Humanities’ perseverance and will to survive set up the Neolithic Era. During this time, the Agricultural Revolution was born. The Agricultural Revolution is defined as "the deliberate cultivation of particular plants as well as the taming and breeding of particular animals" according to Strayer. The revolution sparked a remarkable change in our world. With the invention of agriculture, people groups were now able to settle in villages rather than constantly being uprooted to follow their food. While the new food source could sustain bigger populations, it did not require as many people to be involved with its production. As many were free to work in other ways, writing, literature, and new technologies/knowledge were developed …show more content…
Domestication of animals required proximity between humans and the herds. Thus, animal-borne diseases like smallpox, flu, measles, chicken pox, malaria, tuberculosis, and rabies destroyed people groups who did not have a strong immune system (Strayer 61). For example, the original Paleolithic groups who were living in the southern and eastern parts of Africa were unable to survive the animal-borne diseases. When the Bantu-speaking peoples of Midwest Africa traveled there and spread their agriculture, many of the Paleolithic peoples were wiped out (Strayer 60). While Paleolithic groups were being affected, the agriculture-based communities experienced rapid growth throughout the world. Larger populations required more natural resources which resulted in heavy agricultural use that devastated the lands. In places like the Fertile Crescent, there were soil erosions and food shortages as people and animals were uprooting trees and removing grass in concentrated areas. When this happened, villages had to move locations, causing a lot of wide-spread human exploitation of the land (Strayer