Marked Abu Hureyra, Syria

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The first farmers

Farming began separately in several parts of the world: wheat and barley in South-West Asia, rice and millet in China, maize in Mexico, taro and bananas in New Guinea, and sorghum in Africa. It changed what people ate and how many there could be.

Date
About 9500 to 3500 BC, at different times in different placesIII · Farming and the New Stone AgeIV · First cities and the Bronze Age
Place
Abu Hureyra, Syria · Shangshan, China · Guilá Naquitz, Mexico · Kuk Swamp, New GuineaThe whole world
Laid out as
A theme across timeOne idea followed through the eras it crosses.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IWheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent
  2. IIRice on the Yangtze
  3. IIIFrom teosinte to maize
  4. IVThe Kuk swamp gardens
  5. VTaming animals
  6. VIDid farming make life better?

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Nikolai Vavilov
  • Kent Flannery

Objects

  • Charred grain
  • Sickles and grinding stones

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

9500 BC to 3500 BC. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?