The Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution was the transition, beginning around 10,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, from small mobile bands of hunter gatherers to settled communities that farmed crops and raised domesticated animals. It began independently in several regions of the world, including the Fertile Crescent, the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys of China, Mesoamerica and the highlands of New Guinea, each domesticating different plants and animals suited to local conditions. Farming allowed denser, more permanent populations, which in turn made possible specialized labor, storable food surpluses, social hierarchy and eventually the first towns and cities. Historians regard it as one of the most consequential changes in the whole human story, because nearly every later development in civilization, from writing to organized religion to the state, depended on the food surplus and settled life it made possible.