Scholars have proposed a number of theories to explain the historical development of farming.

Most likely, there was a gradual transition from

hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies after a lengthy period during which some crops were deliberately planted and other foods were gathered
in the wild. Although localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant, the fact that farming was
'invented' at least three times elsewhere, suggests that social reasons may have been instrumental. When major climate change took place after the
last ice age (c.11,000 BC), much of the earth became subject to long dry seasons.[citation needed] These conditions favoured annual plants which die off
in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. These plants tended to put more energy into producing seeds than into woody growth. An
abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time.[citation needed]

The Oasis Theory was proposed by Raphael Pumpelly in 1908, and popularized by Vere Gordon Childe who summarized the theory in his book
Man Makes Himself[2] This theory maintains that as the climate got drier, communities contracted to oases where they were forced into close
association with animals which were then domesticated together with planting of seeds. The theory has little support from contemporary scholars,
as the climate data for the time does not support the theory.

The Hilly Flanks hypothesis, proposed by Robert Braidwood in 1948, suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros
mountains, and that it developed from intensive focused grain gathering in the region.[citation needed]

The Feasting model by Bryan Hayden[3] suggests that agriculture was driven by ostentatious displays of power, such as throwing feasts to exert
dominance. This required assembling large quantities of food which drove agricultural technology.

The Demographic theories were proposed by Carl Sauer[4] and adapted by Lewis Binford[5] and Kent Flannery. They describe an increasingly
sedentary population, expanding up to the carrying capacity of the local environment, and requiring more food than can be gathered. Various
social and economic factors help drive the need for food.

The evolutionary/intentionality theory, advanced by scholars including David Rindos,[6] is the idea that agriculture is a co-evolutionary
adaptation of plants and humans. Starting with domestication by protection of wild plants, followed specialization of location and then
domestication.

The domestication theory put forth by Daniel Quen and others states that first humans stayed in particular areas, giving up their nomadic ways,
then developed agriculture and animal domestication.

[edit] Neolithic era

Main article: Neolithic Revolution

Sumerian harvester's sickle, 3000 BC, made from baked bread.

Identifying the exact origin of agriculture remains problematic because the transition from hunter-gatherer societies began thousands of years
before the invention of writing.

Anthropological and archaeological evidence from sites across Southwest Asia and North Africa indicate use of wild grain (e.g., from the ca.
20,000 BC site of Ohalo II in Israel, many Natufian sites in the Levant and from sites along the Nile in the 10th millennium BC). There is even
evidence of planned cultivation and trait selection: grains of rye with domestic traits have been recovered from Epi-Palaeolithic (10,000+ BC)
contexts at Abu Hureyra in Syria, but this appears to be a localised phenomenon resulting from cultivation of stands of wild rye, rather than a
definitive step towards domestication.

Previously, archaeobotanists/paleoethnobotanists had traced the selection and cultivation of specific food plant characteristics in search of the
origins of agriculture. One notable example is the semi-tough rachis (and larger seeds) traced to just after the Younger Dryas (about 9500 BC) in
the early Holocene in the Levant region of the Fertile Crescent. However, studies have demonstrated monophyletic characteristics attained
without any sort human intervention, implying that what some may perceive as domestication among rachis could have occurred quite naturally.[7]
In fact, the timescale insisted upon for rachis domestication (approx. 3000 years) coincidentally has been demonstrated to directly coincide with
the statistically generated timeframe numerically modeled that would be required for monophyly to be reached if a population were simply
abandoned and left to only natural demands, implying that if any sort of human intervention had occurred at all then the timescale insisted upon
should be considerably shorter (than 3000 years).[7]

It was not until after 9500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley,
peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax. These eight crops occur more or less simultaneously on PPNB sites in the Levant, although the
consensus is that wheat was the first to be own and harvested on a significant scale.

At around the same time (9400 BC), another study argues, parthenocarpic fig trees appear to have been domesticated.[8] The simplicity associated
with cutting branches off fig trees and replanting them alongside wild cereals owes to the basis of this argument. [9]

By 7000 BC, sowing and harvesting reached Mesopotamia, and there, in the fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf, Sumerians systematized it
and scaled it up. By 6000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River. About this time, agriculture was developed independently
in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop. Maize was first domesticated, probably from teosinte, in the
Americas around 3000-2700 BC, though there is some archaeological evidence of a much older development. The potato, the tomato, the pepper,
squash, several varieties of bean, and several other plants were also developed in the New World, as was quite extensive terracing of steep
hillsides in much of Andean South America. Agriculture was also independently developed on the island of New Guinea.[10]

In Europe, there is evidence of emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, sheep, goats and pigs that suggest a food producing economy in Greece and the
Aegean by 7000 BC.[11] Archaeological evidence from various sites on the Iberian peninsula suggest the domestication of plants and animals
between 6000 and 4500 BC.[11] Céide Fields in Ireland, consisting of extensive tracts of land enclosed by stone walls, date to 5500 BC and are the
oldest known field systems in the world.[12][13] The horse was domesticated in Ukraine around 4000 BC.[14]

In China, rice and millet were domesticated by 8000 BC, followed by the beans mung, soy and azuki. In the Sahel region of Africa local rice and
sorghum were domestic by 5000 BC. Local crops were domesticated independently in West Africa and possibly in New Guinea and Ethiopia.
Evidence of the presence of wheat and some legumes in the 6th millennium BC have been found in the Indus Valley. Oranges were cultivated in
the same millennium. The crops grown in the valley around 4000 BC were typically wheat, peas, sesame seed, barley, dates and mangoes. By
3500 BC cotton growing and cotton textiles were quite advanced in the valley. By 3000 BC farming of rice had started. Other monsoon crops of
importance of the time was cane sugar. By 2500 BC, rice was an important component of the staple diet in Mohenjodaro near the Arabian Sea.
By this time the Indians had large cities with well-stocked granaries. Three regions of the Americas independently domesticated corn, squashes,
potato and sunflowers.

[edit] Bronze age

Agricultural scene from Ancient Egypt.

By the Bronze Age, wild food contributed a nutritionally insignificant component to the usual diet. If the operative definition of agriculture
includes large scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and use of a specialized labour force, the title "inventors of
agriculture" would fall to the Sumerians, starting ca. 5,500 BC. Intensive farming allows a much greater density of population than can be
supported by hunting and gathering, and allows for the accumulation of excess product for off-season use, or to sell/barter. The ability of farmers
to feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do with agriculture was the crucial factor in the rise of standing armies.
Sumerian agriculture supported a substantial territorial expansion which along with internecine conflict between cities, made them the first
empire builders. Not long after, the Egyptians, powered by farming in the fertile Nile valley, achieved a population density from which enough
warriors could be drawn for a territorial expansion more than tripling the Sumerian empire in area.[citation needed]

In Sumer, barley was the primary crop; wheat, flax, dates, apples, plums, and grapes were grown as well. Mesopotamian agriculture was both
supported and limited by flooding from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as floods came in late spring or early summer from snow melting from
the Anatolian mountains. The timing of the flooding, along with salt deposits in the soil, made farming in Mesopotamia difficult. Sheep and goats
were domesticated, kept mainly for meat and milk, butter and cheese being made from the latter. Ur, a large town that covered about 50 acres (20
hectares), had 10,000 animals kept in sheepfolds and stables and 3,000 slaughtered every year. The city's population of 6,000 included a labour
force of 2,500, cultivated 3,000 acres (12 km²) of land. The labour force contained storehouse recorders, work foremen, overseers, and harvest
supervisors to supplement labourers. Agricultural produce was given to temple personnel, important people in the community, and small farmers.
[citation needed]

The land was plowed by teams of oxen pulling light unwheeled plows and grain was harvested with sickles in the spring. Wagons had solid
wheels covered by leather tires kept in position by copper nails and were drawn by oxen and the Syrian onager (now extinct). Animals were
harnessed by collars, yokes, and headstalls. They were controlled by reins, and a ring through the nose or upper lip and a strap under the jaw. As
many as four animals could pull a wagon at one time. The horse was domesticated in Ukraine around 4000 BC, and was in use by the Sumerians
around 2000 BC.[citation needed]

[edit] Classical antiquity

Further information: Agriculture in ancient Greece and Roman agriculture

In classical antiquity, Roman agriculture built off techniques pioneered by the Sumerians, transmitted to them by subsequent cultures, with a
specific emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade and export. Romans laid the groundwork for the manorial economic system, involving
serfdom, which flourished in the Middle Ages. The farm sizes in Rome can be divided into three categories. Small farms were from 18-88 iugera
(one iugera is equal to about 0.65 acre). Medium-sized farms were from 80-500 iugera (singular iugerum). Large estates (called latifundia) were
over 500 iugera.[15]

The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner and his family; slaves doing work under supervision of slave
managers; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner and a tenant divide up a farm’s produce; and situations in which a farm was leased
to a tenant.[15] There was a great deal of commerce between the provinces of the empire, all the regions of the empire became interdependent with
one another, some provinces specialized in the production of grain, others in wine and others in olive oil, depending on the soil type.