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Agriculture:  is farming, and it includes raising both plants and animals to provide resources for human consumption.

This is one of the largest impacts humans have had on the environment but predates our first time period. It was developed about 10,000 years ago in what is known as the Fertile Crescent in what is now the Middle East.

Agriculture gave humans control over their environment AND transformed the environment (often negatively).

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In the Andes (South America) and in parts of China, the mountain terrain made farming difficult. In order to adapt to this, people developed terrace farming. (*Keep in mind these places had no contact at this point, meaning it developed independently in these very different regions.*)

Terraces are flat areas carved into or built from the slopes of the mountains. They create a flat, self-like field for farming. This transformed these regions and created hundreds of acres of new farmland.

This began about 3500 BCE in China and about 1000 BCE in South America.

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Champa rice is introduced from South East Asia into southern China. The rice is drought-resistant and it allowed the population in China to skyrocket because it provided a stable source of food that could reliably be transported across the empire.

Maize and corn had a similar effect on the populations of Mexico and the Americas about 3,000 years ago.

These were both easy sources of nutrition because they were high in calories, so wherever they spread, the population boomed.

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Humans worked with and modified their environments through agriculture.

In Mesoamerica, which had many lakes and wetlands, need a lot of adaptation in order for humans to be able to farm. The Aztecs and other Mesoamerica civilizations used a style of farming called chinampas, which were artificial islands built on the lake surface that were used to grow crops.

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All blue posts are considered within this time period.

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Knowledge of Monsoon Winds (discovered c. 100 BCE, advanced and spread into this time period)

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Knowledge of Monsoon Winds (discovered c. 100 BCE, advanced and spread into this time period)

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Knowledge of the environment also helped humans shape their destinies. In the Indian Ocean, knowledge of monsoon winds allowed sailors who learned to navigate these wind currents an expanded range of trade. The monsoon winds are predictable shifts in wind patterns that blow across the Indian Ocean. These winds blow roughly from the southwest between May and September, and from the northeast between October and April.

Sailors who knew these patterns could plan their voyages to cross long distances at the right time of year, and could sail far beyond the reaches of shorter-range coastal ships.

Knowledge of the monsoon winds spread human communities in Africa and Asia, including the Polynesians who migrated from SE Asia to Madagascar and then turned their knowledge of seafaring to help populate the islands of Oceania.

Expansion of Indian Ocean commerce and trade depended on advanced knowledge of the monsoon winds.

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The exchange network that were growing during this period meant that more people were coming into contact with each other. And they were bring their diseases with them. The spread of disease was often brought by infected animals and people who traveled with merchants along the trade routes.

This brought the disease to new places where it had devastating effects on the population. As sickness spread across trade networks in Eurasia, it had devastating consequences on populations (30-60% population decline in Europe, and similar rates in the Middle East and China).

While most spread of the disease was unintentional, the Mongol Empire did use the bodies of plague-infected people as weapons in biological warfare in the Mediterranean.

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Another environmental consequence of trade was the diffusion of crops along with exchange networks. As the networks grew and intensified during this era, crops spread from their regions of origin to new regions, including the spread of bananas from SE Asia to E. Africa and citrus fruits indigenous to SE Asia and Oceania spreading to the Mediterranean. Unlike the spread of disease, the diffusion of these crops was more intentional, as people brought foods they encountered through trade to cultivate them closer to home.

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All white posts are considered within this time period.