The growth of agriculture

of their lives hunting animals and gathering wild plants. Then, about 11,500 years ago, people gradually learned how to cultivate plants for food use and settled down to a life based on farming. Scholars are unsure why this shift to farming took place, but it may have occurred because of climate change. The earliest crop was most likely to have been rice, corn, or similar types of cereals. At around the same time, people also began herding and breeding animals. Sheep and goats were probably domesticated first, followed by cattle and pigs. Eventually, people started keeping animals such as oxen for ploughing and transportation.