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Why Was Agriculture So Important?

Why Was Agriculture So Important?

The invention of agriculture is not just a matter of tastier food. It unlocked powerful forces that transformed history.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.

Think about the following questions as you watch the video


  1. How do the plants that humans choose to cultivate benefit from human attention?
  2. Why did people like the Natufians feel pressure to begin farming?
  3. What does David Christian mean when he says that climate change made agriculture possible and overpopulation made it necessary?
  4. What is symbiosis?
  5. What does David Christian mean when he says that plants were changed by agriculture but that humans were changed, too?
  6. When and where did farming begin?
  7. Where did farming develop next?
  8. Why did agriculture develop in so many places at about the same time?
  9. Why couldn't humans just migrate to relieve population at the end of the ice age, just as they had always done?
  10. How did the world's climate change at the end of the last ice age?
  11. How did the ways Natufians lived differ from how foragers lived?