Agriculture
The systematic cultivation of domesticated crops and rearing of animals, leading to food surpluses and settled societies.
Core metadata
- ID: agriculture
- Era: Ancient
- First known date: -9500 (millennium)
- Region: Fertile Crescent / Southwest Asia; independent later centers globally
- Review status: source_checked
- Maturity: established
Prerequisites
- Early Animal Domestication (animal_domestication)
- Hafted Stone-Point Spears (composite_tools)
- Plant Domestication (plant_domestication)
- Village Settlements (village_settlements)
Dependents
- Animal Husbandry (animal_husbandry)
- Boundary Markers & Land Tenure (boundary_markers_land_tenure)
- Bread Ovens (bread_ovens)
- Calendars (calendars)
- Chemical Fertilizers (chemical_fertilizers)
- Crop Rotation (Three-Field System) (crop_rotation_three_field)
- Crop Rotation (Two-Field System) (crop_rotation_two_field)
- Basic Fermentation (fermentation_basic)
- Feudalism (feudalism)
- Early Field Terracing (field_terracing)
- Food Preservation (Drying, Salting) (food_preservation_drying_salting)
- Food Storage Pits (food_storage_pits)
- Genetics (Mendel) (genetics_mendel)
- Granaries (granaries)
- Heavy Plow (Mouldboard Plow) (heavy_plow_mouldboard)
- Horse Collar (horse_collar)
- Irrigation (irrigation)
- Labor Specialization (labor_specialization)
- Manorialism (manorialism)
- Mathematics (mathematics)
- Monasticism and Scriptoriums (monasticism_and_scriptoria)
- Orchard Grafting (orchard_grafting)
- Plant Breeding & Hybridization (plant_breeding_hybridization)
- Plow (plow)
- Property Concepts (property_concepts)
- Record Keeping (record_keeping)
- Seed Selection (seed_selection)
- Selective Seed Saving (selective_seed_saving)
- Serfdom (serfdom)
- Sickle Harvesting Tools (sickle_harvesting_tools)
- Chattel Slavery (slavery_chattel)
- Social Stratification (social_stratification)
- Vulcanized Rubber (vulcanized_rubber)
Fields
Field lanes
- Agriculture & Food Systems: Foundations
Node sources
- Neolithic (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2026, textbook) • Supports: node, maturity
Prerequisite edge evidence
Edge/source evidence summary:
- Prerequisite edges: 4
- Average edge confidence: 67%
- Prerequisite sources: 4
- expert_inference: 1
- textbook: 3
| Prerequisite | Type | Confidence | Evidence level | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plant Domestication (plant_domestication) | enabling | 72% | textbook | Cultivated crops are part of the core Neolithic food-production package dated to roughly 9500 BCE in Southwest Asia. |
|
| Early Animal Domestication (animal_domestication) | enabling | 72% | textbook | Domesticated livestock is part of the same early food-production package; it enables agriculture but not every agricultural origin pathway used animals at first. |
|
| Hafted Stone-Point Spears (composite_tools) | enabling | 60% | expert_inference | Composite tools and ground stone implements are contextual enabling toolkits for early farming work, not a unique hard prerequisite. |
|
| Village Settlements (village_settlements) | historical_predecessor | 62% | textbook | Settled villages co-evolved with farming communities; this is a historical co-enabler rather than a strict prerequisite. |
|
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