Editing Neolithic (section)

=== Agriculture ===
{{Main|Neolithic Revolution}}
[[File:CucuteniAgriculture.JPG|thumb|A [[Cucuteni-Trypillian culture]] [[antler|deer antler]] [[Ard (plough)|plough]]]]
[[File:HMB Essen und Kochgerät Jungsteinzeit.jpg|thumb|Food and cooking items retrieved at a European Neolithic site: [[millstone]]s, charred bread, grains and small apples, a clay cooking pot, and containers made of antlers and wood]]
A significant and far-reaching shift in human [[subsistence]] and lifestyle was to be brought about in areas where crop [[farm]]ing and cultivation were first developed: the previous reliance on an essentially [[nomad]]ic [[hunter-gatherer]] [[list of subsistence techniques|subsistence technique]] or [[Transhumance|pastoral transhumance]] was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the foods produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labor in tending crop fields required more localized dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to permanently settled farming [[town]]s, and later [[city|cities]] and [[State (polity)|states]] whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands.

The profound differences in human interactions and subsistence methods associated with the onset of early agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the ''[[Neolithic Revolution]]'', a term [[neologism|coined]] in the 1920s by the Australian archaeologist [[Vere Gordon Childe]].

One potential benefit of the development and increasing sophistication of farming technology was the possibility of producing surplus crop yields, in other words, food supplies in excess of the immediate needs of the community. Surpluses could be stored for later use, or possibly traded for other necessities or luxuries. Agricultural life afforded securities that nomadic life could not, and sedentary farming populations grew faster than nomadic.

However, early farmers were also adversely affected in times of [[famine]], such as may be caused by [[drought]] or [[pest control|pests]]. In instances where agriculture had become the predominant way of life, the sensitivity to these shortages could be particularly acute, affecting agrarian populations to an extent that otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by prior hunter-gatherer communities.<ref name="Bahn, Paul 1996" /> Nevertheless, agrarian communities generally proved successful, and their growth and the expansion of territory under cultivation continued.

Another significant change undergone by many of these newly agrarian communities was one of [[diet (nutrition)|diet]]. Pre-agrarian diets varied by region, season, available local plant and animal resources and degree of pastoralism and hunting. Post-agrarian diet was restricted to a limited package of successfully cultivated cereal grains, plants and to a variable extent domesticated animals and animal products. Supplementation of diet by hunting and gathering was to variable degrees precluded by the increase in population above the carrying capacity of the land and a high sedentary local population concentration. In some cultures, there would have been a significant shift toward increased starch and plant protein. The relative nutritional benefits and drawbacks of these dietary changes and their overall impact on early societal development are still debated.

In addition, increased population density, decreased population mobility, increased continuous proximity to domesticated animals, and continuous occupation of comparatively population-dense sites would have altered [[sanitation]] needs and patterns of [[disease]].