Agriculture is probably the most important advancement and discovery that humanity has ever made. It produces the thing we need most: food. It has existed since 9500 BC and may be the oldest sign of humanity's acumen and the development and evolution of our minds and creations. Agriculture has been mastered over hundreds of years and is one of the most important resources on Earth, along with water and fossil fuels. Although the older agricultural methods of ancient times seem a bit mediocre and barbaric, they were very ingenious and advanced for that time period. Over thousands of years we have improved the way agriculture is used, the way land is cultivated, the various cultivation and irrigation techniques, as well as the tools and mechanisms used. Numerous things that we now consider Aboriginal, such as the use of a hand plow, were extremely contemporary in ancient times and played a key role in the development of man and society, as fast labor was not abundant before then. We are now extremely advanced in agriculture, irrigation, and the tools used to grow, cultivate, and harvest crops. We have learned from our past and our ancestors how to grow and evolve in our ways and we have made great progress. Agriculture has existed for approximately 11,000 years. Around 9,500 BC the first signs of cultivation began to appear along the Mediterranean coasts. Spelled and einkorn were the first crops to begin appearing in this area, followed shortly by barley, peas, lentils, chickpeas and flax. For the most part, everyone was nomadic and simply traveled following the path of the herd. This lasted until around 7,000 BC, when the first signs of planting and harvesting appeared in Mesopotamia. In the first... half of the paper... very advanced in the last 200 years thanks to mechanical tools replacing manual labor. It is the most important industry and will forever remain the basis of our economy. Humans have constantly tried to make crop production easier and faster, from wooden plows to pesticides. Agriculture is easily one of the most important and obvious signs of humanity and its adaptation and evolution over thousands of years. Works Cited http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/History-of-agriculture-1 http://inventors.about .com/library/inventors/blfarm1.htm http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/ timeline/1800.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_crops http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/hist106web/site19/ http://www.vlib.us/medieval/lectures/peasants.htmlhttp://members.tripod. com/med_food/farming.html