Humanity, as we know it today, would not have been possible if our species had not made the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer people to sedentary agricultural people.
Agriculture has been crucial so that human beings could survive without depending on the elements. However, it is also because of agriculture that we live in societies with social and economic inequalities.
Next we will discover what are the origins of agriculture how it was made over the millennia and how it has influenced the development of modern civilizations.
The emergence of agriculture is considered one of the most revolutionary processes in the history of humanity. Thanks to the cultivation of vegetables for human consumption, our species stopped depending totally on the elements and began to control them With agriculture, human beings were no longer subject to how benign and generous nature was, and began to directly exercise control and dominion over it.
The first humans were They were nomadic and subsisted on hunting and gathering wild vegetables They survived by exploiting the resources of a region, hunting its animals and collecting its fruits. As in many cases the fruits were toxic or they were not sure that they were for human consumption, nomadic peoples directly preferred to hunt animals, no matter how unappetizing or nutritious they might be. Edible vegetables were a rare commodity in the wild.
After spending several days or weeks in the same area, resources began to become scarce. To avoid starvation, they could not wait for that region to replenish itself naturally: the time had come to emigrate again. So that, the Homo sapiens primitives were in constant movement, searching for new regions where you can spend a few weeks and continue living, always being under the threat of chronic hunger.
Because they were constantly moving, they rarely noticed how the environment changed over time. The first nomadic peoples did not have enough time to see how one of the seeds of the fruits they had eaten, upon falling to the ground and receiving water from the rains, germinated, forming a sprout that, with the passing of months or even years, it would transform into a fruit tree. Before that tree had grown, the town that accidentally planted it was already very far away, looking for a new place where they could survive.
This is why it is believed that the most primitive human beings associated the growth of vegetables with magical forces. Hunter-gatherer societies, by not paying enough attention to how seeds germinated, They had not related the idea that a new plant could grow from a seed Surely, they thought that all the fruit trees they found were there by pure chance, having grown spontaneously and thanks to the designs of forest spirits. How did it come about?
Normally, when we talk about agriculture it is understood as all the techniques that involve the action of cultivating more or less domesticated plants, with or without the help of domesticated animals. The farmers’ task is to plant, cultivate and harvest plants from which they will obtain food, fabrics, wood and natural remedies. Although this definition is the most accepted, it has not prevented there from being a broad debate about what should be considered the first agricultural techniques and who carried them out.
Either way, Many attempts were necessary for agriculture to resemble what we know today, the use of intelligence, observation and patience. Many years, even millennia, had to pass for the human species to make domestic varieties of plants that today cannot be missing in any home, such as corn, rice, wheat, all types of fruits or cotton that we use in many garments.
Traditionally it was thought that agriculture arose by mere chance. The first farmers “invented” agriculture without knowing very well what they were doing. At some point they must have seen how an accidentally buried seed transformed into a small sprout and, later, into a plant with the same fruits as the fruit plant to which that seed belonged and, thus, they discovered by pure chance how to sow , grow and harvest all types of vegetables.
However, the scientific community has been critical of this belief. Early agricultural techniques appear to be too complex to be considered due to mere chance Naturally, in all learning there is a certain component of trial and error, however, figuring out how and when to plant different varieties of plants, when to water them and when to harvest them must have been the product of extensive and meticulous observation.
Another controversial idea about the origins of agriculture is gender differences. For a long time the idea has been accepted that men went hunting and women gathered fruits and took care of the little ones. At some point, these women, who had direct contact with the vegetables, observed how the seeds grew when they fell to the ground and after a few days passed, they were the discoverers of agriculture. Given that the idea that there were marked gender differences in roles within nomadic villages is questioned, this idea has been called into question.
Be that as it may, what is clear is that the first farmers were experimenting with plant varieties and how to obtain better fruits. They must have seen that the seeds of better plants gave rise to good daughter plants and, if they crossed them with other varieties, they could obtain new types of plants with more meat, less peel, smaller seeds, better quality wood or more resistant tissues. With the birth of agriculture, artificial selection arose The first agricultural peoples, without even knowing what evolution was, practiced it on their own crops.
As surprising as it may seem, agriculture did not emerge in a single place. Different human populations developed the first agricultural techniques on their own sharing many characteristics without even knowing that the same thing was being done in other parts of the world.
They may have grown different cereals and fruits but in many cases the techniques, tools and the way they did it were very similar. It is as if agriculture, more than an invention or discovery, was a natural step in human evolution, along with bipedalism and the development of language.
Although the chronology of the appearance and development of agriculture is the subject of debate, it is more or less accepted that the first agricultural behaviors must have occurred about 30,000 years ago, although they must have been very rudimentary and experimental. Between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago, people from different parts of the world began to care for and then plant wild plants that were of some interest for food, medicine, or obtaining fibers and wood.
Subsequently, they selected the seeds of the best plants and, little by little, with the passing of generations and applying artificial selection, plant species began to be domesticated. However, These techniques were not widespread at all, since the Earth was in a glaciation and it would not be until 15,000 years ago that it would end, making the climate milder and more suitable for plants. Before the end of this period it was not possible to intentionally cultivate plants that would have even a minimal chance of surviving the action of the elements.
Between about 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, in the Neolithic period, plants that could be considered domesticated were already cultivated. Human beings enjoyed very productive crops, ceasing to depend on how generous nature was and leaving behind the constant threat of hunger. It is around this time that we can identify four regions with developed agricultural techniques: the Fertile Crescent, current Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey; China, New Guinea and Mesoamerica, mainly Mexico and Central America.
Some 2,000 or 4,000 years later, the domestication of crops was already a global phenomenon. There are eight new regions in which agricultural techniques were applied: African Sahel, Ethiopia, West Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Southeast North America, the Central Andes (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Northern Chile and Argentina) and the Amazon (Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru).
Agriculture gave way to livestock. Thanks to being able to grow vegetables, the human being Not only did it obtain a more or less stable food source for human consumption, but it could also select varieties more suitable for animal consumption By applying the same domestication processes to animals, varieties of chickens, pigs, dogs, cows and goats were created that were useful to people. Some of these animals became larger, with better meat, better milk or, as in the case of the dog, they were more faithful, using them for hunting.
After all these processes, human beings acquired the idea that whoever works on a piece of land is its owner, and everything they obtain from it is theirs. Agriculture is not only associated with a new production system and increased survival, but also with the idea of property. The fruits of the earth are for those who have cultivated them, their families and other members of the village, not for those who are alien to it. The idea of belonging to a territory arises, in addition to the psychological notion of the ingroup and the outgroup.
Power and influence in the village no longer depends solely on the strength of men or women Now, the one who has the most influence is the one who has cultivated land that has borne many fruits. The more food is produced, the less hungry people are and, furthermore, the easier it is to exchange other products, whether food, jewelry or tools, with other farmers. Exchange and wealth arise and, in turn, the first classes and estates emerge, in short, social inequalities arise.
As they have become sedentary and cultivate the land, there is an improvement in living conditions. Better nutrition implies longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality, making towns have more and more inhabitants. The larger the size, the more complex the social interactions are and, to prevent anarchy from reigning, the first governments emerge This, little by little, will give rise to complex civilizations, such as China, Mesopotamia, Egypt or India. In short, without agriculture, humanity would not be as we know it today.
