of agriculture in West Asia|Neolithic in the Near East}}

[[File:Asikli Hoyuk sarah c murray 6176.jpg|upright=1.5|thumb|The Neolithic is characterized by fixed human settlements and the [[invention of agriculture]] from {{circa|10,000 BP}}. Reconstitution of [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic B]] housing in [[Aşıklı Höyük]], modern [[Turkey]].]][[File:Composite Sickles for Cereal Harvesting at 23,000-Years-Old Ohalo II, Israel.jpg|thumb|Composite sickles for cereal harvesting at 23,000-Years-Old]]
[[Use-wear analysis]] of five [[Sickle-gloss|glossed]] flint blades found at [[Ohalo II]], a 23,000-years-old fisher-hunter-gatherers' camp on the shore of the [[Sea of Galilee]], Northern [[Israel]], provides the earliest evidence for the use of composite cereal harvesting tools.<ref name="CSCH">{{cite journal |last1=Nadel |first1=Dani |last2=Weiss |first2=Ehud |last3=Groman-Yaroslavski |first3=Iris |date=23 November 2016 |title=Composite Sickles and Cereal Harvesting Methods at 23,000-Years-Old Ohalo II, Israel |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=11 |issue=11 |article-number=e0167151 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1167151G |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0167151 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=5120854 |pmid=27880839 |bibcode-access=free |doi-access=free}} [[File:CC-BY_icon.svg|50x50px]] Material was copied from this source, which is available under a [[creativecommons:by/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]].</ref> The Ohalo site is at the junction of the [[Upper Paleolithic]] and the Early [[Epipaleolithic]], and has been attributed to both periods.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Enzel |first1=Yehouda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hhSVDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA335 |title=Quaternary of the Levant |last2=Bar-Yosef |first2=Ofer |date=2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-09046-0 |page=335 |language=en}}</ref>

The wear traces indicate that tools were used for harvesting near-ripe semi-green wild cereals, shortly before grains are ripe and disperse naturally.<ref name="CSCH" /> The studied tools were not used intensively, and they reflect two harvesting modes: flint knives held by hand and inserts hafted in a handle.<ref name="CSCH" /> The finds shed new light on cereal harvesting techniques some 8,000 years before the [[Natufian]] and 12,000 years before the establishment of sedentary farming communities in the Near East.<ref name="CSCH" /> Furthermore, the new finds accord well with evidence for the earliest ever cereal cultivation at the site and the use of stone-made grinding implements.<ref name="CSCH" />

Agriculture appeared first in [[West Asia]] about 10,000–9,000 years ago. The region was the centre of domestication for three cereals (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat and barley), four legumes (lentil, pea, bitter vetch and chickpea), and flax. Domestication was a slow process that unfolded across multiple regions, and was preceded by centuries if not [[millennia]] of pre-domestication cultivation.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1= Brown | first1= T. A. | last2= Jones | first2= M. K. | last3= Powell | first3= W. | last4= Allaby | first4= R. G. | title= The complex origins of domesticated crops in the Fertile Crescent | doi= 10.1016/j.tree.2008.09.008 | pmid= 19100651 | journal= Trends in Ecology & Evolution | volume= 24 | issue= 2 | pages= 103–109 | year= 2009 | bibcode= 2009TEcoE..24..103B | url= http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/367/1/WRAP_Allaby_.pdf | access-date= 8 November 2018 | archive-date= 13 February 2016 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160213102347/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/367/1/WRAP_Allaby_.pdf | url-status= live }}</ref>

Other sites in the [[Levantine corridor]] that show early evidence of agriculture include [[Wadi Faynan 16]] and [[Netiv Hagdud]].<ref name="Barker2009">{{cite book |author=Graeme Barker |title=The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fkifXu2gx4YC |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-955995-4}}</ref> [[Jacques Cauvin]] noted that the settlers of Aswad did not domesticate on site, but ''"arrived, perhaps from the neighbouring [[Anti-Lebanon]], already equipped with the seed for planting"''.<ref name="Cauvin2000">{{cite book |author=Jacques Cauvin |title=The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, p. 53 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z4epGQpNyucC |access-date=15 August 2012 |year=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-65135-6}}</ref> In the Eastern Fertile Crescent, evidence of cultivation of wild plants has been found in [[Chogha Golan|Choga Gholan]] in [[Iran]] dated to 12,000 BP, with domesticated emmer wheat appearing in 9,800 BP, suggesting there may have been multiple regions in the Fertile Crescent where cereal domestication evolved roughly contemporaneously.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Riehl|first1=Simone|last2=Zeidi|first2=Mohsen|last3=Conard|first3=Nicholas|date=5 July 2013|title=Emergence of Agriculture in the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245539035|journal=Science|volume=341|issue=6141|pages=65–7|doi=10.1126/science.1236743|pmid=23828939|bibcode=2013Sci...341...65R|s2cid=45375155|access-date=8 November 2018|archive-date=23 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200523072032/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245539035_Emergence_of_Agriculture_in_the_Foothills_of_the_Zagros_Mountains_of_Iran|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Heavy Neolithic]] [[Qaraoun culture]] has been identified at around fifty sites in Lebanon around the source springs of the [[River Jordan]], but never reliably dated.<ref name="PeltenburgWasse2004">{{cite book |author1=Peltenburg, E.J. |author2=Wasse, Alexander |author3=Council for British Research in the Levant |title=Maya Haïdar Boustani, Flint workshops of the Southern Beqa' valley (Lebanon): preliminary results from Qar'oun* in Neolithic revolution: new perspectives on southwest Asia in light of recent discoveries on Cyprus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6mKBAAAAMAAJ  |year=2004 |publisher=Oxbow Books |isbn=978-1-84217-132-5}}</ref><ref name="CopelandWescombe1966">{{cite book |author1=L. Copeland |author2=P. Wescombe |title=Inventory of Stone-Age Sites in Lebanon: North, South and East-Central Lebanon |page=89 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhPRQwAACAAJ |year=1966 |publisher=Imprimerie Catholique}}</ref>

===East Asia===
{{See also|Rice domestication|Neolithic China|Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia}}
[[File:Spatial distribution of rice, millet and mixed farming sites with a boundary of rice and millet and possible centers of agriculture.png|thumb|upright=1.3|Spatial distribution of rice, millet and mixed farming sites in [[Neolithic China]] (He ''et al.'', 2017)<ref name="He2017">{{cite journal |last1=He |first1=Keyang |last2=Lu |first2=Houyuan |last3=Zhang |first3=Jianping |last4=Wang |first4=Can |last5=Huan |first5=Xiujia |title=Prehistoric evolution of the dualistic structure mixed rice and millet farming in China |journal=The Holocene |date=7 June 2017 |volume=27 |issue=12 |pages=1885–1898 |doi=10.1177/0959683617708455 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317400332 |bibcode=2017Holoc..27.1885H |s2cid=133660098 |access-date=23 January 2019 |archive-date=20 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120221221/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317400332_Prehistoric_evolution_of_the_dualistic_structure_mixed_rice_and_millet_farming_in_China |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

Agriculture in [[Neolithic China]] can be separated into two broad regions, Northern China and Southern China.<ref name="He2017" /><ref name="Bellwood2011" />

The agricultural centre in northern China is believed to be the homelands of the early [[Sino-Tibetan]]-speakers, associated with the [[Houli culture|Houli]], [[Peiligang culture|Peiligang]], [[Cishan culture|Cishan]], and [[Xinglongwa]] [[Archaeological culture|cultures]], clustered around the [[Yellow River]] basin.<ref name="He2017" /><ref name="Bellwood2011">{{cite journal |last1=Bellwood |first1=Peter |title=The Checkered Prehistory of Rice Movement Southwards as a Domesticated Cereal – from the Yangzi to the Equator |journal=Rice |date=9 December 2011 |volume=4 |issue=3–4 |pages=93–103 |doi=10.1007/s12284-011-9068-9 |s2cid=44675525 |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81529950.pdf |doi-access=free |bibcode=2011Rice....4...93B |access-date=23 January 2019 |archive-date=24 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124042141/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81529950.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> It was the domestication centre for [[foxtail millet]] (''Setaria italica'') and [[broomcorn millet]] (''Panicum miliaceum''), with early evidence of domestication approximately 8,000 years ago,<ref name="doi10.1093/aob/mcm048">{{Cite journal | last1=Fuller | first1=D. Q. | title=Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent Archaeobotanical Insights from the Old World | doi=10.1093/aob/mcm048 | journal=Annals of Botany | volume=100 | issue=5 | pages=903–924 | year=2007 | pmid=17495986| pmc=2759199 }}</ref> and widespread cultivation 7,500 years ago.<ref name="doi10.1093/aob/mcm048" /> ([[Soybean]] was also domesticated in northern China 4,500 years ago.<ref name="Siddiqi">{{cite book |last= Siddiqi |first= Mohammad Rafiq |title=Tylenchida: Parasites of Plants and Insects |publisher=CABI |pages=<!--389 - no of pages?--> |date=2001}}</ref> [[Orange (fruit)|Orange]] and [[peach]] also originated in China, being cultivated {{circa|2500&nbsp;BCE}}.<ref>{{cite book|last=Thacker |first=Christopher|title=The history of gardens |year=1985 |publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-05629-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofgardens00chri/page/57 57] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofgardens00chri|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref>Webber, Herbert John (1967–1989). [http://websites.lib.ucr.edu/agnic/webber/Vol1/Chapter1.htm Chapter I. History and Development of the Citrus Industry] {{webarchive|url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160523072403/http://websites.lib.ucr.edu/agnic/webber/Vol1/Chapter1.htm |date=23 May 2016 }} in ''Origin of Citrus'', Vol. 1. University of California</ref>)
[[File:Likely routes of early rice transfer, and possible language family homelands (archaeological sites in China and SE Asia shown).png|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Possible [[Urheimat|language family homelands]], and likely routes of early rice transfer (c. 3,500 to 500 BCE). The approximate coastlines during the early [[Holocene]] are shown in lighter blue. (Bellwood, 2011)<ref name="Bellwood2011" />]]
The agricultural centres in southern China are clustered around the [[Yangtze River]] basin. Rice was domesticated in this region, together with the development of [[paddy field]] cultivation, between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago.<ref name="He2017" /><ref name="pnas1">{{Cite journal|last1=Molina|first1=J.|last2=Sikora|first2=M.|last3=Garud|first3=N.|last4=Flowers|first4=J. M.|last5=Rubinstein|first5=S.|last6=Reynolds|first6=A.|last7=Huang|first7=P.|last8=Jackson|first8=S.|last9=Schaal|first9=B. A.|last10=Bustamante|doi=10.1073/pnas.1104686108|first10=C. D.|last11=Boyko|first11=A. R.|last12=Purugganan|first12=M. D.|title=Molecular evidence for a single evolutionary origin of domesticated rice|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=108|issue=20|pages=8351–83516|year=2011|pmid=21536870|pmc=3101000|bibcode=2011PNAS..108.8351M|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Zhang2012">{{cite journal |last1=Zhang |first1=Jianping |last2=Lu |first2=Houyuan |last3=Gu |first3=Wanfa |last4=Wu |first4=Naiqin |last5=Zhou |first5=Kunshu |last6=Hu |first6=Yayi |last7=Xin |first7=Yingjun |last8=Wang |first8=Can |last9=Kashkush |first9=Khalil |title=Early Mixed Farming of Millet and Rice 7800 Years Ago in the Middle Yellow River Region, China |journal=PLOS ONE |date=17 December 2012 |volume=7 |issue=12 |article-number=e52146 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0052146|pmid=23284907 |pmc=3524165 |bibcode=2012PLoSO...752146Z |doi-access=free }}</ref>

There are two possible centres of domestication for rice. The first is in the lower [[Yangtze River]], believed to be the homelands of [[Austronesian peoples|pre-Austronesians]] and associated with the [[Kauhuqiao culture|Kauhuqiao]], [[Hemudu culture|Hemudu]], [[Majiabang culture|Majiabang]], and [[Songze culture|Songze]] [[Archaeological culture|cultures]]. It is characterized by typical pre-Austronesian features, including stilt houses, jade carving, and boat technologies. Their diet were also supplemented by [[acorn]]s, [[Eleocharis dulcis|water chestnuts]], [[foxnut]]s, and [[domesticated pig|pig]] domestication. The second is in the middle Yangtze River, believed to be the homelands of the early [[Hmong–Mien]] speakers and associated with the [[Pengtoushan culture|Pengtoushan]] and [[Daxi culture|Daxi]] [[Archaeological culture|cultures]]. Both of these regions were heavily populated and had regular trade contacts with each other, as well as with early [[Austroasiatic]] speakers to the west, and early [[Kra-Dai]] speakers to the south, facilitating the spread of rice cultivation throughout southern China.<ref name="Zhang2012" /><ref name="He2017" /><ref name="Bellwood2011" />

[[File:Chronological dispersal of Austronesian people across the Pacific.svg|thumb|Chronological dispersal of [[Austronesian peoples]] across the [[Indo-Pacific]] (Bellwood ''in'' Chambers, 2008)]]
The millet and rice-farming cultures also first came into contact with each other at around 9,000 to 7,000 BP, resulting in a corridor between the millet and rice cultivation centres where both rice and millet were cultivated.<ref name="He2017" /> At around 5,500 to 4,000 BP, there was increasing migration into [[Taiwan]] from the early Austronesian [[Dapenkeng culture]], bringing rice and millet cultivation technology with them. During this period, there is evidence of large settlements and intensive rice cultivation in Taiwan and the [[Penghu Islands]], which may have resulted in [[overexploitation]]. Bellwood (2011) proposes that this may have been the impetus of the [[Austronesian expansion]] which started with the migration of the Austronesian-speakers from Taiwan to the Philippines at around 5,000 BP.<ref name="Bellwood2011" />

Austronesians carried rice cultivation technology to [[Island Southeast Asia]] along with other domesticated species. The new tropical island environments also had new food plants that they exploited. They carried useful [[Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia|plants and animals]] during each colonization voyage, resulting in the rapid introduction of domesticated and semi-domesticated species throughout [[Oceania]]. They also came into contact with the early agricultural centres of [[Papuan languages|Papuan]]-speaking populations of [[New Guinea]] as well as the [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]]-speaking regions of [[South India]] and [[Sri Lanka]] by around 3,500 BP. They acquired further cultivated food plants like bananas and pepper from them, and in turn introduced Austronesian technologies like wetland cultivation and [[outrigger canoe]]s.<ref name="Bellwood2011" /><ref name="Bayliss-Smith2017">{{cite book|first1=Tim|last1=Bayliss-Smith|first2=Jack|last2=Golson|first3=Philip|last3=Hughes|editor1-first=Jack |editor1-last=Golson |editor2-first=Tim |editor2-last=Denham|editor3-first=Philip |editor3-last=Hughes|editor4-first=Pamela|editor4-last= Swadling|editor5-first=John |editor5-last=Muke|title =Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea|chapter =Phase 4: Major Disposal Channels, Slot-Like Ditches and Grid-Patterned Fields|publisher =ANU Press|series =terra australis|volume=46|year =2017|pages=239–268|isbn = 978-1-76046-116-4|chapter-url =https://books.google.com/books?id=Hlk0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA239}}</ref><ref name="Mahdi1999">{{cite book|last1=Mahdi|first1=Waruno|editor1-last =Blench|editor1-first=Roger|editor2-last=Spriggs|editor2-first= Matthew|title =Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts languages, and texts|chapter =The Dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean|volume = 34|publisher =Routledge|series =One World Archaeology |year =1999|pages=144–179|isbn =978-0-415-10054-0}}</ref><ref name="BlenchAnderson2010">{{cite book|first1=Roger|last1=Blench|editor1-first=Atholl|editor1-last=Anderson|editor1-link=Atholl Anderson|editor2-first=James H.|editor2-last=Barrett|editor3-first=Katherine V.|editor3-last=Boyle|title=The Global Origins and Development of Seafaring|chapter=Evidence for the Austronesian Voyages in the Indian Ocean|publisher=McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research|year=2010|pages=239–248|isbn=978-1-902937-52-6|chapter-url=http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/Indian%20Ocean/Austronesians%20in%20East%20Africa%20offprint.pdf|access-date=23 January 2019|archive-date=28 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728125533/http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/Indian%20Ocean/Austronesians%20in%20East%20Africa%20offprint.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> During the 1st millennium CE, they also colonized [[Madagascar]] and the [[Comoros]], bringing Southeast Asian food plants, including rice, to [[East Africa]].<ref name="Beaujard2011">{{cite journal |last1=Beaujard |first1=Philippe |title=The first migrants to Madagascar and their introduction of plants: linguistic and ethnological evidence |journal=Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa |date=August 2011 |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=169–189 |doi=10.1080/0067270X.2011.580142 |s2cid=55763047 |url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00706173/file/Beaujard.azania2.pdf |access-date=11 July 2019 |archive-date=21 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121025752/https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00706173/file/Beaujard.azania2.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="WalterLebot2007">{{cite book |last1=Walter |first1=Annie |last2=Lebot |first2=Vincent |title=Gardens of Oceania |date=2007 |publisher=IRD Éditions-CIRAD |isbn=978-1-86320-470-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SMYkLkV4iyEC}}</ref>

===Africa===
[[File:Nile-River1.ogv|thumb|right|Nile River Valley, Egypt]]
On the African continent, three areas have been identified as having independently developed agriculture: the [[Ethiopian Highlands|Ethiopian highlands]], the [[Sahel]] and [[West Africa]].<ref name="diamond">{{cite book |last=Diamond|first= Jared|author-link=Jared Diamond| year=1997|title=Guns, Germs, and Steel|publisher= New York: Norton Press|isbn= 978-0-393-31755-8|title-link= Guns, Germs, and Steel}}</ref> By contrast, [[Ancient Egyptian agriculture|agriculture in the Nile River Valley]] is thought to be related to migration of populations<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Martin |first1=Nicolas |last2=Thibeault |first2=Adrien |last3=Varadzinová |first3=Lenka |last4=Usai |first4=Donatella |last5=Ambrose |first5=Stanley H. |last6=Antoine |first6=Daniel |last7=Brukner Havelková |first7=Petra |last8=Honegger |first8=Matthieu |last9=Irish |first9=Joel D. |last10=Jesse |first10=Friederike |last11=Maréchal |first11=Laura |last12=Osypińska |first12=Marta |last13=Osypiński |first13=Piotr |last14=Santos |first14=Frédéric |last15=Vanderesse |first15=Nicolas |date=2025-04-15 |title=Enamel–dentine junction morphology reveals population replacement and mobility in the late prehistoric Middle Nile Valley |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=122 |issue=15 |article-number=e2419122122 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2419122122|pmid=40163762 |doi-access=free |pmc=12012513 |bibcode=2025PNAS..12219122M }}</ref> and to have developed from the original Neolithic Revolution in the [[Fertile Crescent]].
Many grinding stones are found with the early Egyptian [[Sebilian]] and [[Mechian]] cultures and evidence has been found of a Neolithic domesticated crop-based economy dating around 7,000 BP.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JAca1F3qG34C&dq=Africa,+neolithic&pg=PA70|title=The Cambridge History of Africa|first1=J. D.|last1=Fage|first2=John Desmond|last2=Clark|first3=Roland Anthony|last3=Oliver|date=29 August 1975|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-21592-3 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="smith">{{cite journal | last=Smith | first=Philip E. L. | title=Stone-Age Man on the Nile | journal=Scientific American | volume=235 | issue=2 | date=1976 | issn=0036-8733 | doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0876-30 | pages=30–41 | bibcode=1976SciAm.235b..30S | quote = With the benefit of hindsight we can now see that many Late Paleolithic peoples in the Old World were poised on the brink of plant cultivation and animal husbandry as an alternative to the hunter-gatherer's way of life}}</ref>
Unlike the Middle East, this evidence appears as a "false dawn" to agriculture, as the sites were later abandoned, and permanent farming then was delayed until 6,500 BP with the [[Tasian culture]] and [[Badarian]] culture and the arrival of crops and animals from the Near East.

[[Bananas]] and [[Plantain (cooking)|plantains]], which were first domesticated in [[Southeast Asia]], most likely [[Papua New Guinea]], were re-domesticated in Africa possibly as early as 5,000 years ago. Asian yams and [[taro]] were also cultivated in Africa.<ref name="diamond" />

The most famous crop domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands is [[coffee]]. In addition, [[khat]], [[ensete]], [[noog]], [[teff]] and [[finger millet]] were also domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands. Crops domesticated in the Sahel region include [[sorghum]] and [[pearl millet]]. The [[kola nut]] was first domesticated in West Africa. Other crops domesticated in West Africa include [[African rice]], [[Yam (vegetable)|yams]] and the [[oil palm]].<ref name="diamond" />

Agriculture spread to Central and Southern Africa in the [[Bantu expansion]] during the 1st millennium BCE to 1st millennium CE.
[[File:World in 2000 BC.svg|thumb|Map of the world in 2000 BCE, just after the end of the [[3rd millennium BC]]E, colour coded by cultural stage.
{{legend|#90AD27|simple farming societies}}
{{legend|#F79321|complex farming societies  ([[Ancient Near East|Near East]], [[Bronze Age Europe|Europe]], [[Prehistoric China|China]], [[Andean civilizations|Andes]])}}
{{legend|#1072BA|state societies ([[Fertile Crescent]], [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]], [[Indus Valley civilization|Indus]], [[Minoans|Crete]], [[Norte Chico civilization|Caral/Norte Chico]])}}]]

===Americas===
{{further|New World crops|Ancestral Puebloans|Oasisamerica|Proto-Uto-Aztecan}}
The term "Neolithic" is not customarily used in describing cultures in the Americas. However, a broad similarity exists between Eastern Hemisphere cultures of the Neolithic and cultures in the Americas. [[Maize]] (corn), [[beans]] and [[Squash (plant)|squash]] were among the earliest crops domesticated in [[Mesoamerica]]: squash as early as 6000 BCE, beans no later than 4000 BCE, and maize beginning about 7000 BCE.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Johannessen, S. |editor2=Hastorf, C. A. |title=Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric New World |publisher=Westview Press}}</ref>  [[Potatoes]] and [[manioc]] were domesticated in [[South America]]. In what is now the eastern United States, Native Americans domesticated [[sunflower]], [[sumpweed]] and [[Chenopodium berlandieri|goosefoot]] {{circa|2500&nbsp;BCE}}. In the highlands of central Mexico, sedentary village life based on farming did not develop until the "formative period" in the second millennium BCE.<ref name="Barker2009p252">{{cite book|author=Graeme Barker|title=The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers?|page=  252|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fkifXu2gx4YC|access-date=4 January 2012|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-955995-4}}</ref>

===New Guinea===
{{see also|Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia}}
Evidence of drainage ditches at [[Kuk Swamp]] on the borders of the [[Western Highlands Province|Western]] and [[Southern Highlands Province|Southern Highlands]] of [[Papua New Guinea]] indicates cultivation of [[taro]] and a variety of other crops, dating back to 11,000 BP. Two potentially significant economic species, taro (''[[Colocasia esculenta]]'') and [[yam (vegetable)|yam]] (''[[Dioscorea]]'' sp.), have been identified dating at least to 10,200 calibrated years before present (cal BP). Further evidence of [[banana]]s and [[sugarcane]] dates to 6,950 to 6,440 BCE. This was at the altitudinal limits of these crops, and it has been suggested that cultivation in more favourable ranges in the lowlands may have been even earlier. [[Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation|CSIRO]] has found evidence that taro was introduced into the [[Solomon Islands (archipelago)|Solomon Islands]] for human use, from 28,000 years ago, making taro the earliest cultivated crop in the world.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Fullagar | first1=Richard | last2=Field | first2=Judith | last3=Denham | first3=Tim | last4=Lentfer | first4=Carol | title=Early and mid Holocene tool-use and processing of taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Dioscorea sp.) and other plants at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea | journal=Journal of Archaeological Science | volume=33 | issue=5 | date=2006 | doi=10.1016/j.jas.2005.07.020 | pages=595–614| bibcode=2006JArSc..33..595F }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Loy | first1=Thomas H. | last2=Spriggs | first2=Matthew | last3=Wickler | first3=Stephen | title=Direct evidence for human use of plants 28,000 years ago: starch residues on stone artefacts from the northern Solomon Islands | journal=Antiquity | volume=66 | issue=253 | date=1992 | issn=0003-598X | doi=10.1017/S0003598X00044811 | pages=898–912}}</ref>
It seems to have resulted in the spread of the [[Trans–New Guinea languages]] from New Guinea east into the Solomon Islands and west into [[Timor]] and adjacent areas of [[Indonesia]]. This seems to confirm the theories of [[Carl O. Sauer|Carl Sauer]] who, in "Agricultural Origins and Dispersals", suggested as early as 1952 that this region was a centre of early agriculture.

== Spread of agriculture ==

===Europe===
{{main|Neolithic Europe}}

[[File:Expansion of farming in western Eurasia, 9600–4000 BCE.png|thumb|upright=1.3|Spread of farming from Southwest Asia to Europe, between 9600 and 3800 BCE]]
Archaeologists trace the emergence of food-producing societies in the [[Levant]]ine region of southwest Asia at the close of the last glacial period around 12,000 BCE, and developed into a number of regionally distinctive cultures by the eighth millennium BCE. Remains of food-producing societies in the [[Aegean civilization|Aegean]] have been carbon-dated to {{circa|6500&nbsp;BCE}} at [[Knossos]], [[Franchthi Cave]], and a number of mainland sites in [[Thessaly]]. Neolithic groups appear soon afterwards in the [[Balkans]] and south-central Europe. The Neolithic cultures of [[southeastern Europe]] (the [[Balkans]] and the [[Aegean civilization|Aegean]]) show some continuity with groups in southwest Asia and [[Anatolia]] (e.g., [[Çatalhöyük]]).

Current evidence suggests that Neolithic material culture was introduced to Europe via western Anatolia. All Neolithic sites in Europe contain [[pottery|ceramics]], and contain the plants and animals domesticated in Southwest Asia: [[einkorn]], [[emmer]], [[barley]], [[lentil]]s, [[pig]]s, [[goat]]s, [[sheep]], and [[cattle]]. Genetic data suggest that no independent domestication of animals took place in Neolithic Europe, and that all domesticated animals were originally domesticated in Southwest Asia.{{sfn|Bellwood|2004|pp=68–69}} The only domesticate not from Southwest Asia was [[broomcorn millet]], domesticated in East Asia.{{sfn|Bellwood|2004|pp=74, 118}}The earliest evidence of [[cheese]]-making dates to 5500 BCE in [[Kujawy]], [[Poland]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Subbaraman |first=Nidhi |date=12 December 2012 |title=Art of cheese-making is 7,500 years old |url=http://www.nature.com/news/art-of-cheese-making-is-7-500-years-old-1.12020 |url-status=live |journal=Nature News |doi=10.1038/nature.2012.12020 |s2cid=180646880 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508085311/https://www.nature.com/news/art-of-cheese-making-is-7-500-years-old-1.12020 |archive-date=8 May 2021 |access-date=17 January 2020|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The diffusion across Europe, from the Aegean to Britain, took about 2,500 years (8500–6000 BP). The Baltic region was penetrated a bit later, around 5500 BP, and there was also a delay in settling the [[Pannonian plain]]. In general, colonization shows a "saltatory" pattern, as the Neolithic advanced from one patch of fertile alluvial soil to another, bypassing mountainous areas. Analysis of [[radiocarbon]] dates show clearly that Mesolithic and Neolithic populations lived side by side for as much as a millennium in many parts of Europe, especially in the [[Iberian peninsula]] and along the Atlantic coast.{{sfn|Bellwood|2004|pp=68–72}}

====Carbon 14 evidence====
[[File:Genetic matrilineal distances between European Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture populations (5,500–4,900 calibrated BC) and modern Western Eurasian populations.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Ancient European Neolithic farmers were genetically closest to modern Near-Eastern/ Anatolian populations. The map shows genetic matrilineal distances between European Neolithic [[Linear Pottery Culture]] populations (5,500–4,900 calibrated BP) and modern Western Eurasian populations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Consortium |first1=the Genographic |last2=Cooper |first2=Alan |date=9 November 2010 |title=Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities |journal=PLOS Biology |language=en |volume=8 |issue=11 |article-number=e1000536 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536 |issn=1545-7885 |pmc=2976717 |pmid=21085689 |doi-access=free}}</ref>]]
The spread of the Neolithic from the [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic|Near East Neolithic]] to Europe was first studied quantitatively in the 1970s, when a sufficient number of [[Carbon 14]] age determinations for early Neolithic sites had become available.<ref name="AS1">Original text published under Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0: {{cite journal |last1=Shukurov |first1=Anvar |last2=Sarson |first2=Graeme R. |last3=Gangal |first3=Kavita |date=2014 |title=The Near-Eastern Roots of the Neolithic in South Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=9 |issue=5 |article-number=e95714 |bibcode=2014PLoSO...995714G |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0095714 |pmc=4012948 |pmid=24806472 |doi-access=free}} [[File:CC-BY_icon.svg|50x50px]] Material was copied from this source, which is available under a [[creativecommons:by/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]] {{Cite web |url=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |title=Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons |access-date=12 May 2019 |archive-date=16 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> In 1973, Ammerman and [[Cavalli-Sforza]] discovered a linear relationship between the age of an Early Neolithic site and its distance from the conventional source in the Near East ([[Jericho]]), demonstrating that the Neolithic spread at an average speed of about 1&nbsp;km/yr.<ref name="AS1" /> More recent studies (2005) confirm these results and yield the speed of 0.6–1.3&nbsp;km/yr (at 95% confidence level).<ref name="AS1" />

====Analysis of mitochondrial DNA====
Since the original human [[Recent African origin of modern humans|expansions out of Africa]] 200,000 years ago, different prehistoric and historic migration events have taken place in Europe.<ref name="DT">[[File:CC-BY_icon.svg|50x50px]] Material was copied from this source, which is available under a [[creativecommons:by/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]] {{Cite web |url=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |title=Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons |access-date=12 May 2019 |archive-date=16 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |url-status=bot: unknown }} {{cite journal |last1=Turbón |first1=Daniel |last2=Arroyo-Pardo |first2=Eduardo |date=5 June 2014 |title=Ancient DNA Analysis of 8000 B.C. Near Eastern Farmers Supports an Early Neolithic Pioneer Maritime Colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=10 |issue=6 |article-number=e1004401 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004401 |issn=1553-7404 |pmc=4046922 |pmid=24901650 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Considering that the movement of the people implies a consequent movement of their genes, it is possible to estimate the impact of these migrations through the genetic analysis of human populations.<ref name="DT" /> Agricultural and husbandry practices originated 10,000 years ago in a region of the Near East known as the Fertile Crescent.<ref name="DT" /> According to the archaeological record this phenomenon, known as "Neolithic", rapidly expanded from these territories into Europe.<ref name="DT" />

However, whether this diffusion was accompanied or not by human migrations is greatly debated.<ref name="DT" /> [[Mitochondrial DNA]] – a type of maternally inherited DNA located in the cell cytoplasm – was recovered from the remains of [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic B]] (PPNB) farmers in the [[Near East]] and then compared to available data from other Neolithic populations in Europe and also to modern populations from South Eastern Europe and the Near East.<ref name="DT" /> The obtained results show that substantial human migrations were involved in the Neolithic spread and suggest that the first Neolithic farmers entered Europe following a maritime route through [[Cyprus]] and the [[Aegean Islands]].<ref name="DT" />{{Clear}}

<gallery class="center" mode="nolines" widths="300px" heights="300px">
File:Map of the spread of Neolithic farming cultures in Europe.jpg|Map of the spread of Neolithic farming cultures from the Near-East to Europe, with dates in year BCE.
File:Modern distribution of the haplotypes of PPNB farmers.jpg|Modern distribution of the haplotypes of PPNB farmers
File:Genetic distance between PPNB farmers and modern populations.jpg|Genetic distance between PPNB farmers and modern populations
</gallery>

===South Asia===
{{see also|South Asian Stone Age}}
{{multiple image
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| caption_align     = center
| direction         = vertical
| header            = Expansion to South Asia
| total_width       = 300
| image1            = Early Neolithic sites in the Near East and South Asia 10,000-3,800 BCE.jpg
| caption1          = Early Neolithic sites in the Near East and South Asia 10,000–3,800 BP
| image2            = Establishment of Neolithic sites.jpg
| caption2          = Neolithic dispersal from the Near East to South Asia suggested by the time of establishment of [[Neolithic]] sites as a function of distance from [[Gesher (archaeological site)|Gesher]], [[Israel]]. The dispersal rate amounts to about 0.6 km per year<ref name="AS1" />
| footer            = 
| alt1              = 
}}

The earliest Neolithic site in South Asia is [[Mehrgarh]], dated to between 6500 and 5500 BCE, in the [[Kacchi Plain|Kachi plain]] of [[Balochistan, Pakistan|Balochistan]], Pakistan; the site has evidence of farming (wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coningham |first1=Robin |title=The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c. 6500 BCE–200 CE |last2=Young |first2=Ruth |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-316-41898-7 |page=111}}</ref>

There is strong evidence for causal connections between the Near-Eastern Neolithic and that further east, up to the Indus Valley.<ref name="AS1-6">[[File:CC-BY_icon.svg|50x50px]] Material was copied from this source, which is available under a [[creativecommons:by/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]] {{Cite web |url=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |title=Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons |access-date=12 May 2019 |archive-date=16 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |url-status=bot: unknown }} {{cite journal |last1=Shukurov |first1=Anvar |last2=Sarson |first2=Graeme R. |last3=Gangal |first3=Kavita |date=7 May 2014 |title=The Near-Eastern Roots of the Neolithic in South Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=9 |issue=5 |article-number=e95714 |bibcode=2014PLoSO...995714G |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0095714 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=4012948 |pmid=24806472 |doi-access=free}}</ref> There are several lines of evidence that support the idea of connection between the Neolithic in the Near East and in the Indian subcontinent.<ref name="AS1-6" /> The prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (modern Pakistan) is the earliest Neolithic site in the north-west Indian subcontinent, dated as early as 8500 BCE.<ref name="AS1-6" />

Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than 90% barley and a small amount of wheat. There is good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebu cattle at Mehrgarh, but the wheat varieties are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey.<ref name="AS1-6" />

A detailed satellite map study of a few archaeological sites in the Baluchistan and Khybar Pakhtunkhwa regions also suggests similarities in early phases of farming with sites in Western Asia.<ref name="AS1-6" /> Pottery prepared by sequential slab construction, circular fire pits filled with burnt pebbles, and large granaries are common to both Mehrgarh and many Mesopotamian sites.<ref name="AS1-6" />

The postures of the skeletal remains in graves at Mehrgarh bear strong resemblance to those at Ali Kosh in the Zagros Mountains of southern Iran.<ref name="AS1-6" /> Despite their scarcity, the Carbon-14 and archaeological age determinations for early Neolithic sites in Southern Asia exhibit remarkable continuity across the vast region from the Near East to the Indian Subcontinent, consistent with a systematic eastward spread at a speed of about 0.65&nbsp;km/yr.<ref name="AS1-6" />

== Causes ==
{{Missing information|section|more recent theories and includes some outdated/rejected theories|date=October 2024}}
The most prominent of several theories (not mutually exclusive) as to factors that caused populations to develop agriculture include:
* The Oasis Theory, originally proposed by [[Raphael Pumpelly]] in 1908, popularized by [[V. Gordon Childe]] in 1928 and summarised in Childe's book ''Man Makes Himself''.<ref name="ManChilde" /> This theory maintains that as the climate got drier due to the Atlantic depressions shifting northward, communities contracted to [[oases]] where they were forced into close association with animals, which were then domesticated together with planting of seeds. However, this theory now has little support amongst archaeologists because subsequent climate data suggests that the region was getting wetter rather than drier.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scarre |first=Christopher |title=The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies |date=2005 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=0-500-28531-4 |publication-place=London |page=188 |chapter=The World Transformed: From Foragers and Farmers to States and Empires}}</ref>
* The [[Hilly Flanks]] hypothesis, proposed by [[Robert John Braidwood]] in 1948, suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the [[Taurus Mountains|Taurus]] and [[Zagros Mountains]], where the climate was not drier as Childe had believed, and fertile land supported a variety of plants and animals amenable to domestication.<ref>{{cite book |author=Charles E. Redman |title=Rise of Civilization: From Early Hunters to Urban Society in the Ancient Near East |publisher=Freeman |year=1978 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>
* The Feasting model by Brian Hayden<ref>{{cite book |last=Hayden |first=Brian |title=Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory |publisher=Prehistory Press |year=1992 |editor=Anne Birgitte Gebauer and T. Douglas Price |location=Madison |pages=11–18 |chapter=Models of Domestication}}</ref> suggests that agriculture was driven by ostentatious displays of power, such as giving feasts, to exert dominance. This required assembling large quantities of food, which drove agricultural technology.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Neolithic Revolution {{!}} Early World Civilizations |url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-worldcivilization/chapter/the-neolithic-revolution/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=courses.lumenlearning.com}}</ref>
* The Demographic theories proposed by [[Carl Sauer]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Sauer |first=Carl O. |title=Agricultural origins and dispersals |publisher=MIT Press |year=1952 |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> and adapted by [[Lewis Binford]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Binford |first=Lewis R. |title=New Perspectives in Archaeology |publisher=Aldine Publishing Company |year=1968 |editor=Sally R. Binford and Lewis R. Binford |location=Chicago |pages=[https://archive.org/details/newperspectivesi0000binf/page/313 313–342] |chapter=Post-Pleistocene Adaptations |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/newperspectivesi0000binf |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> and [[Kent Flannery]] posit an increasingly sedentary population that expanded up to the [[carrying capacity]] of the local environment and required more food than could be gathered. Various social and economic factors helped drive the need for food.
* The evolutionary/intentionality theory, developed by [[David Rindos]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Rindos |first=David |title=The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective |date=December 1987 |publisher=Academic Press |isbn=978-0-12-589281-0}}</ref> and others, considers agriculture as an evolutionary adaptation of plants and humans. Starting with domestication by protection of wild plants, it resulted specialization of location and then complete domestication.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}
* [[Peter Richerson]], [[Robert Boyd (anthropologist)|Robert Boyd]], and [[Robert Bettinger]]<ref name="Richersonetal2001">{{cite journal |last1=Richerson |first1=Peter J. |last2=Boyd |first2=Robert |year=2001 |title=Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? |journal=American Antiquity |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=387–411 |doi=10.2307/2694241 |jstor=2694241 |s2cid=163474968}}</ref> make a case for the development of agriculture coinciding with an increasingly stable climate at the beginning of the [[Holocene]]. [[Ronald Wright]]'s book and Massey Lecture Series ''[[A Short History of Progress]]''<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Ronald |url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofpr0000wrig |title=A Short History of Progress |publisher=Anansi |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-88784-706-6}}</ref> popularized this hypothesis.
* [[Leonid Grinin]] argues that whatever plants were cultivated, the independent invention of agriculture always occurred in special natural environments (e.g., South-East Asia). It is supposed that the cultivation of cereals started somewhere in the Near East: in the hills of Israel or Egypt. So Grinin dates the beginning of the agricultural revolution within the interval 12,000 to 9,000 BP, though in some cases the first cultivated plants or domesticated animals' bones are even of a more ancient age of 14–15 thousand years ago.<ref>Grinin L.E. "[http://www.socionauki.ru/journal/articles/129510/ Production Revolutions and Periodization of History: A Comparative and Theoretic-mathematical Approach]". Social Evolution & History. Volume 6, Number 2. September 2007. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120230938/http://www.socionauki.ru/journal/articles/129510/|date=20 January 2012}}.</ref>
* [[Andrew M. T. Moore|Andrew Moore]] suggested that the Neolithic Revolution originated over long periods of development in the [[Levant]], possibly beginning during the [[Epipaleolithic]]. In ''"A Reassessment of the Neolithic Revolution"'', [[Frank Hole]] further expanded the relationship between plant and [[animal domestication]]. He suggested the events could have occurred independently during different periods of time, in as yet unexplored locations. He noted that no transition site had been found documenting the shift from what he termed immediate and delayed return social systems.{{Explain|date=September 2024}} He noted that the full range of domesticated animals ([[goat]]s, [[sheep]], [[cattle]] and [[pigs]]) were not found until the sixth millennium BCE at [[Tell Ramad]]. Hole concluded that "close attention should be paid in future investigations to the western margins of the [[Euphrates]] basin, perhaps as far south as the [[Arabian Peninsula]], especially where [[wadi]]s carrying Pleistocene rainfall runoff flowed."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hole |first=Frank |date=29 August 1984 |title=A Reassessment of the Neolithic Revolution |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1984_num_10_2_939 |url-status=live |journal=Paléorient |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=49–60 |doi=10.3406/paleo.1984.939 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617210526/https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1984_num_10_2_939 |archive-date=17 June 2022 |access-date=29 August 2022 |via=Persée |doi-access=free}}</ref>

== Consequences ==

===Social change===
[[File:World population growth (lin-log scale).png|thumb|left|World population (estimated) did not rise for a few millennia after the Neolithic revolution.]]

Despite the significant technological advance and advancements in knowledge, arts and trade, the Neolithic revolution did not lead immediately to a rapid growth of population. Its benefits appear to have been offset by various adverse effects, mostly diseases and warfare.<ref>[[James C. Scott]],''Against the Grain: a Deep History of the Earliest States'', NJ: Yale UP, (2017), "The world's population in 10 000 BC, according to a careful estimate was roughly 4 million. A full five thousand years later it has risen only to 5 million...One likely explanation for this apparent human progress in subsistance techniques together with a long period of demographic stagnation is that epidemologically this was perhaps the most lethal period in human history".</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-04-05 |title=What was the Neolithic Revolution? |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/neolithic-agricultural-revolution |access-date=2023-06-18 |website=National Geographic |language=en |archive-date=9 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221009132816/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/neolithic-agricultural-revolution }}</ref>

The introduction of agriculture has not necessarily led to unequivocal progress. The nutritional standards of the growing Neolithic populations were inferior to that of hunter-gatherers. Several ethnological and archaeological studies conclude that the transition to cereal-based diets caused a reduction in life expectancy and stature, an increase in infant mortality and infectious diseases, the development of chronic, inflammatory or degenerative diseases (such as obesity, [[type 2 diabetes]] and cardiovascular diseases) and multiple nutritional deficiencies, including vitamin deficiencies, [[iron deficiency anemia]] and mineral disorders affecting bones (such as [[osteoporosis]] and [[rickets]]) and teeth.<ref name="SandsMorris2009">{{cite journal| vauthors=Sands DC, Morris CE, Dratz EA, Pilgeram A| title=Elevating optimal human nutrition to a central goal of plant breeding and production of plant-based foods. | journal=Plant Sci | year= 2009 | volume= 177 | issue= 5 | pages= 377–389 | pmid=20467463 | doi=10.1016/j.plantsci.2009.07.011 | pmc=2866137 | bibcode=2009PlnSc.177..377S |  type=Review }}</ref><ref name="OKeefeCordain2004">{{cite journal| vauthors=O'Keefe JH, Cordain L| title=Cardiovascular disease resulting from a diet and lifestyle at odds with our Paleolithic genome: how to become a 21st-century hunter-gatherer. | journal=Mayo Clin Proc | year= 2004 | volume= 79 | issue= 1 | pages= 101–108 | pmid=14708953 | doi=10.4065/79.1.101 | type=Review | doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Shermer, Michael 2001 p.250">{{cite book |author=Shermer, Michael |author-link=Michael Shermer |year=2001 |title=The Borderlands of Science |url=https://archive.org/details/borderlandsofsci00mic_hoo |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/borderlandsofsci00mic_hoo/page/250 250]}}</ref> Average height for Europeans went down from {{convert|178|cm|ftin}} for men and {{convert|168|cm|ftin}} for women to {{convert|165|and|155|cm|ftin}} respectively, and it took until the twentieth century for average height for Europeans to return to the pre-Neolithic Revolution levels.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Hermanussen | first1=Michael | last2=Poustka | first2=Fritz | title=Stature of early Europeans | journal=Hormones (Athens) | volume=2 | issue=3 | pages=175–178 | date=July–September 2003 | pmid=17003019 | doi=10.1159/000079404 | s2cid=85210429 | url=http://hormones.gr/preview.php?c_id=127 | access-date=12 June 2014 | archive-date=2 April 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402221148/http://hormones.gr/preview.php?c_id=127 | url-status=live | url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The traditional view is that agricultural food production supported a denser population, which in turn supported larger sedentary communities, the accumulation of goods and tools, and specialization in diverse forms of new labor. Food surpluses made possible the development of a social elite who were not otherwise engaged in agriculture, industry or commerce, but dominated their communities by other means and monopolized decision-making. Nonetheless, larger societies made it more feasible for people to adopt diverse decision making and governance models.<ref name="Eagly99">{{cite journal |author1=Eagly, Alice H. |author2=Wood, Wendy |title=The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behavior: Evolved Dispositions Versus Social Roles |journal=American Psychologist |volume=54 |issue=6 |date=June 1999 |pages=408–423 |url=http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/facets/eagly&wood.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817071347/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/facets/eagly&wood.htm |archive-date=17 August 2000 |doi=10.1037/0003-066x.54.6.408|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Jared Diamond (in ''[[The World Until Yesterday]]'') identifies the availability of milk and cereal grains as permitting mothers to raise both an older (e.g. 3 or 4 year old) and a younger child concurrently. The result is that a population can increase more rapidly. Diamond, in agreement with feminist scholars such as [[V. Spike Peterson]], points out that agriculture brought about deep social divisions and encouraged [[gender inequality]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Diamond, Jared |author-link=Jared Diamond |url=https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race |title=The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race |journal=Discover Magazine |date=May 1987 |pages=64–66 |access-date=26 July 2021 |archive-date=10 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191110175217/http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Peterson|first=V. Spike|author-link=V. Spike Peterson|date=3 July 2014|title=Sex Matters|journal=International Feminist Journal of Politics|language=en|volume=16|issue=3|pages=389–409|doi=10.1080/14616742.2014.913384|s2cid=147633811|issn=1461-6742}}</ref> This social reshuffle is traced by historical theorists, like Veronica Strang, through developments in theological depictions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Strang|first=Veronica|date=2014|title=Lording It over the Goddess: Water, Gender, and Human-Environmental Relations.|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfemistudreli.30.1.85.|journal=Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion|volume=30|issue=1|pages=85–109|doi=10.2979/jfemistudreli.30.1.85|jstor=10.2979/jfemistudreli.30.1.85|s2cid=143567275}}</ref> Strang supports her theory through a comparison of aquatic deities before and after the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, most notably the [[Venus of Lespugue]] and the Greco-Roman deities such as [[Circe]] or [[Charybdis]]: the former venerated and respected, the latter dominated and conquered. The theory, supplemented by the widely accepted assumption from Parsons that "society is always the object of religious veneration",<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Parsons|first=Talcott|date=1944|title="The Theoretical Development of the Sociology of Religion: A Chapter in the History of Modern Social Science."|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|volume=5|issue=2|pages=176–190|doi=10.2307/2707383|jstor=2707383}}</ref> argues that with the centralization of government and the dawn of the Anthropocene, roles within society became more restrictive and were rationalized through the conditioning effect of religion; a process that is crystallized in the progression from polytheism to monotheism.

===Subsequent revolutions===
[[File:Egyptian Domesticated Animals.jpg|thumb|Domesticated cow being milked in [[Ancient Egypt]]]]

[[Andrew Sherratt]] has argued that following upon the Neolithic Revolution was a second phase of discovery that he refers to as the [[secondary products revolution]]. Animals, it appears, were first domesticated purely as a source of meat.<ref name="Sherratt 1981">{{cite book | last=Sherratt | first=A | editor-last1=Hodder | editor-first1=Ian | editor-last2=Isaac | editor-first2=Glynn Llywelyn | editor-last3=Hammond | editor-first3=Norman | title=Pattern of the Past: Studies in honour of David Clarke | chapter = Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge | year=1981 | isbn=978-0-521-22763-6 | pages=261–305}}</ref> The Secondary Products Revolution occurred when it was recognised that animals also provided a number of other useful products. These included:
* [[History of hide materials|hides and skins (from undomesticated animals)]]
* [[manure]] for soil conditioning (from all domesticated animals)
* [[wool]] (from sheep, llamas, alpacas, and [[Angora goat]]s)
* [[milk]] (from goats, cattle, yaks, sheep, horses, and camels)
* [[Working animal|traction]] (from oxen, [[onagers]], donkeys, horses, camels, and dogs)
* guarding and herding assistance (dogs)

Sherratt argued that this phase in agricultural development enabled humans to make use of the energy possibilities of their animals in new ways, and permitted permanent intensive subsistence farming and crop production, and the opening up of heavier soils for farming. It also made possible [[nomadic pastoralism]] in semi arid areas, along the margins of deserts, and eventually led to the domestication of both the [[dromedary]] and [[Bactrian camel]].<ref name="Sherratt 1981"/> Overgrazing of these areas, particularly by herds of goats, greatly extended the areal extent of deserts.

===Diet and health===

Compared to foragers, Neolithic farmers' diets were higher in [[carbohydrate]]s but lower in [[Dietary fiber|fibre]], [[micronutrient]]s, and [[protein]]. This led to an increase in the frequency of [[Tooth decay|carious]] teeth<ref name=Larsen2006>{{Cite journal|last=Larsen|first=Clark Spencer|date=1 June 2006|title=The agricultural revolution as environmental catastrophe: Implications for health and lifestyle in the Holocene|url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618206000334|journal=Quaternary International|series=Impact of rapid environmental changes on humans and ecosystems|language=en|volume=150|issue=1|pages=12–20|doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.004|bibcode=2006QuInt.150...12L|issn=1040-6182|access-date=10 July 2020|archive-date=5 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191105150829/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618206000334|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and slower growth in childhood {{Clarify | text = and increased [[body fat]]| date = September 2024 | reason = Unclear if this is just for children or for the entire population.}}, and studies have consistently found that populations around the world became shorter after the transition to agriculture. This trend may have been exacerbated by the greater seasonality of farming diets and with it the increased risk of [[famine]] due to crop failure.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=Wells|first1=Jonathan C. K.|last2=Stock|first2=Jay T.|date=2020|title=Life History Transitions at the Origins of Agriculture: A Model for Understanding How Niche Construction Impacts Human Growth, Demography and Health|journal=Frontiers in Endocrinology|language=en|volume=11|article-number=325|doi=10.3389/fendo.2020.00325|pmid=32508752|pmc=7253633|issn=1664-2392|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Throughout the development of sedentary societies, disease spread more rapidly than it had during the time in which hunter-gatherer societies existed. Inadequate sanitary practices and the domestication of animals may explain the rise in deaths and sickness following the Neolithic Revolution, as diseases jumped from the animal to the human population. Some examples of [[infectious diseases]] spread from animals to humans are [[influenza]], [[smallpox]], and [[measles]].<ref>{{Cite journal | last1=Furuse | first1=Y. | last2=Suzuki | first2=A. | last3=Oshitani | first3=H. | title=Origin of measles virus: Divergence from rinderpest virus between the 11th and 12th centuries | doi=10.1186/1743-422X-7-52 | journal=Virology Journal | volume=7 | article-number=52 | year=2010 | pmc=2838858 | pmid=20202190 | doi-access=free }}</ref> Ancient microbial genomics has shown that progenitors to human-adapted strains of ''[[Salmonella enterica]]'' infected up to 5,500 year old agro-pastoralists throughout Western Eurasia, providing molecular evidence for the hypothesis that the Neolithization process facilitated the emergence of Salmonella entericia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Key |first1=Felix M. |last2=Posth |first2=Cosimo |last3=Esquivel-Gomez |first3=Luis R. |last4=Hübler |first4=Ron |last5=Spyrou |first5=Maria A. |last6=Neumann |first6=Gunnar U. |last7=Furtwängler |first7=Anja |last8=Sabin |first8=Susanna |last9=Burri |first9=Marta |last10=Wissgott |first10=Antje |last11=Lankapalli |first11=Aditya Kumar |last12=Vågene |first12=Åshild J. |last13=Meyer |first13=Matthias |last14=Nagel |first14=Sarah |last15=Tukhbatova |first15=Rezeda |last16=Khokhlov |first16=Aleksandr |last17=Chizhevsky |first17=Andrey |last18=Hansen |first18=Svend |last19=Belinsky |first19=Andrey B. |last20=Kalmykov |first20=Alexey |last21=Kantorovich |first21=Anatoly R. |last22=Maslov |first22=Vladimir E. |last23=Stockhammer |first23=Philipp W. |last24=Vai |first24=Stefania |last25=Zavattaro |first25=Monica |last26=Riga |first26=Alessandro |last27=Caramelli |first27=David |last28=Skeates |first28=Robin |last29=Beckett |first29=Jessica |last30=Gradoli |first30=Maria Giuseppina |last31=Steuri |first31=Noah |last32=Hafner |first32=Albert |last33=Ramstein |first33=Marianne |last34=Siebke |first34=Inga |last35=Lösch |first35=Sandra |last36=Erdal |first36=Yilmaz Selim |last37=Alikhan |first37=Nabil-Fareed |last38=Zhou |first38=Zhemin |last39=Achtman |first39=Mark |last40=Bos |first40=Kirsten |last41=Reinhold |first41=Sabine |last42=Haak |first42=Wolfgang |last43=Kühnert |first43=Denise |last44=Herbig |first44=Alexander |last45=Krause |first45=Johannes |title=Emergence of human-adapted Salmonella enterica is linked to the Neolithization process |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |date=March 2020 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=324–333 |doi=10.1038/s41559-020-1106-9 |pmid=32094538 |pmc=7186082 |bibcode=2020NatEE...4..324K |language=en |issn=2397-334X}}</ref>

In concordance with a process of [[natural selection]], the humans who first domesticated the big [[mammals]] quickly built up immunities to the diseases as within each generation the individuals with better immunities had better chances of survival. In their approximately 10,000 years of shared proximity with animals, such as cows, Eurasians and Africans became more resistant to those diseases compared with the indigenous populations encountered outside [[Eurasia]] and [[Africa]].<ref name="diamond"/> For instance, the population of most [[Caribbean]] and several [[Pacific Islands]] have been completely wiped out by diseases. 90% or more of many populations of the Americas were [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|wiped out by European and African diseases]] before recorded contact with European explorers or colonists. Some cultures like the [[Inca Empire]] did have a large domestic mammal, the [[llama]], but llama milk was not drunk, nor did llamas live in a closed space with humans, so the risk of contagion was limited. According to bioarchaeological research, the effects of agriculture on dental health in Southeast Asian rice farming societies from 4000 to 1500 BP was not detrimental to the same extent as in other world regions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Halcrow |first1=S. E. |last2=Harris |first2=N. J. |last3=Tayles |first3=N. |last4=Ikehara-Quebral |first4=R. |last5=Pietrusewsky |first5=M. |title=From the mouths of babes: Dental caries in infants and children and the intensification of agriculture in mainland Southeast Asia |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=2013 |volume=150 |issue=3 |pages=409–420 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.22215 |pmid=23359102 |bibcode=2013AJPA..150..409H }}</ref>

[[Jonathan C. K. Wells]] and [[Jay T. Stock]] have argued that the dietary changes and increased pathogen exposure associated with agriculture profoundly altered human biology and [[Life history theory|life history]], creating conditions where [[natural selection]] favoured the allocation of resources towards [[reproduction]] over [[somatic effort]].<ref name=":1" />

==Comparative chronology==
{{cleanup|section|date=April 2025|reason=Neolithic Chronology table/template does not display on mobile.}}
{{Neolithic Chronology|state=Neolithic Chronology|era=BCE}}

== See also ==
* {{anl|Broad spectrum revolution}}
* {{anl|Green Revolution}}
* {{anl|Industrial Revolution}}
* {{anl|Secondary products revolution}}
* {{anl|Upper Paleolithic revolution}}
* {{anl|Urban revolution}}

==Further reading==
* Taiz, Lincoln. "[https://www.scielo.br/j/txpp/a/TWxQX34RrdtTmTPpDPtgNhS/?format=pdf&lang=en Agriculture, plant physiology, and human population growth: past, present, and future." Theoretical and Experimental Plant Physiology 25 (2013): 167–181].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Bailey, Douglass. (2001). ''Balkan Prehistory: Exclusions, Incorporation and Identity.'' Routledge Publishers. {{ISBN|0-415-21598-6}}.
* Bailey, Douglass. (2005). ''Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic.'' Routledge Publishers. {{ISBN|0-415-33152-8}}.
* Balter, Michael (2005). ''The Goddess and the Bull: Catalhoyuk, An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization.'' New York: Free Press. {{ISBN|0-7432-4360-9}}.
* {{cite book| last=Bellwood |first=Peter |year=2004 |title=First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies  |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=0-631-20566-7 }}
* Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre, editor and [[Ofer Bar-Yosef]], editor, ''The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences'', Springer (21 October 2008), hardcover, 544 pages, {{ISBN|978-1-4020-8538-3}}, trade paperback and Kindle editions are also available.
* Cohen, Mark Nathan (1977)''The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture.'' New Haven and London: Yale University Press. {{ISBN|0-300-02016-3}}.
* Diamond, Jared (2002). "Evolution, Consequences and Future of Plant and Animal Domestication". ''Nature'', Vol 418.
* 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 Hort 306 - READING 3-1]
* Wright, Gary A. (1971). "Origins of Food Production in Southwestern Asia: A Survey of Ideas" Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 4/5 (Oct.–Dec. 1971), pp.&nbsp;447–477
* Kuijt, Ian; Finlayson, Bill. (2009). [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/19/0812764106.full.pdf "Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley"]. PNAS, Vol. 106, No. 27, pp.&nbsp;10966–10970.

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