Farming begins
Humans stop following food and start growing it
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Farming arose independently at least seven times: wheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent, rice on the Yangtze, maize in Mexico, potatoes in the Andes, millet in the Sahel, squash in Amazonia and bananas in New Guinea. The shift produced more food per hectare but a poorer diet, shorter people, new infectious diseases from livestock and much harder labour. In return, the surplus enabled specialisation: priests, artisans, soldiers and scribes — civilisation as we know it.
For children
Instead of searching for food all the time, people began sowing grain and keeping animals. That meant staying in one place. The first villages were born — and with them ownership, neighbours and arguments about boundaries.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org