In what millennium did agriculture appear? Which areas of the world were the first to start cultivating the land?

The development of socio-economic relations during the period of existence of the tribal community marked a slow transition from the appropriating model of the economy to the reproducing one. In what millennium agriculture appeared, which regions of the Earth first began to cultivate the soil - described in this article.

The Neolithic Age

In the Stone Age, the main occupation of people was gathering and hunting. The rapid depletion of natural resources made them constantly move from place to place in search of new lands. The reasons for the transition to a sedentary lifestyle have not been fully clarified. Some scientists explain the occurrence of agriculture by the retreat of glaciers, others explain the increase in population. There is a theory that a sedentary lifestyle is closely connected with the emergence of religion - primitive people did not want to leave the graves of loved ones, so they tried to settle near the shrines and burial grounds.

Domestication of plants

About that, in what millennium the agriculture appeared, it is possible to judge on the finds of archaeologists and cryptobotanists. Scientists studying the ancient world of plants, find traces of mass crops of legumes and grains. These findings can be fairly accurately said when agriculture appeared. Carbon analysis shows that the first attempts to cultivate wild plants appeared ten thousand years ago. At that time, primitive people began to experiment with certain types of plants - not just to collect them, but also to try to grow.

Regions of agriculture

The Middle East was the first place on Earth where people first tried to work the soil. According to scientists, in these territories the first cultivated plants were wheat, barley and leguminous crops. In southeast Asia, rice was the first domesticated crop.

The fact of the millennium that agriculture appeared on the American continent is spoken by the remnants of maize crops. The earliest maize plantings in these territories date back to the fifth millennium BC.

Agriculture and cattle breeding. What before?

Archeology helps to find the answer to the question of how farming and cattle breeding has appeared. The experience of domestication of wild animals in humans was already there - the dog began to live near a person even in the era of hunters and nomads. According to the majority of researchers, cattle were domesticated for the purpose of using them as draft animals, and small was considered as a source of milk and meat. The first domestic sheep and goats appeared about 10 thousand years ago in the mountains of Zagros. Subsequently, pigs and poultry were gradually domesticated animals. Inhabitants of the Indian peninsula tamed buffalo, and in Asia domestic cattle, camels and horses became domestic.

So the answer to the question, "In what millennium did agriculture appear", depends on the region in question. The difference in the richness of natural resources has led to unequal development of relations in primitive society, which means that the process of subsidence on land and the domestication of wild animals in different territories occurred at different times.