<P> The Neolithic Revolution, Neolithic Demographic Transition, Agricultural Revolution, or First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide - scale transition of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly larger population possible . These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants to learn how they grew and developed . This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants . </P> <P> Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the Holocene around 12,500 years ago . It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture . The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available, resulting in a downturn in human nutrition . </P> <P> The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food - producing techniques . During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter - gatherers that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (non-nomadic) societies based in built - up villages and towns . These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food - crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food . </P>

How did animal domestication differ in mesopotamia and mesoamerica during the neolithic revolution