When did Man stop wandering about and settle somewhere? About 10,000 years ago, in the Middle East, human beings learnt the skills of agricultural cultivation and raising cattle. This marked the beginning of the Neolithic Era. Man learnt that hunting wild animals and gathering fruits and plants were not the only ways of getting food.
They learnt to cultivate plants and domesticate animals. When human beings learnt how to produce their own food, their lives changed. This process is so important that we call it a revolution. The first plants they cultivated were cereals. In India, it was mainly rice and wheat. The first domesticated animals were dogs, horses, goats, sheep and oxen.
People needed to live near fertile land to cultivate cereals. They stopped wandering around to find food, and settled down in one place. They built villages, usually situated next to rivers. Their houses were built of sticks and mud, and the villages had fences to keep out wild animals. Therefore, the New Stone Age ushered in new ideas, and a new way of life.
However, the move from a hunter-gatherer to a farming lifestyle did not take place overnight. It was a gradual process, a silent revolution that laid the foundation for life as we know it today.
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