The Origins of Agriculture

Changes in Technology : discuss the various changes in technology that accompanied early agriculture and provide a specific archaeological example for each change in technology

It has been historically productive for humans to engage in hunter-gathering activity in to sustain themselves . Those who have done this have tended to have more free time than enjoyed by today 's farmers , and have also been healthier . Hunter gatherers are considered as persons who merely take food from the environment , yet expend no energy in influencing its growth . Farming practices developed subsequent to hunter-gatherer practices

, and also in conjunction with domestication - which defines a relationship in which plants or animals rely on humans to help them in reproduction and which is dependent on the removal of the species from its original gene pool . Such animals as dogs are examples , having been removed from the wolf family . From this co-evolutionary agriculture developed as a way of life relying on the domestication of plants and animals

Technological developments have evolved from early forms such as the use of basic cutting (early sickles ) and herding tools (sticks as staffs ) to moderns load bearing vessels and scientific breeding methods . Technology also involves the building of containers or buildings that housed grain or the people who had to settle down to cultivate food . The culture of the Bandkeramik (6600 to 4400 years ago ) show evidence of homes and farmsteads where people who settled to farm were housed . The use of dung as a scientific method of fertilization is suspected in the Asana site of 4500 y .a , and this reflects and advancement in development of scientific /technological methods to enhance agriculture . The Cotton-Proceramic period also saw major technological implementation such as irrigation canals and pit houses , which were constructed using whale bone and timber . Evidence of terracing in Juanaquena site in Mexico shows that technology was employed 3000 years ago for the purposes of agriculture

Plants and animals have been seen to evolve in a certain way in response to the methods of agriculture that humans have developed . The system of threshing and seed dispersal using machinery has changed in certain plants , and human activity has facilitated the germination of certain plants that may not have otherwise survived . For example , tougher rachi 's in wheat have evolved , as has more flexible bean pods and larger , more copious seed quantities . Animals have become smaller in size and less vicious as a result of human domestication . The horns of certain domesticated animals can be seen to have dulled in comparison to their wild counterparts

Even as early as 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 years ago , scientifically based agriculture has succeeded in changing the face of the grouping activities performed by animals . Herds have evolved , and the gender composition of those herds have now become dependent on the pastoral agricultural process rather than on natural ones . For instance , an increase in the number of young males in a herd suggests that humans have been involved in scientific agriculture based on...