What was the Neolithic Revolution?
Also called the Agricultural Revolution, the Neolithic Revolution shifted hunter-gathers to agriculture—changing humanity forever.
The Neolithic Revolution—also referred to as the Agricultural Revolution—is thought to have begun about 12,000 years ago. It coincided with the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the current geological epoch, the Holocene. And it forever changed how humans live, eat, and interact, paving the way for modern civilization.
During the Neolithic period, hunter-gatherers roamed the natural world, foraging for their food. But then a dramatic shift occurred. The foragers became farmers, transitioning from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more settled one.
What caused the Neolithic Revolution?
Though the exact dates and reasons for the transition are debated, evidence of a move away from hunting and gathering and toward agriculture has been documented worldwide.
Farming is thought to have happened first in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, where multiple groups of people developed the practice independently. Thus, the “agricultural revolution” was likely a series of revolutions that occurred at different times in different places.
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There are a variety of hypotheses as to why humans stopped foraging and started farming. A 2025 study suggests catastrophic wildfires and soil erosion drove the transition.
That study challenges existing theories arguing the change was driven by humans. One such theory says population pressure may have increased competition for food and the need to cultivate new food sources. Another asserts early peoples may have shifted to farming to include a broader demographic, such as elders and children, thereby increasing food production.
Still others believe humans may have learned to depend on plants they modified in early domestication attempts. In turn, those plants may have become dependent on humans.
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Characteristics and inventions
Regardless of how and why humans began to move away from hunting and foraging, they continued to become more settled. This was in part due to their increasing domestication of plants.
Humans are thought to have gathered plants and their seeds as early as 23,000 years ago, and to have started farming cereal grains like wheat and barley as early as 11,000 years ago. Afterward, they moved on to protein-rich foods like peas and lentils.
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As these early farmers became better at cultivating food and developing agricultural technology, they may have produced surplus seeds and greatly increased crops requiring storage.
This would have both spurred population growth due to a more consistent food supply and required a settled way of life with the need to store seeds and tend crops.
As communities became more settled, they forged stone tools to aid in farming, such as grinders and sickles. They also developed architectural innovations, such as distinct public and residential spaces, as archaeologists discovered in Sayburc in Turkey.
(Here’s how we went from hunter-gatherers to monument builders)
Animal domestication
As humans began to experiment with farming, they began domesticating animals. Evidence of sheep and goat herding has been found in Iraq and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) as far back as about 12,000 years ago.
Domesticated animals, when used as labor, helped make more intensive farming possible. Farmed animals also provided additional nutrition via milk and meat for increasingly stable populations.
(Animals developed agriculture before us. These gophers may ‘farm’ as well.)
Impact on humans
The Agricultural Revolution had a variety of consequences for humans. It has been linked to everything from societal inequality—a result of humans’ increased dependence on the land and fears of scarcity—to a decline in nutrition and a rise in infectious diseases contracted from domesticated animals.
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But the Neolithic Revolution also ushered in the potential for modern societies—civilizations characterized by large population centers, improved technology and advancements in knowledge, arts, and trade.
