Invention of agriculture?

Question

My belief is that women were responsible for the development of agriculture. 12-10K years ago the men where out hunting. The women were left behind doing everything else. Farming (thrashing wheat) is a kind of a static activity. I think it's unlikely that the men would do that when they needed all the able bodied men to hunt the large animals. So it's very likely that women began to see the benefits of using wheat and other resources to make food to feed their young during times when the hunt was unsucessful.

Answer 1

Possible, but it did not start with wheat. Probably vegetables.

Wheat requires plowing and that means either digging by hand or using draft animals.

Answer 2

Agriculture goes back to the beginning of time when people discovered that things grew out of the earth and more things could be planted to grow from the earth. I think that women and men have shared equally in farming the land. After all, some of those men were past their prime for hunting wild animals.

Answer 3

Women may have invented agriculture, but men improved it. How many women would plant a whole garden let alone a whole field with only one plant? I also don't know any women who would plant things in straight rows. Plant groupings may look nice, but it makes it hard to mow the lawn when they are scattered around. A man had to be the one who planted one crop per field in straight lines. I also read recently that growing grain wasn't for bread making, it was for brewing beer. That has to prove that a man was involved in early agriculture.

Answer 4

From my understanding, the advent of agriculture occurred in river valleys that had flooding and dry seasons(Nile Euphrates Indus, etc.) You are correct in your presumption about women being the first farmers,(men were hunters and tended herds of livestock) but when the development of animal drawn plows came about, men became the primary farmers.

Answer 5

How do you know that women were left behind? It is most likely that we will never know which sex truly invented agriculture but if want a good source read, "Guns, Germs and Steel "