The Penguin History of the World

The importance of this transformation was so great that it does seem to justify a strong metaphor, and ‘farming revolution’ or ‘food-gathering revolution’ are terms whose meaning is readily clear. They single out the fact which explains why the Neolithic era could provide the circumstances in which civilizations could appear. Even a knowledge of metallurgy, which was spreading in some societies during their Neolithic phases, is not so fundamental. Farming truly revolutionized the conditions of human existence and it is the main thing to bear in mind when considering the meaning of Neolithic, a meaning once concisely summarized as ‘a period between the end of the hunting way of life and the beginning of a full metal-using economy, when the practice of farming arose and spread through most of Europe, Asia and North Africa like a slow-moving wave’.

The essentials of agriculture are the growing of crops and the practice of animal husbandry. How these came about and at what places and times is more mysterious. Some environments must have helped more than others; while some peoples pursued game across plains uncovered by the retreating ice, others were intensifying the skills needed to exploit the new, prolific river valleys and coastal inlets rich in edible plants and fish. The same must be true of cultivation and herding. On the whole, the Old World of Africa and Eurasia was better off for animals which might be domesticated than what would later be called the Americas. Not surprisingly, then, agriculture began in more than one place and in different forms. The earliest instance, based on the cultivation of primitive forms of millet and rice, occurred in China’s Yangzi and Yellow River valleys, sometime not too long after 9000 BC. Yet for thousands of years, and until only a couple of centuries ago, the increase of human food supply was to come from methods already available, though only slowly discovered, and in rudimentary form, in prehistoric times. New land could be broken in for crops, elementary observation and selection began the conscious modification of species, plant forms were transferred to new locations, and labour was applied to cultivation through digging, draining and irrigating. These made possible a growth in food production which could sustain a slow and steady rise in human numbers until the great changes brought by chemical fertilizers and modern genetic science.

The finds from Jiahu, a site between China’s two great rivers, has recently thrown new light on early agricultural communities. There archaeologists have found forty-five house foundations and thousands of artefacts dating back to at least 7000 BC. Among them were a large number of musical instruments of various kinds. Tools for cultivation, including spades and reaphooks, and other agricultural implements were also found, helping us understand the highly developed rice cultivation that was already taking place at Jiahu. It now seems increasingly likely that rice agriculture originated in one area of central China, where it gave rise to some of the first civilizations, and spread from there to other parts of Asia. The archaeological evidence from China also shows the close connection that existed between cultivation of crops and cultivation of the mind: when farmers lived together in settled villages, they improved their chances of fermenting knowledge that would be sustained and later spread elsewhere.