Agriculture: Did you mean...?

European explorers began to probe the Western Hemisphere in the early 1500s, and they found to their utter amazement not only a huge landmass but also a world filled with several diverse and populous indigenous cultures. Among their most...

The Fertile Crescent is a region stretching from northern Egypt across to the Persian Gulf and was the home to the oldest civilizations in history such as the Sumerians, earning it the common name of the 'Cradle of Civilization'. First populated...

The Debate Between Sheep and Grain (c. 2000 BCE) is one of the best-known Sumerian literary debates in a genre that was popular entertainment by the late 3rd millennium BCE. In this piece, personifications of grain and sheep argue which is...

Corn (maize) was central to the lives of Native Americans across North, Central, and South America. Maize was introduced to North America from Mesoamerica c. 700/900 CE and transformed the lives of the indigenous peoples. Every tribal nation...

The Song of the Hoe is a Sumerian praise poem celebrating the hoe for its many uses and linking it to the creation of the world by the great god Enlil. As the economy of Mesopotamia was almost entirely based on agriculture, it is not surprising...

The pantheon of the Maya is a vast collection of deities worshipped throughout the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. These gods informed...

Chocolate was one of the most desired foods of Mesoamerica and was consumed by the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations, amongst others. Its consumption even spread via trade routes to other parts of the Americas including the Chaco Canyon...

The British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) brought innovative mechanisation and deep social change. The process saw the invention of steam-powered machines, which were used in factories in ever-growing urban centres. Agriculture remained...

The Fertile Crescent, often called the "Cradle of Civilization", is the region in the Middle East which curves, like a quarter-moon shape, from the Persian Gulf, through modern-day southern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and northern...

Demeter was one of the oldest gods in the ancient Greek pantheon. Demeter was a goddess of agriculture and guaranteed the fertility of the earth. She protected both farming and vegetation. The close connection with the earth was inherited...