Thewild progenitors of crops including wheat (Triticum aestivum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), and peas (Lathyrus oleraceus) are traced to the Near East region. Cereals were grown in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago, while figs (Ficus carica) were cultivated even earlier; prehistoric seedless fruits discovered in the Jordan Valley suggest fig trees were being planted some 11,300 years ago. Though the transition from wild harvesting was gradual, the switch from a nomadic to a settled way of life is marked by the appearance of early Neolithic villages with homes equipped with grinding stones for processing grain.
In Mexico, squash cultivation began around 10,000 years ago, but corn (maize) had to wait for natural genetic mutations to be selected for in its wild ancestor, teosinte. While maize-like plants derived from teosinte appear to have been cultivated at least 9,000 years ago, the first directly dated corn cob dates only to around 5,500 years ago.
Corn later reached North America, where cultivated sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) also started to bloom some 5,000 years ago. This is also when potato (Solanum tuberosum) growing in the Andes region of South America began.
Cattle (Bos taurus), goats (Capra hircus), sheep (Ovis aries), and pigs (Sus domesticus) all have their origins as farmed animals in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a region covering eastern Turkey, Iraq, and southwestern Iran. This region kick-started the Neolithic Revolution. Dates for the domestication of these animals range from between 13,000 to 10,000 years ago.
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10,000 years ago would take us back to around 8,000 BCE when the human population of the world had well over 1,000 years to establish themselves from the end of the last glacial period of the ice age. The thawing of the earth started from the equator and spread north towards the pole which still remains frozen thousands of years later.
Living this long ago would be very different depending on where you are, which would determine everything about your culture, from your clothes to the food you eat. Because it was so long ago and no one on earth had a written language at that point, information on the various civilizations that existed comes from fragmented sources, but it still gives a good impression of how hard life would have been back then.
The central countries of Europe would have been much colder 10,000 years ago because the poles were still retreating to where they are today. They would have existed purely as a hunter-gatherer society and farming was still a long way off for them. One advantage they would have was the enormous amounts of wild game available to hunt, which would have included some animals extinct today like the Irish Elk, a giant deer that stands up to 10 feet tall.
Metal was still a long way off and all the tools and weapons used would have been made from wood, bone, stone, and sharpened flint. Homes would have been covered with animal skins as no evidence of thatching has been found from this long ago. Diets would have been heavily meat-based, with the small variation in edible wild plants acting as a supplement instead of a staple.
Running through several countries in the Middle East are the Tigris and Euphrates river systems, and they just so happen to be located right next to the cradle of humanity in one of the first areas of the earth to warm. The two rivers run through parts of modern day Turkey, Syria and Iraq and flow through huge areas of flat ground perfect for farming.
Early crops included beans and wheat, along with various animals they were able to graze on the fertile soils next to the rivers. Life here would have consisted of nothing but farming, with tools made only from stone and wood.
The name Mesopotamia refers to a region of land, but because the river systems are so long, there were several civilizations that lived there, including the Babylonians, Sumerians and the Akkadians. Social and personal life would vary depending on the cultures and customs of the society you lived in, but work life would have been the same anywhere.
Because they were able to produce crops, plants like flax could now be grown to produce linen clothing, and the animals would provide a steady source of wool, making daily life slightly more comfortable than having to wear animal skins all the time.
Homes would most likely have been either stacked sandstone for the wealthy, or simple stick huts for the poor. The weather would have been much more forgiving in Mesopotamia due to its proximity to the equator, so there would be less need to make sure walls were windproof and a fire could be constantly burning.
Metal was still a long way off, so people would have used tools and weapons made from bone, flint and rocks. All cooking would have taken place over open fires or in clay pots placed on the ashes to act as an oven, but one massive advantage they had was the variety in their diet compared to the rest of the world. Staple crops could be mass-produced and dried to preserve them, making things like bread available all year round.
Tropical rainforest is home to a huge amount of wild food and game, and as long as you know how to find and hunt it, there would simply be no need for farming. This lack of needing to advance has led to many of the tribes staying exactly the same way for thousands of years, giving no reason to think that life in a tropical zone 10,000 years ago would have been much different from the isolated tribes that exist today.
Early arrivals found a forest of thick spruce and bogs in what is now southwestern Minnesota. To the north and east, they found wet tundra with dwarfed spruce and, to the north and west, a huge glacial lake.
Minnesota's climate warmed, glacial lakes drained, and spruce, fir, and tundra landscapes were replaced by a growing deciduous forest of birch, aspen, and coniferous trees, such as balsam fir. As the land continued to warm, those forests were replaced by huge stands of white pine, red pine, and jack pine.
People living on the edges of forests and prairies hunted and gathered food and fished the lakes. Living in small groups and extended families, their impact on the forest was limited. They may have practiced selective forestry techniques, cutting non-maple trees to favor sugar maples and burning forested islands to spur berry growth and increase animal populations.
The Minnesota climate and the forest ecosystem began another slow change. The climate cooled, and northern prairies receded southward. The northern forests, called the north woods, evolved once again into hardwoods and eventually into vast stands of red, white, and jack pines, white and black spruce, balsam fir, tamarack, and white cedar interspersed with mixed hardwoods of birch, maple, oak, elm, aspen, and basswood.
A sea of wild grass often six feet tall surrounded the forests with big blue stem, side oats gramma, and blue-joint grasses. As populations of Native peoples grew, their sophistication in landscape manipulation grew as well. People managed both forests and fields through agriculture and fire to encourage different plants and animals.
Major climate change slowed and the balance between field and forest remained relatively steady until the present day. European Americans entered the tall grass prairies, Big Woods, and north woods. With increased populations, advancing technology, and a different cultural attitude, they changed the forests and fields again.
When European Americans moved to Minnesota in the early 1820s, they found about 19.5 million acres in natural prairie systems and about 31.5 million in forests. Fewer than 200 years later, only about 0.3 percent of the natural prairie remains. And forests have shrunk to fewer than 18 million acres. The vast pine stands have been harvested and replaced with aspen and birch hardwoods.
A group of New England businessman headed by Orange Walker and L.S. Judd started the Marine Lumber Company, the first sawmill in Minnesota, along the St. Croix, and soon a community, Marine on St. Croix, formed around the mill.
Steam power was introduced into sawmilling, replacing the need for water power and allowing sawmills to move away from St. Anthony Falls to other Mississippi River towns. Steam power and new, faster circular saws enabled logging camps to increase in production.
With increased commercial railroad building in the state, larger sawmill steam engines and the invention of the band saw (a belt of steel that worked faster and left less wood waste), sawmills increased in size and expanded around the state. Brainerd, Little Falls, Crookston, Cloquet, Duluth, and International Falls became saw-milling towns.
The annual cut of Minnesota pine began to drop and sawmills began to close their doors around the state. With industry in decline, lumber companies began to look to the Pacific Northwest and the South for timber.
Seeing a need to begin conservation measures and fight for the growing danger of forest fires, the state created the Minnesota Forest Service (MFS), a forerunner to the Department of Natural Resources. With a small but dedicated force of foresters and forest firefighters they enforced new and stricter laws governing slash removal; regulated railroads to prevent sparks from locomotives, requiring burning permits; and created Forest Ranger Districts throughout the north woods.
Lumber companies that remained in Minnesota shifted production from saw logs to pulp, paper, matchsticks, and manufactured building materials. The work force was reduced to less than 20,000 men statewide and the annual cut dropped to less than a half-million cords of timber. The last log drive in Minnesota occurred on the Little Fork River in 1937.
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