1. The agricultural revolution (how plants made us us) Section 1

2. This is Derrek (pictured 3 rd from left)

3. Derrek and his woman Lillith (pictured center) live a nomadic life style

4. Nomads have no fixed home but move according to the seasons in search of food, water, and grazing land

5. Sounds cool, right?

6. Well.. It wasn’t always cool There were MAJOR problems too

7. If you’re injured you got left behind so the rest of the group didn’t starve too

8. Food/water shortages = death

9. Carrying ALL your belongings gets to be a drag

10. This lifestyle happened for a loooong time … and then something changed

11. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION The agricultural revolution = the wide-scale transition of many humans from the nomadic lifestyle to one of agriculture and settlement.

12. Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various forms of plants (and animals) evolved separate locations worldwide around 12,000 y.a.

13. If you helped your food plants to grow instead of hoped wild food plants would grow, you would save energy & reduce the inherent dangers of travel IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER… THINK ABOUT IT

14. This simple concept: – had a centralizing effect on the previously nomadic groups of people – ultimately creating modern civilization unintentionally

15. Why the A.R. rocked! The A.R. allowed: – permanent residences = better living conditions – an increasingly large population – specialized labor (ex: baker, butcher, candlestick maker, etc..) – trading economy – surplus food storage – government – Dispersalized systems of knowledge (writing) – Permanent ART!

16. However, the A.R. allowed for something else …..

17. Staying put meant humans had time to really study and manipulate their natural environment in new and deliberate ways.

18. We kept track of all of this with our newest invention… writing!

19. We discovered moving the water to the plants made good sense

20. We noticed when you don’t plant in the same field each season it grows better than leaving it there forever

21. We noticed when a fish was placed below a seed the resulting plant seemed to grow with more vigor I’m kind of a big deal

22. We noticed that sulfer smelled bad so when we dusted it onto our crops the bugs stayed away too

23. We noticed pollinating a high yielding plant with another high yielding plant made more great plants!

24. So the A.R. both made civilization possible and sculpted the fabric of our current nation