Agricultural Revolution
...st times to stock up on food for the whole year. 4) More physical labour was needed in both sowing and harvesting time. This way of survival encouraged the development of social and individual discipline. This agriculture opened many opportunities to the people. In building the first permanent dwelling required a great deal of effort. But it also let people specialise in certain trades. For example if someone was good with working with wood then they spent most of their time doing that, other trades that emerged were cloth making, tool making for the crops and people could accumulate wealth. But surprisingly at first this new way of life didn’t really depend on new technology. The farmers were using tools that were commonly known to hunters e.g. the stone axe, the hoe, and sickle (all on right). So for a while the first settlements were made by tools that we had already invented. The first crop beds were made ready for seeds by hand with hoes. Then around about 6000 years ago the Scratch Plough (on left) was invented and that saved man a lot labour. We now know how changing from hunting and gathering effected humans but how did it effect the environment? Well for one the nutrients in the ground that is used to grow the plant, such as wheat, actually depleted. This means that in order to grow crops you needed very rich soil. This soil after time eventually lost all its nutrients and was noted as uninhabitable and was a great problem in early agricultural communities. But in other places such as Egypt and Iraq where the flooding rivers brought in new silt and nutrient and some of the original agricultural...