Evidence points to the (Fertile Crescent) of the Middle East as the site of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild.

Since the 1960s, East Asia has become the most common term for far-east countries

is a transcontinental region, centered in western Asia and Egypt, and the term came into other uses far from the eastern region (as opposed to the far east) beginning in the early twentieth century.

The first humans evolved in Africa around...... years ago

By..... BC their descendants had spread to most parts of the globe and in some areas were beginning to practice

agriculture.

Between five and one million years ago, hominid species (humans and their ancestors) proliferated in..... and ......, giving rise by 1.8 million years ago to the new genus, Homo, to which we ourselves belong

Between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago, members of our genus colonized much of temperate ..... and ...... as well as tropical areas, aided by their ability to use fire and create shelter.

By 9000 BC, the only parts of the globe that modern humans Homo sapiens had not reached were remote islands and circumpolar regions.

between 1.8million and 300,000 years ago, early Homo spread from Africa as far as China and western Europe.

These allies were formerly, replaced by representatives of Modern man, Homosapiens, who reached 14,000 years old.

Within the succeeding 8,000 years, much of the world was transformed. People in many parts of the world began to produce their own food, domesticated and selectively breeding plants, and animals.

Farming developed in many parts of the world from around 10,000 BC. Differences in the locally available plants and animals and in local conditions gave rise to many variations between regions.

Intensive and highly productive agriculture give rise to civilized societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and northern India in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC and in China by 1700 BC.

Religious or secular leaders who could organize food storage and redistribution, craft production, trade, defense, and social order became increasingly powerful.

A surplus of agricultural produce It has been used in these civilizations to support a growing number of Specialists who were not involved in food production: artisans, merchants, priests, rulers, as well as full-time warriors - although the majority of soldiers were usually farmers.

Between 1200 and 500 BC civilized societies were established in the Americas.

Korea and parts of Central Asia fell to the .......

....., Agricultural practices have made great strides. Agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the substitution of labor for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, selective breeding, mechanization, water pollution, and farm subsidies.

......, there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of conventional agriculture, particularly regarding water pollution, resulting in organic agriculture.

Thus the ox-drawn plow, the hoe, the digging stick, the sickle, harrow, ax and machete were used, fallowing, the use of cattle manure, the growth of legumes to maintain soil fertility, irrigation, water-lifting techniques and a variety of other fundamental techniques were all known to farmers

Irrigation- In Egypt flood control and basin irrigation has appeared by the end of the fourth millennium Bc

Six-row barley replaced two-row barley, and bread wheat joined emmer and einkorn.

this theory is predicated on climate change as the basis of the start of agriculture.this theory is predicated on climate change as the basis of the start of agriculture.Due to dry spell, bothi hitmans and animals converged close to oases. It was there that animals were first domesticated and seeds were planted Howeves, this theory finds opposing views because climatie data do not support it.

This theory, argues that the likely beginning of agrienltuye is an upland location with frequent rainfall so that crops cam be arowu wihout the need of supphying imigaticn water

These theories postulate that the increase in human population is hampered by the carrying capacity of the natural environment in supplying food. With further increase in population, the food that the wild naturally supplies became too insignificant

It describes agriculture as a form of coevolutionary adaptation of humans and wild plants. It started with the mere protection of wild plants and progressed until their domestication improved

It states that humans first settled in particular areas where they abandoned their nomadic ways of finding food, then they practiced animal domestication and agriculture.

The importance of vegeculture in early agricultural history has been neglected

The best-known tropical vegeculture is that of South East Asia.

A number of important root and tree crops are indigenous to this region, including taro, the greater yam, the breadfruit, the sago palm, the bamboo. coconuts and bananas.

In the “Fertile Crescent” of West Asia (the arc of land comprising the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Zagros region) Wild wheat and barley provided an abundant annual harvest that enabled hunter-gatherers to dwell year-round in permanent settlements.

Around ......BC the global temperature began to rise, causing many changes. Sea levels rose, flooding many coastal regions.

A cold, dry interlude around ....... to...... BC caused a decline in the availability of wild cereals and the abandonment of many of these settlements, but communities in well-watered areas began to plant and cultivate the cereals they had formerly gathered from the wild.

By.....BC, when conditions again became more favorable, these first farming communities had grown in size and number and they began to spread into other suitable areas.

By ...... BC farming communities established in many areas of Asia were linked by trade.

Areas of high agricultural productivity, such as southern Mesopotamia, were dependent on trade to obtain the basic raw materials lacking in them environments, such as wood and stone.

Early agriculture in South West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean

By 9000 BC, peoples who relied upon hunting and gathering were reaping wild parley and wild wheat with knives, grinding the grains and using storage pits.

By ...... BC there is evidence of village communities growing wheat and barley in Greece and Crete in the west,in southern Turkey, the Galilean upland of the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean, in the Zagros mountains of lran and Iraq, the interior plateaux of Iran, and in the foothills south east of the Caspian. Subsequently the number of domesticated plants was increased Flax- peas- lentils- vetch

By....... BC the olive, vine, and fig, the crops which give traditional Mediterranean agriculture much of its distinctiveness, had been domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean.

By....... -.....BC, South West Asian crops such as wheat, flax and lentils and also cotton and rice were grown.

Eastward expansion (India-Pakistan)

By 3000 Bc: Harappa civilization

(Southwest Asia and South East Asia)

By...... BC were growing the distinctively Indian millets, rabi and bajra, Both these crops, it should be noted, are probably indigenous to Africa, as is Sesame indicum which was grown by the Harappa farmers

Most archaeological evidence suggests that agriculture in India is a result of diffusion from southwest Asia. Together with the local domestication of rice and cotton, and some unexplained imports of Africa.

It is Now thought that northern China and Southeast Asia may have been centers of independent domestication.

Wheat and barley were acquired from West Asia, while soybeans and the mulberry tree were domesticated locally.

The origins of the domestication of rice and the development of wet rice techniques have been a matter of great controversy and remain a major unsolved problem. Upland rice and wet rice

vegeculture is in Thailand have been dated ......BC

Regions of vegeculture:

The best-known tropical vegeculture is that of South East Asia -taro, the greater yam, the breadfruit, the sago palm, the bamboo. coconuts and bananas.

-yam

-oil-palm tree

- manioc (Manihot utilissima), the sweet potato (Xanthosoma) and arrowroot. the peanut, were probably domesticated in the tropical lowlands east of the Andes at some time between 7000 B.C. and 3000 B.C.

...... to..... BC cultivate the cereals in Fertile C (Levant.Mesopotamia and the Zagros region)

.....BC spread to Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia

..... BC growing wheat and barley in Greece and Crete in the west, in southern Turkey, the Galilean upland of the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean, in the Zagros mountains of Iran and Iraq,Subsequently the number of the domesticated plants was increased Flax- peas- lentils-vetch

....BC the development of agricultural techniques, such as irrigation and water control.

...... BC cultivated millet in China

.... BC the olive, vine and fig, West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean

.....BC farmers growing wheat in Indus Valley

development ofrice and millet cultivation by the Indus civilization before .....BC wet rice agriculture was becoming established in northerm China

.....BC wet-rice agriculture was becoming established in southern China, northern Thailand, and Taiwan

.....BC: Indian Agriculture, Harappa civilization - two major centers of domestication, South West Asia and South East Asia

......-.......BC, South West Asian crops such as wheat, flax and lentils and also cotton and rice were grown

.... BC were growing the distinctively Indian millets, rabi and bara Both these crops, indigenous to Africa, as is Sesame Indicum which was grown by the Harappa farmers

agriculture in India as a result of diffusion from southwest Asia. Together with the local domestication of rice and cotton, and some unexplained imports of Africa

FROM HUNTING TO FARMING: AFRICA 10,000 BC-AD 500-

By 10,000 BC most of Africa was inhabited by hunter.

At many places pottery was being made from around 7500 BC.

Between ....and.... BC, the Sahara was moister than at the present and was occupied by pastoral nomads who may have practiced some incipient agriculture.

EARLY FARMING IN AFRICA By about..... BC many communities in northern Africa were raising indigenous crop plants such as sorghum though they also continued to hunt and fish and to gather wild plant foods.

Vegeculture was probably practiced on the north margins of the tropical forest in West Africa as early as the fifth millennium BC The beginnings of cereal cultivation are less clear .

It has claimed that there were two centers of independent plant domestication in Africa south of the Sahara, one in the western Sudan zone, and one in the east in Ethiopia.

were introduced to the southern half of the continent by the spread of people from the north who spoke Bantu languages

By the third and second millennium BC, agriculture was being oracticed in the savannas north of the tropical rain forest.

By the end of the first millennium BC, there had been little enetration of the rain forest, and agriculture had made little progress into southern Africa.

The plough, which had by then diffused over nearly all the Old world, did not reach Africa until the nineteenth century

FROM HUNTING TO FARMING: EUROPE 8000-200 BC

farming communities were spreading from Anatolia into southeast Europe, bringing wheat, barley, sheep and goats.

By ..... B.C. agriculture had reached the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and possibly the British Isles, whilst by 2500 B.C. at the latest it had reached the southern edge of the coniferous forest in Scandinavia and Russia. Farming also spread through the countries to the north of the Mediterranean Sea, and had reached Spain and southern France by about 4000 B.C

Wheat, barley, lentils, lax, vetch, and peas were all taken north,Oats and rye are both indigenous to South West Asia.

barley became more important than wheat

The earliest evidence of ploughs - or more precisely, ards - in northem Europe is in the third millennium B.C.

FROM HUNTING TO FARMING: THE AMERICAS 12,000-1000 BC, Agriculture in the Americas is an independent development The American farming showed a number of major differences from Old World agriculture until the arrival of Europeans:

-The Crops

-The farming methods

The crops

Yam – Quinoa- Coconut – Taro – Μanioc – Breadfruit – Arrowroat – Oca

Manioc = Manihot = Cassava = Brazilian arrowroot.

The plough was not invented in the Americas, while the coa was akin to the digging stick than the hoe

After 8000 BC bison hunting became the main subsistence base of the inhabitants of the Great Plains of North America

In the southwest similar developments were encouraged by the introduction around 1000 BC from Mesoamerica of maize.

After 7000 BC hunter-gatherer bands in highland valleys of Mesoamerica supplemented the foodstuffs they obtained through seasonal migration by sowing and tending a number of local plants such as squashes and chillies.

In a period of quite remarkable expansion the Portuguese seized Malacca in 1511, reached the spice islands of the Moluccas in 1513, and Canton in China in the same year

There was thus a regular movement of ships, and hence of plants, between Europe, Africa, and the New World 1505-1525