How did agriculture change human society?

Agriculture's impact on human society was total — it reshaped demographics, social organization, technology, culture, and even human biology. The shift from foraging to farming was the single most consequential change in the human experience since the development of language.

The most immediate effect was settlement. Crops can't be moved, so farmers had to stay put. Permanent villages appeared, then towns, then cities. With settlement came the accumulation of material goods — pottery, tools, stored grain, livestock — and the concept of property. For the first time in human history, wealth could be accumulated and inherited.

Food surpluses created the conditions for social differentiation. Not everyone needed to farm — surplus production could support craftspeople, priests, soldiers, and administrators. This specialization drove technological innovation and cultural complexity but also created new forms of inequality. Some families accumulated more than others, and over generations these advantages hardened into hereditary class systems.

Agriculture changed human biology too. Living in dense, sedentary communities with domesticated animals exposed humans to new infectious diseases. Diets became less diverse and more dependent on a few staple crops, leading to nutritional deficiencies visible in the skeletal record. Populations grew rapidly despite these health costs, simply because farming supported so many more people per unit of land.

Perhaps most profoundly, agriculture changed the human relationship with time and nature. Foragers lived in the present, responding to immediate conditions. Farmers planned for the future — planting, irrigating, storing, defending their investment across seasons and years. This forward-looking orientation became the psychological foundation of civilization.