Planting Seeds

The simple act of planting by hand, though still practiced by millions in India and other developing nations, seems increasingly archaic in the face of big-business agriculture. It was only about 10,000 years ago that human agriculture began to flower, first in Asia's Fertile Crescent and later elsewhere across the Earth. As the plants and livestock adapted to their new man-made environments, they slowly evolved into new species—the first agricultural domesticates.