Western Civilization I / Unit 1 WC1 0004 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Agricultural Revolution and the Fertile Crescent, About 9500 BCE
Captions available
The idea
Farming began about ninety-five hundred before the common era, the Fertile Crescent first: wild wheat and barley, native goats, sheep and cattle, a wetter climate. The anchor places Western civilization's heartland there, not in Europe.
In practice
Crop rotation, the plow and irrigation multiplied yields.
Where people slip
The anchor reports archaeologists' finding that foragers worked less and lived longer. Farming won by numbers.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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