History › First civilizations
Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution
from c. 9500 BC in the Fertile Crescent; independently in China, Mexico, the Andes and elsewhere· Event· Middle East & Africa
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Starting around 9500 BC, people in several regions began growing crops and herding animals, gradually replacing hunting and gathering as humanity's main way of life.
See it on the History map →What happened
In the Fertile Crescent, the arc from Israel and Jordan through Syria and Turkey to Iraq and Iran, people domesticated wheat, barley, lentils, sheep, goats, cattle and pigs. Farming arose independently in at least half a dozen other places, including China, Mexico, the Andes and New Guinea. The shift took thousands of years, not a single moment. Farming fed far more people per acre, so villages grew and populations rose.
Why it matters
Food surpluses made possible cities, specialists, kings, armies, taxes and writing. They also brought land ownership, inequality, crowd diseases and harder work. Nearly everything later on this map rests on it.
Think of it like
Like switching from flipping to holding property: steadier income per acre, but you are tied to the land and its upkeep.
How we know
Seeds and bones that change shape under domestication, such as wheat whose ripe ears no longer shatter, dated by radiocarbon, plus DNA of crops, animals and early farmers. Archaeologist V. Gordon Childe coined the term in the 1930s.
Still debated
Why people began farming is debated: climate, population pressure, feasting and religion (see Göbekli Tepe) are all proposed. Early farmers were often shorter and less healthy than foragers.
Inside this (8)
Connections (10)
▸Domestication of the dog came thousands of years before the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
Dogs were domesticated by hunter-gatherers, not farmers, thousands of years before any crop or herd animal. It was the first case of humans reshaping a species by influencing which animals survived and bred, the process later applied to sheep, goats, wheat and barley. Dogs then joined farmers as herders and guards.
When and how
Dogs by at least 15,000 years ago in Eurasia; the first farm animals, sheep and goats, about 11,000–10,500 years ago in the Fertile Crescent.
How sure are we?
Dog remains at hunter-gatherer sites far older than any domesticated plant or livestock remains.
Debates and open questions
Whether experience with dogs made later animal domestication easier, or the two were unrelated, is speculative.
▸End of the last Ice Age made possible Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
Ice Age climate was colder, drier, lower in carbon dioxide and wildly variable, making crops unreliable. After about 11,700 years ago the Holocene brought warmth, more rain, more carbon dioxide for plants and steadier seasons. Within a few thousand years, farming began independently in several regions, first in the Fertile Crescent.
When and how
Worldwide, from about 11,700 years ago; earliest farming in the Fertile Crescent about 9500 BC, among descendants of the Natufian foragers.
How sure are we?
Ice cores and lake sediments record the climate shift; dated crop remains show farming starting only after it, on several continents within a geologically short time.
Debates and open questions
Climate made farming possible, not inevitable. Why people chose it, and whether the Younger Dryas cold snap pushed Natufians toward cultivation, are debated.
▸Göbekli Tepe may have helped spark Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionDebated
The connection
Klaus Schmidt argued that the need to feed crowds of builders and worshippers at Göbekli Tepe pushed people to cultivate wild cereals nearby. Genetic studies trace domesticated einkorn wheat to the Karacadağ hills only about 30 km (20 miles) away. In this view, feasting and ritual came first; farming followed.
When and how
Şanlıurfa region of southeastern Turkey, about 9500–8000 BC, in the heart of the zone where wheat, barley, sheep and goats were domesticated.
How sure are we?
Circumstantial: closeness in time and place to early domestication, and traces of large feasts. The animal bones are mostly wild, and the cereals mostly wild types.
Debates and open questions
Whether ritual drove farming or settling down drove ritual is a chicken-and-egg question; newer finds of houses there complicate Schmidt's temple-first idea.
▸Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution produced towns like ÇatalhöyükWell documented
The connection
Farming spread from the Fertile Crescent into central Anatolia, where reliable harvests of wheat and barley, plus herds of sheep and goats, could feed thousands of people living in one place year-round. Çatalhöyük, a town of mud-brick houses, rose about 2,500 years after farming began.
When and how
Konya Plain, central Turkey, about 7100–5950 BC.
How we know
Charred grain, animal bones, storage bins and tools found throughout the houses show a mixed farming economy.
Debates and open questions
Why people packed so densely without streets or obvious leaders, and why the town was eventually abandoned, are open questions.
▸Rice and millet farming in China was an independent branch of the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
China's farmers domesticated millet and rice from local wild plants, with no known contact with the Fertile Crescent. That makes China one of several independent birthplaces of agriculture, showing that farming was a widespread human response to the post-Ice Age world, not one invention spread from one place.
When and how
Yellow River valley (millet) and Yangtze valley (rice), from about 8000 BC.
How sure are we?
Different crops, tools and timing from Middle Eastern farming, and plant remains showing local wild ancestors gradually becoming domesticated.
Debates and open questions
When people began cultivating wild rice, perhaps 10,000 years ago at Shangshan, and when that became true farming, is debated.
▸Maize domesticated in Mexico came from an independent center of the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
Mesoamerica developed farming entirely separately from the Old World. Squash was domesticated there about 10,000 years ago and maize about 9,000, later joined by beans and chili peppers. Because maize took millennia to become productive, settled farming villages appeared later than in the Middle East, by about 2000–1500 BC.
When and how
Southwestern Mexico, in the Balsas River valley and Oaxaca, from about 8000–7000 BC.
How sure are we?
Ancient squash seeds and maize cobs from Guilá Naquitz cave, starch grains on grinding stones, and genetics tracing maize to local teosinte.
Debates and open questions
Why Mesoamericans grew crops for thousands of years while still living largely as mobile foragers is still discussed.
▸Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution made possible Sumer and Mesopotamia: the first citiesWell documented
The connection
Some 5,000 years of farming in the Middle East built up the population, food surplus and organization that cities need. In southern Mesopotamia, irrigated barley fields yielded big surpluses, which fed temple workers, craftsmen, priests and officials in Uruk, the first true city, about 4000 BC.
When and how
Southern Mesopotamia, from villages of the Ubaid period (about 6500–3800 BC) to the cities of the Uruk period (about 4000–3100 BC).
How we know
Excavated settlement layers showing villages growing into towns and cities, and early tablets recording barley rations for workers.
Debates and open questions
Why the first cities formed in hot, dry southern Mesopotamia rather than in older farming areas with rain is still debated.
▸Caral: first city of the Americas grew partly from the Andean branch of the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
The Andes were another independent birthplace of farming, with squash, beans, cotton, potatoes and other crops domesticated from roughly 8000 BC. Caral's builders irrigated cotton, squash and beans in coastal river valleys but also relied heavily on sea fish, so the city rested on farming plus fishing.
When and how
Supe Valley on Peru's central coast, about 3000–1800 BC; excavated by Ruth Shady from 1994.
How sure are we?
Remains of cotton, squash, beans, guava and other crops at Caral, alongside large quantities of anchovy and sardine bones.
Debates and open questions
How much Caral depended on farming versus fishing, and whether the sea economy came first, is a long-running debate.
▸Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution was carried south and east by Bantu expansion across AfricaMostly agreed
The connection
Africa had its own early farming centers, in the Sahel, West Africa and Ethiopia. From West Africa, Bantu-speaking farmers carried yams, oil palm, millet and sorghum, plus cattle and pottery, south through the rainforest and east toward the Great Lakes, then on to southern Africa, bringing farming to regions long home to hunter-gatherers.
When and how
From near today's Nigeria–Cameroon border, beginning perhaps 3000–1500 BC and reaching southern Africa by about AD 300–500.
How sure are we?
Pottery, crops and village sites appearing in sequence along the route; the Bantu language family tree; DNA showing farmer ancestry spreading and mixing with local foragers.
Debates and open questions
Whether farming itself, a drier climate that thinned the rainforest between about 2000 and 500 BC, or later iron tools mainly drove the expansion is debated.
▸Industrial Revolution was the biggest change since the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
Farming, from about 9500 BC, let people settle, build towns and support rulers, but most people still worked the land and lived near subsistence. Industry broke that pattern: machines and fossil fuels multiplied output per worker, and farmers shrank from most of the workforce to a few percent in industrial countries.
When and how
Farming began in the Fertile Crescent and several other regions about 11,500 years ago; industry began in Britain around 1760 and spread worldwide.
How sure are we?
Long-run income estimates, such as Angus Maddison's, show near-flat incomes for millennia, then sustained growth after 1800; the US farm workforce fell from about 70% to under 2%.
Debates and open questions
Some historians rank other shifts, like writing or the Scientific Revolution, as comparably big; whether the digital age is a third such transition is debated.