Page 11 - 100 Events That Made History

Black Cultivating the Crescent
Sea
Farming truly got going in an area known as the
Mesopotamia ASIA FERTILE CRESCENT. The region included Egypt and
western Asia, and stretched from the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Tigris to the Persian Gulf. When three big rivers—the Nile,
Sea Euphrates
Tigris, and Euphrates—flooded, their silt-loaded water
Egypt enriched the soil, making it ideal farming land.
Persian
Nile Fertile Crescent Gulf
How it changed the world
Red Sea
A more reliable food supply often
meant a surplus, which allowed people

the first civilizations, and some of the
Taming the beasts to do other jobs. This helped kick-start
Once people started farming, the early farming villages went on to
domestication of animals followed become big towns and cities.
rapidly. Dogs, goats, sheep, and
pigs were among the first to be
tamed by humans. Wild herds
became a CONTROLLABLE SUPPLY Staying put
of meat, milk, and wool.
As fresh food could be grown to order and
AGRICULTURE became the norm, the
first real human societies formed. Where
people sowed crops in fixed locations
year after year, the farms became
natural centers of civilization.

Did you know?
Remains of ancient people
show that eating a lot
of grain wore down their

got into their food!

Modern food crops, such teeth, as grit from the soil
With crops being farmed
as WHEAT, BARLEY, AND RYE, around the world, the IMPORT
replaced the original wild AND EXPORT OF FOOD became
grasses of prehistoric times big business. This Roman
about 7000 BCE in the grocer would have bought
Middle East. stock from many places.
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