Why was the fertile crescent s
"Why was the fertile crescent so important in the history of the development of farming?"Historians and Archaeologists agree that the most important event since the last Ice Age, or indeed since the evolution of human beings from their hominid ancestors, was the rise of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent by 8000 B.C. The economic, political, and technological developments that followed provided the foundation upon which modern civilisations were built.The crescent is bow shaped tract of land in southwest Asia stretching from Jordan northwards to southern Turkey, then swinging southwards to the borders of Iraq and Iran, incorporating parts of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The mountainous physical geography of the area was formed by movement of earth's crust, forcing the Arabian Peninsula to collide with stable Iranian Plateau, resulting in a fold mountain range. The Fertile Crescent's importance in the history of the development of farming is intrinsically linked to its location on the globe. The crescent had both natural diversity and climatic advantages over other regions, placing it at the fore
Southwest Asian agriculture was based on eight founder crops, three cereals (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea and bitter vetch) and a fibre crop (flax). These founder crops, combined with a Mediterranean climate of wet winters and long, hot and dry summers conducive to growing annual cereals and pulses, resulted in a well established and fast growing package ready for diffusion to surrounding areas. This example alone contributes to explaining why agricultural societies developed from the Fertile Crescent and not from other regions like the Americas. The earliest confirmed domesticated crop is the einkorn wheat of the Karacadag Mountains in southeast Turkey. The importance of this crop is in the very few genetic changes required to render the wild crop suitable for domestication. Had the origins of agro-pastoral food production been anywhere else other than in the mediterranean region of southwest Asia, the history of farming and its development would be significantly different, and likely far less developed and established. Other regions may have had the required natural diversity for the development of a complete package, but complete distribution would be immensely more complex. From the Americas, for example, the new developments would have been restricted to their immediate landmasses and nearby islands until sea faring technology had advanced enough to cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. front of the so-called Neolithic revolution or era of Incipient Cultivation, where people changed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. "Location, Location, Location: The First Farmers".
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Acceptance Essays
