The Evolution of Agricultural Technology

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 5 — The Evolution of Agricultural Technology showed more tolerance for certain of these animal neighbors than others This means that slowly but in not-quite random ways natural selection gave humans a boost in the direction of agriculture As natural selection made some plants and animals more compatible with human life and vice versa people learned to favor some species to a greater degree In other words people helped cer tain plants and animals reproduce in a process we now call artificial selection a key to domestication People learned to select those varieties of wild plant species that had desirable features such as large kernels or fruits They also began to influence the diets and behaviors of the animals around them Tools have always been key to agricultural progress People began using stone tools millions of years ago in Africa Eventually this technology including stone digging tools meat scrapers axes and spear points spread around the world People also gathered and prepared food with tools of bone antler ivory and perishable materials such as wood that we have seldom found in excavations Archae ologists have found 160,000-year-old grindstones that held traces of starch because they were used to grind seeds Fishing hooks and spears are evi 8

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 6 — Stone Age Origins of Agriculture dence from forty thousand years ago that people were skilled at finding food in rivers and lakes and ocean shorelines THE FIRST DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS Over many thousands of years people favored cer tain plants and animals over others Eventually they learned to grow plants for food medicine cloth ing and shelter in areas set aside for that purpose Because it made life much easier for many people it became the preferred way of fulfilling a basic human need People also discovered that there were partic ular advantages to caring for animals in flocks and herds These changes marked the gradual begin ning of agriculture The first domesticated animals were dogs Wolves that scavenged near human communities were their ancestors In a sense the wolves began to domesticate themselves before humans even planned to do so because wolves that could peace fully live near humans began to eat more regularly Meanwhile many could not so other wolves con tinued on as a separate wild species Those wolves 9

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 7 — The Evolution of Agricultural Technology that were more compatible with humans gradually became domesticated between thirty and fifteen thousand years ago in East Asia and the Middle East In archaeological excavations their bones show that they underwent changes as they became tamer and as their diets changed as well Over the millen nia since then humans have bred dogs into differ ent groups called breeds with an amazing variety of sizes skull shapes colors and ways of behaving As a result of their close connections with humans dogs are far better at understanding human inten tions such as our gestures pointing and our emo tional reactions than wolves dogs are even better at this than our closest primate relatives chimpan zees and gorillas The old saying Dog is Man’s best friend or in updated language Dogs are humans best friends is backed up by millennia of evidence Grazing animals such as goats gazelles and sheep were domesticated before plants were farmed in the Middle East Chickens were domesticated in Southeast Asia at about the same time as the graz ing animals of the Middle East Wild tarpans were domesticated into the horses we know today and wild oxen aurochs became today’s cattle Rather than keeping herds of all of these animals in one place 10

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 8 — Sheep and goats were among the first animals to be domesticated because these herd animals live together in flocks and because they eat grass and scrubby bushes many societies became pastoral herding flocks long distances to find fresh grass fields Larger domesti cated animals were used for food and hides and as draft animals pulling carts and eventually plows Early farmers set pieces of a plant roots buds leaves underground stems in the ground to pro duce more plants like the parent This is a process we now call vegetative reproduction They eventu ally learned to replant other types each year usu 11 Caption TK

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