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→Initial Impact on Societies
Plant domestication was initially thought to have first appeared in the Fertile Crescent, with later societies in the Nile, Yellow River, and Indus valleys also adopting domesticated plants. However, now it has become evident that various societies have independently discovered how to domesticate given plants for food production. These plant staples have included wheat, barley, rice, lintels, beans, millet, corn/maize, and others (Figure 1).<ref>For more on the background to plant domestication, see: Spielvogel, J. J. (2015). <i>Western civilization</i> (Ninth edition). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, pg. 6.</ref>
Several results ultimately developed with the domestication of these plants. First, the benefits of plant domestication was to increase food supplies and make them more predictable. Although plants, as they become domesticate, are susceptible to disease and other detrimental results, over time genetics of plants begin to alter. For wheat, barley, and other grains, these developments can take hundreds of years before fully domesticated varieties form. However, once domesticated varieties form, they now require societies to more fully invest in them. This includes removing weeds, providing fertilizer, and harvesting at appropriate times so that yields are not lost. Thus, one of the first major impact impacts of domesticated plants is increased plant domestication requires how they required societies to be settled, where labor began to focus on the care of grain production and other domesticated plants. Greater dependence on plant domestication ultimately makes societies live in villages, towns, and even cities. This change led to a change in gender roles, often leading to the emphasis of men being more focused on production and creation of food resources, while women became caretakers of the home. Previously, women likely spend much of their time collecting food for human societies. In effect, domestication led to a major cultural evolution and not just a new mode in obtaining food.<ref>For more on the labor involved in agriculture and how that fundamentally changes society, see: Peterson, J. (2002). <i>Sexual revolutions: gender and labor at the dawn of agriculture.</i> Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.</ref>
The other major development evident in New and Old World societies is the freeing up of labor. While plant domestication can be labor intensive, the greater output of food allows larger populations to form. Most or if not all settled societies show evidence of families becoming larger, where even social norms and systems evolved so that women began having more children. Once labor increased, then more people were able to focus on other activities, including the production of other goods that supported agriculture. Innovations often lead to other innovations to support them. Agriculture led to many secondary innovations that helped to support it. This included new technologies such as plows, the need for mathematics to calculate field areas, and eventually writing became one result in some societies that needed to account for agricultural goods being produced.<ref>For more on innovations based on agriculture, see: Mays, L. W. (Ed.). (2010). <i>Ancient water technologies.</i> Dordrecht [Netherlands] ; London ; New York: Springer.
