The document summarizes how the end of the Ice Age led early people to begin farming instead of solely hunting and gathering. Farming caused people to settle in one place rather than live as nomads, marking the beginning of the Neolithic Era. People developed irrigation systems using ditches and canals to transport water from rivers to their farms. They also began domesticating plants and animals through selective breeding to make them more useful. This led to surplus food production, population growth, larger settlements, specialization of different jobs, and the rise of early governments.

1. Ice Age Ends
• Sea levels and temperatures begin to rise
• Climate of the world changes and
promotes more fertility (growth of plants
and animals).
• People become more isolated from one
another as continents lose the land
bridges connecting them.

2. Agriculture
Definition:
FARMING

3. A New and Improved Stone Age
• A result of more rains, early people could
begin to farm and stop relying on hunting
and gathering for survival.
• Farming radically changed the way people
lived. People stopped living as
nomads, and settled in one place. This is
called the Farming Revolution.
• When people first began to use
agriculture, we call that the Neolithic Era
(New Stone Age).

4. Irrigation
• Most communities developed along rivers
for their easy access to water.
• This was important for drinking, watering
the farms, and cleanliness.
• In order to get the water from the river to
the fields, people would dig
ditches, canals, or dams. This would also
serve as protection against flooding.

5. Domestication
• The process of changing (or to tame)
plants and animals to make them more
useful to humans.

6. Cultivate (to improve)
• As people began to farm, they looked for
ways to make their plants produce more food.
HOW THEY DO THAT?!?
• Farmers would keep the plants that had some
characteristic they liked… (being bigger), and
get rid of the ones they did not like… (smaller
ones). Over many generations, the plants
would become more like what the farmers
wanted (like size)

7. Making Life Easier
• Farmers didn’t stop with plants, they began
to capture wild animals and changed them!
• Chickens, pigs, horses, dogs, cattle (cows),
and many other animals were domesticated;
meaning they lived with humans, not in the
wild.
• These animals were used for food, but also
used to make work easier. Cattle could help
dig up the soil with a plow, making farming
easier and more productive.

8. Surplus
• Farming with irrigation and using
domesticated plants and animals allowed
people to produce more food than they
could ever use. This is a surplus.
• What to do with the extra stuff? Trade it!
These small villages would send their
surplus up or down the river to other
communities that would trade for it
(Barter).

9. Effects of a Surplus of Food
• More food led to an increase in population
• More people led to larger villages
• Not everyone is needed in the fields, people
begin to work different jobs (Specialization).
WHO IS IN CHARGE?
• Governments are created to help
organize, serve and protect these growing
communities