History of Agriculture: Difference between revisions
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[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-agriculture-nearly-tanked-ancient-europes-population-437796/ by Colin Schultz 2/10/13 Smithsonian magazine] | [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-agriculture-nearly-tanked-ancient-europes-population-437796/ by Colin Schultz 2/10/13 Smithsonian magazine] | ||
The rise of agriculture changed the world. And we don’t just mean the human world. At its onset, long before the Green Revolution paved the way for vastly improved yields, people were notoriously bad at using the land. To produce our food we used to cut down a staggering number of trees. Deforestation in the western world, driven by land clearing for farming, actually peaked hundreds or thousands of years ago. And, without things like fertilizer or irrigation, or the massive intertwined agricultural system we have today, local shocks—a fire, a drought, a flood—could cut vital food supplies for years. | The rise of agriculture changed the world. And we don’t just mean the human world. At its onset, long before the Green Revolution paved the way for vastly improved yields, people were notoriously bad at using the land. To produce our food we used to cut down a staggering number of trees. Deforestation in the western world, driven by land clearing for farming, actually peaked hundreds or thousands of years ago. And, without things like fertilizer or irrigation, or the massive intertwined agricultural system we have today, local shocks—a fire, a drought, a flood—could cut vital food supplies for years. | ||
=====The history of human-induced soil erosion: Geomorphic legacies, early descriptions and research, and the development of soil conservation—A global synopsis===== | |||
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169555X1300370X by Markus Dotterweich 1/11/13 ScienceDirect] | |||
This paper presents a global synopsis about the geomorphic evidence of soil erosion in humid and semihumid areas since the beginning of agriculture. Historical documents, starting from ancient records to data from the mid-twentieth century and numerous literature reviews form an extensive assortment of examples that show how soil erosion has been perceived previously by scholars, land surveyors, farmers, land owners, researchers, and policy makers. | |||
