What are the origins of agriculture?

A summary of what is known about the origins of agriculture thousands of years ago.

Humanity, as we know it today, would not have been possible if our species had not made the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples to sedentary farming peoples.

Agriculture has been crucial for humans to survive without depending on the elements. However, it is also because of agriculture that we live in societies with social and economic inequalities.

Here we will discover the origins of agriculture, how it came to be over the course of time, and how it has evolved over the centuries.how it developed over the millennia and how it has influenced the development of modern civilizations.

How was the origin of agriculture?

The emergence of agriculture is considered one of the most revolutionary processes in the history of mankind. Thanks to the cultivation of vegetables for human consumption, our species ceased to be totally dependent 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 nomadic nomadic and subsisted by hunting and gathering wild vegetables.. They survived by exploiting the resources of a region, hunting its animals and gathering its fruits. Since in many cases the fruits were toxic or they were not certain that they were for human consumption, nomadic peoples preferred to hunt animals directly, no matter how unappetizing and nutritious they might be. Edible vegetables were a scarce commodity in the wild.

After spending several days or weeks in the same area, resources were becoming scarce. To avoid starvation, they could not wait for the region to naturally replenish itself: the time had come to migrate again. The time had come to migrate again, the Homo sapiens were constantly on the move, looking for new regions where they could spend a few weeks and continue where they could spend a few weeks and continue to live, always under the threat of chronic hunger.

Because they were constantly on the move, 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, falling to the ground and receiving water from the rains, would germinate and form a sprout that, with the passing of months or even years, would transform into a fruit tree. Before that tree had grown, the people who accidentally planted it were already far away, looking for a new place where they could subsist.

This is why it is believed that the most primitive human beings associated the growth of plants with magical forces. Hunter-gatherer societies, not paying enough attention to how the seeds germinated, had not connected the idea that from the seeds they were growing to the magical forces, had not connected the idea that a seed could grow into a new plant.. Surely, they thought that all the fruit trees they encountered were there by pure chance, having grown spontaneously and thanks to the designs of forest spirits. How did it come about?

Normally, when we speak of agriculture we mean all techniques that involve the action of cultivating more or less domesticated plants, with or without the help of domesticated animals. The task of farmers is to sow, cultivate and harvest plants from which they will obtain food, textiles, wood and natural remedies. Although this definition is the most widely accepted, it has not prevented a great deal of debate as to what should be considered the first agricultural techniques and who carried them out.

Be that as it may, it took many attempts to make agriculture resemble what we know it as today.and the use of intelligence, observation and patience. It took many years, even millennia, for the human species to make domestic varieties of plants that today cannot be absent in any home, such as corn, rice, wheat, all kinds of fruits or the cotton we use in many garments.

Traditionally, it was thought that agriculture arose by mere chance. The first farmers "invented" agriculture without really knowing what they were doing. At some point they must have seen how an accidentally buried seed was transformed into a small sprout and, later, into a plant with the same fruits as those of the plant of the fruit to which that nugget belonged and, thus, they discovered by pure chance how to sow, cultivate and harvest all kinds of vegetables.

However, the scientific community has been critical of this belief. The earliest agricultural techniques seem to be too complex to be considered to have been 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 at what time 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 it has been accepted the idea 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 vegetables, observed how seeds grew when they fell to the ground and spent a few days, and they were the discoverers of agriculture. Since the idea that there were marked gender differences in terms of roles within the nomadic villages is questioned, this idea has been challenged.

Be that as it may, what is clear is that early 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 flesh, less husk, smaller seeds, better quality wood or more resistant tissues. With the birth of agriculture, artificial selection came into being. The first agricultural peoples, without even knowing what evolution was, exercised it on their own crops.

Where and when did agriculture arise?

Surprising as it may seem, agriculture did not arise in a single place. Different human populations came to develop the first agricultural techniques on their own, sharing many characteristics without even knowing what evolution was.sharing many characteristics without even knowing that the same thing was being done in other parts of the world.

They may have cultivated 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 emergence and development of agriculture is a matter 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 in different parts of the world began to tend and then sow 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, they began to domesticate plant species. However, these techniques were not at all widespread, these techniques were not at all widespread, since the Earth was in a glaciation and it would not be until 15,000 years ago and it was not 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 had even a minimal chance of surviving the action of the elements.

Between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, plants that could be considered domesticated were already being cultivated in the Neolithic period. Humans enjoyed highly productive crops, no longer depending on the bounty of nature and leaving behind the constant threat of hunger. It is around this time that we can identify four regions with developed agricultural techniquesThe Fertile Crescent, present-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey; China, New Guinea and Mesoamerica, mainly Mexico and Central America.

Some 2,000 to 4,000 years later, the domestication of crops was already a worldwide 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).

Historical consequences of agriculture

Agriculture gave way to animal husbandry. Thanks to the ability to cultivate vegetables, human beings not only obtained a more or less stable source of food for human consumption, but was also able to select varieties more suitable for animal consumption.. By applying the same domestication processes to animals, varieties of chickens, pigs, dogs, cows and goats were obtained that were useful for humans. Some of these animals became bigger, with better meat, better milk or, as in the case of the dog, were more faithful, using them for hunting.

After all these processes, the human being acquired the idea that whoever works on a piece of land is its owner, and whatever he obtains from it is his. Agriculture is not only associated with a new system of production and an increase in survival, but also with the idea of ownership. The fruits of the land are for those who have cultivated them, their relatives and other members of the village, not for outsiders. The idea of belonging to a territory arises, as well as the psychological notion of the in-group and the out-group.

Power and influence in the village no longer depend solely on the strength of men or women.. Now, the one who has more influence is the one who has cultivated a land that has given him a lot of fruits. The more food is produced, the less hunger is experienced and, in addition, the easier it is to exchange other products, whether food, jewelry or tools, with other farmers. Exchange and wealth arose and, in turn, the first classes and estates emerged, in short, social inequalities arose.

As they became sedentary and cultivated the land, there was an improvement in living conditions. A better diet implies a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality, causing towns to have more and more inhabitants. The larger the population, the more complex the social interactions and, to prevent anarchy from reigning, the first governments were created.. This will gradually give rise to complex civilizations, such as China, Mesopotamia, Egypt and India. In short, without agriculture, humanity would not be as we know it today.

Bibliographical references:.

• Tayles, N., Domett, K., & Nelsen, K. (2000). Agriculture and dental caries? The case of rice in prehistoric Southeast Asia. World Archaeology, 32(1): pp. 68- 83.
• Bar-Yosef, O. y Meadows, R. H (1995). The origins of agriculture in the Near East. In T. D. Price and A. Gebauer (eds) Last Hunters – First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture: pp. 39 - 94.