How did farming make life easier for people after the Ice Age ended?

Question

How did farming make life easier for people after the Ice Age ended?

Answer 1

Some benefits I remember of the top of my head:

1. It allowed people to permanently settle in one place. Before they would constantly more to follow food sources (animals). These settlements could eventually becomes cities or towns.

2. It provided a more abundant supply of food, some of which could be stored for later use (winter months). Before people might have starved, because of the lack of food in the winter.

3. It freed up time for some. Since farming was more efficient than hunting animals, some people had more free time to work on development of tools and techniques for farming and life that didn't previously exist.

4. People began to domestic animals to use for farming purposes, which is one of the reasons #3 is true.

Google the agricultural revolution.

Answer 2

People didn't have to constantly move around to find food sources they had them where they settled

Answer 3

They no longer had to be nomadic hunters to survive. There fore could settle and remain in one area.

Answer 4

The manipulation an use of fire happened about 100k before the the agriculture evolution And the domestication of animals with regards to pasteurization happened before the onset of permanent agriculture as well. But anyway there is still some uncertainty if "settling down" agriculture was done to make life easier or if it was a necessity due to an increasing human population. When we look at the few Hunter/Gatherer societies that are left today their life is fairly easy with lots of leisure time. Also Hunter/Gathers were not in marginal areas of the earth as  is true for those practicing agriculture.

Watch "Guns, Germs and Steel" I think they hit upon this topic a bit.

Answer 5

all the ice melted so it had fertile soil.also they had to farm and plant crops to eat.

Answer 6

With the slow retreat of ice/ glaciers, especially in the northern regions that were thinly populated, and the gradual warming of the environment as a whole over a great many lifetimes, the now increasing populations in expanding settled areas could embrace a great many concepts learned, shared, and passed down. Even the somewhat warmer southern regions went threw huge changes in weather patterns, shaping them slowly to what is still relatively unchanged until the last centuries. There was more to it than just the beginning of farm life from a hunter/ gatherer society and few records exist from the time. One can only infer as to what may have happened for the most part. As modern people have not changed since the period in question we can assume that there is the same level of intelligence; people because of a simple concept, the manipulation and use of fire, can now feed themselves better quality food, especially higher protein of meat and fish as well as vegetable products. These diet changes (a better fed brain and body) and the use of fire which had gone on at this point for some time now, gave people a greater amount of time to share ideas, if for no other reason than food was easier to consume with nutrients easier to digest and one did not have to spend huge time periods chewing (this from a recent research project released a short time ago). With their now well fed bodies and brains, humans could now look to their environment and lives to continue to make life better and pass that on to generations. The simple things, that may have been nothing more than to notice and question in their minds concepts like fine dry clays at the bottom of the fire pits when cool stayed strong and water proof forever (pottery), and a certain kind of rock will give you a hard material that one can shape with hammering it after a very hot fire (metals), provided tools (and the beginning of science of a sort). People were smart and their brains were well fed and eager to find concepts. Maybe they noticed that when the wild grains collected accidentally got wet from the rains, became sprouted and often nasty, so some was thrown out and they would have eventually noted that they grew into the plants that they searched for to yield the grain. They would have seen that some did better if covered over and the sun didn't dry them. They might have seen that some sprouts were even great to eat, also. They would have seen that the field grasses then could be planted if they had extra to do so, and it really worked! They could make tools of metal and wood to plow up little long furrows because the buried seed did better as the noticed and there were so many people to feed and that was a lot of work. They didn't have to roam as far, and they didn't have to move around as much, and now groups could get larger without worry of running out of food and having to keep their groups small and moving. Now the spread of ideas and their sharing was even greater. Such might have been the humble beginning of the farm. When people saw that over time the land didn't do well they would have taken their metal tools and gone out to reclaim more in the area. They didn't want to move now as this was a home and it was nice and way to populous to just pack up. Wood was taken and farms spread out and building took on new meaning. Someone would have noticed that in the fields and near the corrals that held their animals, the waste products discarded had a tendency to make the plant life thicker and greener. Why was the dumping place that smelled so awful surrounded by lushness? Why were the fields dotted with patches of green right around manure? Look at how important the periods of wet and rain were to the good plant growing as compared to the dry times and how the wet areas by river and stream were always good. To notice that was the beginning of fertilizer use and irrigation. In the south where it was always warmer, the rivers had always been a better source of food year round, and these ideas were shared and understood as important. So the land began to produce a much higher yield and people had more food, better health, and still more time with which to share ideas. Human minds questioned why this and that, and now that the ice and glacier had been gone for many generations, and a more benign way of life was upon us, we flourished and the rise of civilizations began.

Answer 7

Farming meant people could settle in a single location, and build more permanent shelters (there by not having to erect tents or such after each move). Also farming requires considerably less energy than gathering. A single person in the tribe could manage the care of the crop, and people could harvest (as if gathering), just by stepping outside.