Humans have been farming for only a brief part of their history. Until about 10,000 years ago, people fed themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants. Even today, some isolated peoples subsist this way. The shift to cultivating crops and domesticating wild animals marked a profound transition in human culture, one that led to the rise of cities, writing, and hierarchical societies, as well as plagues and technology.
Agriculture arose independently in at least five areas of the world: the Fertile Crescent, China. Mesoamerica, the Andes, and eastern North America. In the Fertile Crescent, hunters harvested grain with fint knives and began to herd sheep and goats for food and clothing Attempts such as scattering seeds to enlarge production
or controlling the feeding and breeding of herd animals laid the foundations of an agricultural society. In northern China, millet cultivation, silk- worm farming, and the domestication of both pigs and dogs characterized village life from about the seventh millennium s.c. Mesoamerican farmers developed seed crops such as maize,
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beans, and squash during the sixth millennium s.c. Crops and farming techniques spread especially rapidly from the Middle East to Europe and Asia, given similar growing conditions and a relative lack of geographical barriers whereas in South America and Africa diffusion may have been hampered by differing climates and obstacles such as deserts and jungles.
In Asia and Europe, the invention of the plow made possible the use of draft animals, the development of larg er fields, and the cultivation of heavier soils. Organized agriculture everywhere encouraged larger settlements and growing populations.
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