Talk:History of agriculture/Archive 1

Untitled
It is so strange that people donn't give any interest in the hitory of the most important thing--the food.So funny.Ksyrie 06:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

what a mess
This article is basic to an encyclopedia and... what's here presently is just... maybe a few fragments of it should be kept... you know?? JDG 05:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to take responsibility of improving this article, but its way too broad a topic for one person to do but I'll try. --24.247.126.44 01:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

To the above user; It is appreciated that you would like to improve this article, but I feel that the ancient history section was fairly comprehensive, if not cohesive, and the article structure is fairly solid. To that end, adding the sumerian information is helpful, but deleting entire paragraphs without either discussion here or a well-justified reason seems excessive.

wgh 06:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think 24.etc was reading the above criticisms from September and earlier and concluded they applied to the article as it stood on 7 November. But by 7 November the article had been greatly improved. JDG 02:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by 500,000 year history of modern humans? Most people thinkg homo sapiens evolved 200 000 - 100 000 years ago. Do you mean something else? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.224.228.86 (talk • contribs).

Wow, major improvements
This article has drastically changed since I've last seen it (and added the section on China). Cheers and kudos to the editors.--PericlesofAthens 18:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

--

I find it contradictory to write in the 1st section that the practice of agriculture _first began_ around 8000 BC in the Middle East, but slightly after to say that in China rice was domesticated by 10000 BC. Kostoraiskaaja 11:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree on that. As far as my studietexts in Antropology tell me the date for China is wrong. Middle East was the first Agricultural center. Fabzgy 16:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The dates are flipped for the Fertile Crescent and China. 10000 BCE for the Fertile Crescent and 8000 BCE for China.  Whomever typed it up got the order right and the dates wrong.PatrickSJ 17:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this article seems to be in fair shape, clearly the improvements in the last year are paying off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.153.106.254 (talk) 10:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Origins of agriculture> new and separate article?
Seems to me that so vital a topic as the origin of agriculture ought to have its own page. I'm stunned that it has not yet happened. How would folks feel if I took this section off and started a new article, then put a link to see main article: Origins of Agriculture ? --Smilo Don 00:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * NEvermind--found it: Neolithic Revolution. Will help to link in a sec. Sorry for the bother.--Smilo Don 00:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

205.213.240.8 (talk) 16:59, 20 June 2011 (UTC) Why no catastrophic beginning for agriculture? In light of verification of so much of Velikovsky, it would seem appropriate: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615094514.htm  What we see as a 'beginning' was a coping strategy for survival with the ocean sterilized to a great depth. Where to get protein? See how hard it was? Height, longevity, survival all decreased.

"Muslim agriculture" could be condensed? Roman expanded?
Muslim (Islamic?) section seems a bit big relative to other sections. Perhaps useful just to have the salient points? Or if it really is sensible to proportion like that, perhaps an overview in the introduction which explains when and where the key deelopments were.

dp 23:32 29th October 2007

Genetic Engineering in Crops
I am unfamiliar with the current methods of genetic engineering in crops to improve yields, disease resistance, and quality, but shouldn't we have a section about it? The earliest form of genetic engineering in crops would be breeding selection followed by later techniques in gene manipulation for common crops such as corn, cotton, and wheat. PatrickSJ 18:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Neolithic mehrgarh.jpg
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 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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European agriculture
This article has the opposite of the ethnocentric problem of many others. To read it, you'd think that no agriculture at all took place during the European Middle Ages. And why is there nothing on demographics? 192.31.106.35 (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Unhelpful. Dreadful mess. Europe starts in the Middle Ages. 218.103.114.186 (talk) 06:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I will try describing the earliest methods of agriculture
I will try describing the earliest methods of agriculture and the transition from hunting and gathering to stationary agriculture.--Svedjebruk (talk) 11:02, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but based on your contributions to no:wp and this wp, your only intention seem to be to promote the fringe theories of a retired museum curator whose theries has yet to be published in an proper academic context. Bw --Orland (talk) 16:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

No mention of buckwheat, the oldest crop in many parts of the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat#History

Era edit war, argh
Looking at this article, as far back recently as January of this year the article had for the most part shifted to using BCE, with about 90% of the era references BCE and just a few BC. changed them all to BC, and when challenged, cited a version from 2006 (!) writing in an edit note to the reversion, "BC dating was established in 2006 for this article. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_agriculture&oldid=76213060 sorry". Nothing is "established" in WP - things change slowly over time. And that is what happened here. There is no justification in policy for the wholesale change to BC, and if anything, the current trend in the article is for BCE, and that is what should be respected, per WP:ERA. Please don't edit war over this - please respect the consensus that has developed in this article. Jytdog (talk)
 * It would be better to decide a new consensus, as the policy allows. Personally I don't much care, though we should be consistent. So: Johnbod (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I made my edit on the assumption that the guidance was similar to MOS:RETAIN, which is for American v. British spellings. This is where being established is supposed to play a role. In any case, my edit was attempting to clean up some inconsistencies. Did I succeed? I like to saw logs! (talk) 06:03, 15 April 2015 (UTC)


 * And curiously enough, I forgot about the accusations of edit warring (in the comments by immediately above and in edit summaries) because I continued to edit the article with BCE dates... like here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_agriculture&diff=632794381&oldid=632578072 In other words I was willing to try to follow the rules. I am hoping that the rules are saying that BC should predominate here because that's what I see in the article. I do recall that the dating era was a bit haphazard. It looks to me that  has actually gotten the entire article consistent, which is one of the rules. I was wrong on the "established" idea, so might as well check up on them, everybody.


 * I guess I need not throw out WP:AGF at this juncture, seeing as how we are all assuming that others play by the rules. That may apply to someone, theoretically, in this discussion. I like to saw logs! (talk) 06:21, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Support BCE/CE

 * Was existing strong trend. Per WP:ERA we don't change away from that.  There is no way to resolve this but by following the current consensus, hence the policy. Jytdog (talk) 03:36, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Support BC/AD

 * With respect, the complaint's poppycock. People ignoring an article with mixed usage doesn't mean that there is a new consensus; it just means they're lazy or disregarding the policy in their own edits. Per, we respect the existing usage; other editors having failed to do so is no reason to jump on for correcting their mistake. Per , good on him for having restored the page's existing consistent usage in the absence of an expressed new . His having caught you in your attempt to change the page's usage isn't an argument against him. Claiming "evolving trends" is just a recipe for continued unproductive edit warring and page patrolling to enforce personal preferences. The neutral usage of this page remains  pending some strong reason to change it, which has not (so far) been provided here. [edit: Fixed, pending strong showing for a new consensus. Perfectly open to not using  but I think it's a classier EB vibe.] —  Llywelyn II   04:30, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

New Guinea?
To get to a mention of New Guinean agriculture at all, I have to go to the references section. New Guinean agriculture is old, perhaps even older than Mesopotamia, as a Cradle of Agriculture. I hope that I can add a section on New Guinea, and I'd love to see more attention payed to other cradels of agriculture that are often overlooked. Jamutaq (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
 * New Guinean agriculture is relatively unimportant, having not had nearly the effect on the mass of humanity as the "non-overlooked" ones. Treating them in too much detail here would actually be a issue. That said, obviously better if we have some discussion and links to the articles on them. —  Llywelyn II   04:56, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Heavy plough
I brought over sources and dates about early Chinese use from the plough article but will caveat them by noting that (per a tl;dr argument on its talk page) Gunpowder Ma was somehow involved with them. I've had previous experience of his difficulty with maintaining and misreading sources, so they may need to be checked for accurately describing the content of the sources and for non--iness. (That said, the dates and information fit the spread of the heavy plough w/i Europe so they seem fine; there may be other issues like the iron plough not becoming common in China until much later...) — Llywelyn II   04:56, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Agriculture developed 12,000 years ago?
The assertion that "Agriculture involving domestication of plants and animals was developed around 12,000 years ago" is not supported by a citation. The two articles cited at the end of the sentence refer to stick-farming in Australia. Citation 3 refers to an article in the New York Times (but not a primary scientific source) stating maize farming in North America dates back 9000 years.

I question whether any strong evidence of agriculture has been established for these very early dates.

In particular, the abundance of wild animal bones and absence of non-wild animal bones in the excavations of Gobekli Tepe suggests that there was no agriculture in that area 12,000 years ago.Johnfravolda (talk) 20:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Johnfravolda! The time that you have expended commenting here is time that you could have invested in tracking down and supplying a citation (now done). Please remember WP:BOLD - that is how Wikipedia is built. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   23:34, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Renamed the subheading "Indus civilization and ancient India" to "Indus Valley Civilization".
The reason I made the change was because the article only concerned IVC(Indus valley civilization) and not "ancient India" as such. Since IVC sites only lie in modern day Pakistan and North-western India, the history of agriculture there does not apply to the rest of the regions which comprise modern day India.

Loads of info, but clearly written by someone with a less-than-perfect grasp of English
Just sharing...I'm doing research. This latest edit is most difficult to follow. Although I imagine it would be asserted that the text is technically correct grammar-wise, it is essentially unreadable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.47.125.19 (talk) 20:37, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Further reading is good idea
The history of agriculture is an important topic and needs a bibliography of the sort that University undergraduates can work with. We want to help them write papers and look to Wikipedia for advice. Rjensen (talk) 12:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally I'm of the WP:NOTCAT school but no matter. I've added a lot of publishers. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:21, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * thanks for all your good work. As for being complete...Historical Abstracts gives 541 scholarly articles and books on agriculture in French history. The Further Reading lists one. They have 597 on agriculture in Chinese history and the Further Reading lists one, plus a couple more in the footnotes. Rjensen (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, that does rather make my case - we'll never have a full or up-to-date bibliography here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It's an encyclopedia article. The main text likewise is a tiny snapshot of the published histories of agriculture, so the bibliog is a good companion. Rjensen (talk) 14:10, 16 June 2016 (UTC)