Survival of the Neolithic Man

There is much advancement we take for granted today that we owe many thanks to which started during the very ancient times of man. We still use agriculture science in order to study the soil, and cultivate the fields of crops with water through irrigational methods used so long ago. Here are five useful techniques that shaped ancient mankind's survival during that harsh time of survival.

In the Neolithic world, agriculture (plant farming) as a form of a food production has been around 10,000 years in the human world. It predates the history of writing and even the alphabet. The Neolithic man started to cultivate the moist fields shortly after the warming trends which followed the long periods of the Ice Age. When the Neolithic man learned to master agricultural science, many societies started to progress in all parts of the world.

The hunter-gathering societies dealt with obtaining the edible plants and the wild animals without any sort of recourse for domesticating any of them. The Neolithic societal members foraged and hunted, but were not pastoral or agricultural in their methods. However, there was much learning through the migration roots of the animals which were being hunted. Due to much travel, sometimes hunting and gathering parties would meet other Neolithic villagers and exchanged ideas. Be it violent confrontation or not, more settlements and even trading routes had high probabilities of their beginning.

Irrigation is the application of water to the soil which is used to help the crops grow. The Neolithic man often employed this method in the areas of the world which lacked sufficient rainfall in order to grow proper crops. Also, the usage of irrigation was to protect plants from frost in the winter. Some sources of irrigation water include the rivers, lakes, oceans, or even reservoirs. Sometimes, areas which needed lots of water got it from floodwaters at certain periods of the year. It was known as floodwater harvesting which was not always trusted due to its volatile nature in weather.