The Agricultural Revolution and the Proliferation of Civilizations

By
Gbadebo Fuad Olanrewaju

Abstract:
This essay explores the transition of the modern human (HomoSapiens) from nomadic foraging to organized agriculture. A 10,000 year
timeline is explored and the importance of agriculture to the Homo-sapiens
replacing the Neanderthal is attributed largely to the boom of agriculture in

communal centres. Agriculture is the most important factor as it concerns

the exponential growth of the Human population and also the venturing of
early humans outside of Africa. The use of advanced techniques such as
irrigation and the transition into mechanized agriculture (livestock, crude
tools) are evidenced within early civilizations such as Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Agriculture can also be seeing as the basic block of wealth creation
and collectivization of resources as Feudal systems that were commonplace
in later communities is undeniable. It can be surmised that without
advancement through agriculture human evolution would have been slower
as it concerns the physical condition, mental development, communal
structures and wealth ownership.
Keywords: Nomadic, Foraging, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ownership

The Agricultural revolution and its impact on Proliferating

civilizations

The emergence and dominance of human civilization is often attributed

to the modern human species ability to reproduce effectively and paramount
to this is to be able to gather enough resources to support the eventuality of
a higher human population. Historically, agriculture can be considered as the
driving force for family planning and this is evident when you examine the
effects that agriculture had on the early civilizations. In support of this,
Cochran and Harpending (2009) explain that: Agriculture imposed a new
way of life (new diets, new diseases, new societies and new benefits to longterm planning) to which humans, with their long history as foragers, were
poorly adapted. At the same time it led to a vast population expansion that
greatly increased the production of adaptive mutations. So Agriculture
created many new problems, but it created even more new solutions. Earlier
innovations had also helped to increase population size and thus had
speeded up human evolution, but agriculture had a far greater effect and is
in a class of its own (p.66). This excerpt alludes to the fact that agriculture
is the direct of human advancement/evolution because it allowed for humans
to have long term plans and develop communities; and also an often
overlooked fact is that diet plays a very important role in terms of helping to
fortify the human immune system from Illnesses. There are three pillars that
support life namely Food, Shelter and Clothing. It is arguable that
food/nutrition is the most important aspect of this pillar because it is possible
to survive from a biological standpoint without the presence of shelter and
clothing based on the ruggedness of the terrain and other factors; although

this not the universal consensus in every situation it is possible to survive for
long periods of time without a shelter or clothing. The human body cannot
function without food or drink for exorbitant periods of time and this is
important because nutrition is the foremost human need and the Agricultural
revolution helped to better the human condition and also served as a
precursory component of civilization. This essay will explore the specifics
within the agricultural revolution and how a shift from a nomadic/forager
lifestyle to subsistence/communal agricultural developments helped the
early human civilizations populate while simultaneously contributing to
human evolution.
One of the earliest faming settlements just miles in proximity from
Jericho is Netiv Hagdud, it was settled between 9,800 and 9,500 years ago
according to Ian Tattersall (p.111). These people still had elements of the
hunter-gatherer (foraging) lifestyle within their society but this settlement of
about 100-200 people was involved in subsistence and communal farming as
Tattersall finds the people of Netiv Hagdud, while remaining energetic
hunters and gatherers, had already begun artificial cultivation as early as
9,800 years ago, possibly as a response to climatic cooling that reduced the
productivity of plants in the natural environment (p.111). Cultivation of
plants and seeds is important because it allowed these people to use less
energy and also it is less risky and gender-specific than hunting because
hunting is not only physically demanding but there is also a mental fatigue
that is to be considered. Environmental placement and the geography of the

region in which the people inhabited also plays a role because as stated in
the excerpt above, the natural germination of seeds without human
interference had become less productive because of cooler climates. The
conclusion can be drawn that people in warmer climates would have been
more privy and stimulated by farming because their natural environment
was abundant with plant life and greenery. Over the years, farming would
continue to advance and it would become more of a way of life with
sophisticated tools and planning becoming involved in the process.
Egypt and Mesopotamia possess climates that would be considered
very counter-productive for agricultural purposes as Mazoyer & Roudart
(2009) elaborate that In these dry regions, rain-fed agriculture gradually
became impossible and pastoral activities decisively regressed. Farmer and
Herders then slowly flowed either toward peripheral regions that remained
more humid or toward privileged areas that were well supplied with water
from the subterranean of from rivers of distant origin. In these green oases
lost in the middle of the desert, they developed diverse forms of hydroagriculture with cultivation based on receding floodwaters, on irrigation, or
on surface ground-water (p.144). This is examining the Nile regions and
climates that had become dry and non-arable due to situations of less
rainfalls and constant herding/nomadic activity that had destroyed the
forestry. This helps to reiterate the importance of agriculture to evolution
because the advent of farming helped people get in touch with creative ways
to farm and produce crops because the natural evolution or human-

interfered changes to the terrain required for humans to evolve and adapt to
the new challenges and obstacles that they faced. Humans are wired to be
problem solvers and it is very likely that without the transition from a
foraging culture to organized agriculture; that many of the innovations such
as these complex systems of irrigation would not have had such an adverse
effect on human evolution. This also might have impeded upon the
exponential growth of human population. Cochrane and Harpending explain
that as human population sizes increased, particularly with the advent of
agriculture, favorable mutations occurred more and more often. Sixty
thousand years ago, before the expansion out of Africa, there was something
like a quarter million modern humans. By the Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago
that number was roughly 60 million (p.65). This is evidence attributing the
human population boom to the advancement in agriculture in the Nile valley
and Mesopotamian region. Agriculture is very instrumental in this because
the new innovations allowed people to grow crops regardless of the arable
status of the soil in their region and it colossus event in Human
history/evolution.
It is important when examining the new innovations to farming around
3500 BCE to note that the use of animals to help with moving mechanical
tools and to work the land was also a very key aspect of agriculture. Mazoyer
and Roudert explain the new method and innovations to agriculture during
the middle Ages in Europe; In the cold temperate regions, this new
equipment made it possible to expand previously limited practices of

cultivation and animal raising by using hay, stabling livestock during the
dead season and using manure (p.260). The use of livestock and also
learning how to navigate the farming procedure during the warm periods of
the year as well as the use of manure is a testament to the quick learning
nature of the human species. Enclaved communal civilizations and passing
the down of farming culture to forthcoming generations are some the factors
for the betterment of the human condition. Agriculture of the era is still a
matter of research and development because it really helps to paint a
portrait of how the world shifted from individualistic and isolated settlements
into communal farming communities. This was the case in Europe as
Whitehouse et al. (2014) state in their research article that The origins and
spread of Neolithic agriculture in Europe, and its associated societal impacts
continue to remain a major focus in world archaeology. This period is one of
the most important transitions in human history and is defined by profound
cultural, socioeconomic and technological changes that initiated significant
effects on the wider environment and its associated ecosystems and biota,
leading to major anthropogenic changes in land cover and use (p.182).
Agricultural innovation was important to people during the Neolithic time
period especially during the middle ages because the political climate was
very volatile in Europe during that time; with city-states arising and many of
the old empires such as Rome having become weak. The boom of agriculture
and the use of modernized tools and animal pasteurization became very
important and people who possessed arable lands would become wealthy

farming entrepreneurs by employing the use of Serfs and peasants to farm

the land for a share of the crops. This can be seen as a shift in civilization
because farming created a new avenue for people to live communally and
also it is also instrumental in the creation of wealth for land-owners.
The advancements and exponential growth of the modern human
species is in stark correlation to the innovations that were made during the
development of modern forms of agriculture. The foraging and huntergatherer lifestyle of the pre-civilized human was sustainable within isolated
micro-communities. The advent of communities such as the Nativ Hagdud
and the archeological sites in Jericho required a method that was more
effective for amassing nutrition resources. Farming also allowed for a shift in
diet to more sustainable and nutritious food that helped the human immune
system become stronger and more sterilized against common diseases that
befell the predecessor of the homo-sapiens (Modern human). The different
types of climates that exist within the world also forced people to be
innovative in ways to germinate their plants because in the Nile river
regions, people started to develop complex irrigation and use of waterways
to cultivate their grains and plants because of the lack of rainfall and also
destruction of natural forest due to human foraging and use of livestock in a
nomadic manner. In the long run and by the Middle Ages, farming had
become the most important aspect of life and the pillar of human existence
and wealthy landowners began to take advantage of this with the use of
share cropping and creating wealth this way. In closing, it is important to

understand that agriculture helped not only to civilize the human species but
it is also very instrumental in the exponential growth of the population as
well as the creation of land-ownership.

Works Cited
Cochran, Gregory, and Henry Harpending. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization

Accelerated Human Evolution. New York: Perseus Group, 2009. Print.

Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart. A History of World Agriculture from the Neolithic Age
to the Current Crisis. New York: Monthly Review, 2006. Print.
Tattersall, Ian. The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Whitehouse, Nicki J., Rick J. Schulting, Meriel Mcclatchie, Phil Barratt, T. Rowan Mclaughlin,
Amy Bogaard, Sue Colledge, Rob Marchant, Joanne Gaffrey, and M. Jane Bunting.
"Neolithic Agriculture on the European Western Frontier: The Boom and Bust of Early
Farming in Ireland." Journal of Archaeological Science 51 (2014): 181-205. Science
Direct. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.