Agricultural Revolution

15000 Years Ago

• How did we get here?

• And how, if I earned minimum wage could earn enough to buy this after 11 minutes of work?

To find out we got to the $.99 cheeseburger we have to look to

prehistory • What is History and when

did it start?• 15000 yrs ago mankind

was hunter & gatherers • These people, from

archaeological evidence, were healthier than those after farming was invented.

• Hunter/gatherers also spent less time working

Agriculture sprang up independently all over the world

So, agriculture must have been better to abandon free time, right?

Advantages• Less chance of starvation• Food surplus = Cities and

specialization• Cities and Specialization =

– More inventions– Able to produce more food– Which leads us to the $.99

cheeseburger

• Can be practiced all over the world

Disadvantages• Radically change the

environment to farm. (more work)

• Farming is hard work so it often causes one group to subjugate another group into forced labor

• Larger societies create larger and more devastating war

• Famine

Herders – keeper of animalsmust keep moving their animals in search of grazing

Advantage• 1st – you get to be a

cowboy!• Animals provide meat and

milk• Provide clothing and other

useful things like leather

Disadvantage• Requires a lot of food to

produce food• Hard to make cities because

of constant moving – Unless you are the Mongols

• Very few animals can be tamed

So why did agriculture happen?

• No one really knows because it happened in pre-history.

• Possible reasons– More people meant need more food– Leisure time created experimentation– Fertility rituals– Or people needed more grain to make more

alcohol– Perhaps, people just wanted more to eat