Explain how the domestication of plants and animals during the Neolithic Revolution led to surplus food, permanent settlements, and the traits of civilization.
For most of human history, people were hunter-gatherers: small bands who moved from place to place hunting animals and gathering wild plants. They could not carry much or stay anywhere long, because once the food nearby ran out, they had to move again. Then, starting around 10,000 BCE in a region called the Fertile Crescent (curving through parts of today's Iraq, Syria, and Turkey), people learned to domesticate wheat and barley -- planting seeds on purpose and harvesting them later -- and to domesticate animals like goats, sheep, and cattle. Historians call this change the Neolithic Revolution, and it is one of the most important turning points in the whole human story.
Farming did something hunting and gathering never could: it produced a surplus, more food than a family needed right away. A surplus meant not everyone had to farm. Some people could become toolmakers, priests, traders, or rulers instead, a change called division of labor. Surplus and division of labor let permanent villages grow into the first small towns, like Catalhoyuk in today's Turkey (occupied from about 7500 BCE), and eventually into full civilizations. Historians look for eight traits to call a place a civilization: cities, organized government, religion, social classes, writing, art and architecture, public works, and division of labor. Every civilization you study this year will show most of these traits.
Mastery looks like: They can explain why farming produced a surplus and name at least five of the eight traits of civilization.
Common stumbles: Thinking the Neolithic Revolution happened everywhere at once, or in a single generation, rather than gradually and in different places at different times.