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1 - What Is the Agricultural Revolution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2022

Shahal Abbo
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Avi Gopher
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University
Gila Kahila Bar-Gal
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Summary

The Agricultural Revolution (which made us all – humans – food-producers) is a major landmark in human history. It reflects a significant transformation in the general organization of human society and its components (see Glossary, General Terms, Agricultural Revolution). Since the advent of humans as tool-makers, some three million years ago, that is, since the moment we began producing tools and using them as a key vehicle in our daily activities, no transformation was as significant as the Agricultural Revolution. After three million years of living in small, mobile communities while subsisting by hunting animals and gathering plant foods, the Agricultural Revolution, which took place post-Pleistocene, during the Neolithic period, just over 10,000 years ago, brought about a prominent transformation in human life-ways. Mostly, it allowed humans to become food-producers, rendering them a unique and singular being on Earth. Small or large sedentary farming villages, characterizing the new way of life in the Near East, soon grew in size to very large villages, also known in Neolithic research as towns,1 which later became cities (Figure 1.1).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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