"The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement."
The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, which gave rise to settled communities, the domestication of animals, and the development of tools and technologies. This period also saw the emergence of social hierarchies, trade networks, and the development of writing.
"This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants into crops."
"Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the Holocene 11,700 years ago."
"The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available."
"A downturn in the quality of human nutrition compared with that obtained previously from foraging."
"It was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth."
"These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food."
"Other developments that are found very widely during this era are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses."
"In many regions, the adoption of agriculture by prehistoric societies caused episodes of rapid population growth, a phenomenon known as the Neolithic demographic transition."
"These developments... provided the basis for centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labor, more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and greater property ownership."
"The earliest known civilization developed in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (c. 6,500 BP); its emergence also heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age."
"The relationship of the aforementioned Neolithic characteristics to the onset of agriculture, their sequence of emergence, and empirical relation to each other at various Neolithic sites remains the subject of academic debate."
"The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement."
"These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed. This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants into crops. It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available, resulting in a downturn in the quality of human nutrition compared with that obtained previously from foraging, but because food production became more efficient, it released humans to invest their efforts in other activities and was thus "ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth."
"During the next millennia, it transformed the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (non-nomadic) societies based in built-up villages and towns."
"These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food."
"Other developments that are found very widely during this era are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses."
"In many regions, the adoption of agriculture by prehistoric societies caused episodes of rapid population growth, a phenomenon known as the Neolithic demographic transition."
"These developments... provided the basis for centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labor, more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and greater property ownership."
"It is usually understood to vary from place to place, rather than being the outcome of universal laws of social evolution."