43 – Beginning of agricultural communities
Around 12,000 years ago
The human development of agriculture marks a key turning point in food acquisition strategies for our species. Before agriculture, the primary subsistence strategy was hunting and gathering. But with agriculture, humans could collaborate on food production and make the process more efficient. Many argue that by streamlining the food acquisition process through agriculture, humans opened the door to all other technological marvels that we have produced. We know that agriculture developed around 12,000 years ago from pictographic records, farming tools, and stores of seeds that have been discovered. Read about human’s unique capacity to cooperate.
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Epoch
Environmental and Climate Changes
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Abrupt cooling of the Earth—Younger Dryas 12,800 to 11,600 Ya
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Interglacial period 11,000 Ya to Present
Changing Species
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Homo sapiens 300,000 Ya to Present