Crash Course World History for IELTS 1: The Agricultural Revolution

(Crash Course World History for IELTS)



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Slideshow (slides, pub)

Pre-Listening Activities (docs, pub)
Listening Questions (docs, pub)
Answers (docs, pub)
Transcript (docs, pub)
Quizlet (docs, pub)
Speaking Part 3 Questions (docs, pub)
Sample Writing Task 2 (drive, docs, pub)
Writing Homework (docs, pub)

Notes: The worksheet is borrowed from this website here (I've adjusted it slightly).  The transcript is borrowed from this website here (I've also adjusted it slightly).  The Sample Writing Task 2 is taken from here.

What do I already know about this topic?

What words am I likely to hear during this lecture?

Answer each question with no more than 4 words or a number

The Agricultural Revolution

In just (1)__________________years, humans went from hunting and gathering to create such improbabilities as the airplane, the Internet, and the 99 cent double cheeseburger.  15,000 years ago, humans were foragers and  (2)__________________. Foraging meant gathering fruits, nuts, and also wild grains and grasses. Hunting allowed for a protein-rich diet, so long as you could find something with meat to kill.

While we tend to think that the lives of foragers (hunter/gatherers) were pretty bad, fossil evidence suggests that they actually had it pretty good. Their bones and teeth are healthier than those of (3)__________________; they actually work a lot fewer hours than the rest of us; and spend more time on art, music, and (4)__________________.

It’s important to note that cultivation of crops seems to have arisen independently over the course of millennia; using crops that naturally grew nearby—rice in Southeast Asia, Maize in Mexico, Potatoes in the Andes, (5)__________________ in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa —people around the world began to abandon their foraging for agriculture.

Let’s first take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture:

• Advantage:(6)__________________. You might have droughts or floods but if you’re growing the crops and breeding them to be healthier and heartier, you get a bit more say in whether you starve.  
• Disadvantage: In order to keep feeding people as population grows, you have to radically change the (7)__________________.
• Advantage: You can create a food surplus, especially if you grow grain, which makes (8)__________________possible. Agriculture can support people not directly involved in the production of food, like, say, (9)__________________who can devote their lives to creating better farming equipment
• Disadvantage: Some would argue the whole complexity of large and complex agricultural communities that can support cities are not necessarily beneficial to the (10)__________________or even its human inhabitants.
• Advantage: Agriculture can be practiced in many places all over the world, although in lots of places it requires extensive manipulation of the environment; e.g., irrigation, (11)__________________, terracing, etc.
• Disadvantage: Farming is hard work—so hard that one is tempted to for instance claim (12)__________________over other humans and then force them to till the land on your behalf—which is the kind of non-ideal social order that has tended to emerge again and again in agriculturalist communities.

There are, however, alternatives to agriculture, like herding.  Herding is a very good and interesting alternative to foraging and agriculture. The upsides of herding are obvious: animals are not only sources of meat and milk; they also help out with (13)__________________ by providing wool and leather. On the downside, you have to (14)__________________ a lot because your herds always need new grass to eat, and it’s hard to build cities when you’re constantly moving.  

So why did the Agricultural Revolution occur? We don’t have records, but historians love to make guesses:

• Maybe population (15)__________________necessitated agriculture even though it was more work, or abundance gave people leisure time to experiment with domestication or planting originated as a fertility right or—as some historians have argued—people needed to domesticate grains in order to produce more (16)__________________.
• Maybe the best theory is that there wasn’t really an agricultural revolution at all but that it was part of an evolutionary desire to (17)__________________

It’s also true that without agriculture we wouldn’t have all the bad things that come with complex civilizations, like patriarchy, inequality (18)__________________, and unfortunately, famine.

And as far as the planet is concerned, agriculture has been a big loser – without it humans would never have changed the environment so much, building dams, clearing forests,  agriculture, and in the 20th and 21st century drilling for oil to process into (19)__________________.

Answer each question with no more than 4 words or a number

The Agricultural Revolution

In just (1)15,000 years, humans went from hunting and gathering to create such improbabilities as the airplane, the Internet, and the 99 cent double cheeseburger.  15,000 years ago, humans were foragers and (2)hunters. Foraging meant gathering fruits, nuts, and also wild grains and grasses. Hunting allowed for a protein-rich diet, so long as you could find something with meat to kill.

While we tend to think that the lives of foragers (hunter/gatherers) were pretty bad, fossil evidence suggests that they actually had it pretty good. Their bones and teeth are healthier than those of (3)agriculturalists; they actually work a lot fewer hours than the rest of us; and spend more time on art, music, and (4)storytelling.

It’s important to note that cultivation of crops seems to have arisen independently over the course of millennia; using crops that naturally grew nearby—rice in Southeast Asia, Maize in Mexico, Potatoes in the Andes, (5)wheat in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa —people around the world began to abandon their foraging for agriculture.

Let’s first take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture:

• Advantage:(6)Controllable Food Supply. You might have droughts or floods but if you’re growing the crops and breeding them to be healthier and heartier, you get a bit more say in whether you starve.  
• Disadvantage: In order to keep feeding people as population grows, you have to radically change the (7)environment (of the planet).
• Advantage: You can create a food surplus, especially if you grow grain, which makes (8)cities possible. Agriculture can support people not directly involved in the production of food, like, say, (9)tradespeople who can devote their lives to creating better farming equipment.
• Disadvantage: Some would argue the whole complexity of large and complex agricultural communities that can support cities are not necessarily beneficial to the (10)planet or even its human inhabitants.
• Advantage: Agriculture can be practiced in many places all over the world, although in lots of places it requires extensive manipulation of the environment; e.g., irrigation, (11)controlled flooding, terracing, etc.
• Disadvantage: Farming is hard work—so hard that one is tempted to for instance claim (12)ownership over other humans and then force them to till the land on your behalf—which is the kind of non-ideal social order that has tended to emerge again and again in agriculturalist communities.

There are, however, alternatives to agriculture, like herding.  Herding is a very good and interesting alternative to foraging and agriculture. The upsides of herding are obvious: animals are not only sources of meat and milk; they also help out with (13)shelter by providing wool and leather. On the downside, you have to (14)move around a lot because your herds always need new grass to eat, and it’s hard to build cities when you’re constantly moving.  

So why did the Agricultural Revolution occur? We don’t have records, but historians love to make guesses:

• Maybe population (15)pressure necessitated agriculture even though it was more work, or abundance gave people leisure time to experiment with domestication or planting originated as a fertility right or—as some historians have argued—people needed to domesticate grains in order to produce more (16)alcohol.
• Maybe the best theory is that there wasn’t really an agricultural revolution at all but that it was part of an evolutionary desire to (17)eat more

Many historians also argue that without agriculture we wouldn’t have all the bad things that come with complex civilizations, like patriarchy, inequality (18)war, and unfortunately, famine.

And as far as the planet is concerned, agriculture has been a big loser – without it humans would never have changed the environment so much, building dams, clearing forests,  agriculture, and in the 20th and 21st century drilling for oil to process into (19)fertilizer.

Introduction

Present John: Hello, learned and astonishingly attractive pupils. My name is John Green and I want to welcome you to Crash Course World History. Over the next forty weeks together, we will learn how in a mere fifteen thousand years, humans went from hunting and gathering...

Past John: Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Is this gonna be on the test?

Present John: Yeah, about the test: The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed.

The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you’ll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you’ll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context.

The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, make your life yours. And everything — everything — will be on it. I know, right? So pay attention.

In a mere fifteen thousand years, humans went from hunting and gathering to creating such improbabilities as the airplane, the Internet, and the ninety-nine cent double cheeseburger. It's an extraordinary journey, one that I will now symbolize by embarking upon a journey of my own... over to camera two.

Hi there, camera two, it's me, John Green. Let's start with that double cheeseburger. Ooh, food photography! So this hot hunk of meat contains four-hundred and ninety calories.

To get this cheeseburger, you have to feed, raise, and slaughter cows, then grind their meat, then freeze it and ship it to its destination, you also gotta grow some wheat and then process the living crap out of it until it's whiter than Queen Elizabeth the First, then you gotta milk some cows and turn their milk into cheese. And that's not even to mention the growing and pickling of cucumbers or the sweetening of tomatoes or the grinding of mustard seeds, etc.

How in the sweet name of everything holy did we ever come to live in a world in which such a thing can even be created? And HOW is it possible that those four-hundred and ninety calories can be served to me for an amount of money that, if I make the minimum wage here in the U.S., I can earn in ELEVEN MINUTES? And most importantly: should I be delighted or alarmed to live in this strange world of relative abundance?

Well, to answer that question we're not going to be able to look strictly at history, because there isn't a written record about a lot of these things. But thanks to archaeology and paleobiology, we CAN look deep into the past. Let's go to the Thought Bubble.

Hunting and Foraging Beginnings

So fifteen thousand years ago, humans were foragers and hunters. Foraging meant gathering fruits, nuts, also wild grains and grasses; hunting allowed for a more protein-rich diet ... so long as you could find something with meat to kill. By far the best hunting gig in the pre-historic world, incidentally, was fishing, which is one of the reasons that if you look at history of people populating the planet, we tended to run for the shore and then stay there. Marine life was A) abundant, and B) relatively unlikely to eat you.

While we tend to think that the life of foragers were nasty, brutish and short, fossil evidence suggests that they actually had it pretty good: their bones and teeth are healthier than those of agriculturalists. And anthropologists who've studied the remaining forager peoples have noted that they actually spend a lot fewer hours working than the rest of us, and they spend more time on art, music, and storytelling. Also if you believe the classic of anthropology, Nisa, they also have a lot more time for skoodilypooping. What? I call it skoodilypooping. I'm not going to apologize.

It's worth noting that cultivation of crops seems to have risen independently over the course of millennia in a number of places--from Africa to China to the Americas--using crops that naturally grew nearby: rice in Southeast Asia, maize in Mexico, potatoes in the Andes, wheat in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa. People around the world began to abandon their foraging for agriculture. And since so many communities made this choice independently, it must have been a good choice... right? Even though it meant less music and skoodilypooping. Thanks, Thought Bubble.

The Shift to Agriculture

All right, to answer that question, let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture.

ADVANTAGE: Controllable food supply. You might have droughts or floods, but if you're growing the crops and breeding them to be hardier, you have a better chance of not starving.

DISADVANTAGE: In order to keep feeding people as the population grows you have to radically change the environment of the planet.

ADVANTAGE: Especially if you grow grain, you can create a food surplus, which makes cities possible and also the specialization of labor. Like, in the days before agriculture, EVERYBODY'S job was foraging, and it took about a thousand calories of work to create a thousand calories of food ... and it was impossible to create large population centers.

But, if you have a surplus, agriculture can support people not directly involved in the production of food. Like, for instance, tradespeople, who can devote their lives to better farming equipment, which in turn makes it easier to produce more food more efficiently, which in time makes it possible for a corporation to turn a profit on this ninety-nine cent double cheeseburger.

Which is delicious, by the way. It's actually terrible. And it's very cold. And I wish I had not eaten it. I mean, can we just compare what I was promised to what I was delivered? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this is not... that.

Some would say that large and complex agricultural communities that can support cities and eventually inexpensive meat sandwiches are not necessarily beneficial to the planet or even to its human inhabitants. Although that's a bit of a tough argument to make, coming to you as I am in a series of ones and zeros.

ADVANTAGE: Agriculture can be practiced all over the world, although in some cases it takes extensive manipulation of the environment, like you know irrigation, controlled flooding, terracing, that kind of thing.

DISADVANTAGE: Farming is hard. So hard, in fact, that one is tempted to claim ownership over other humans and then have them till the land on your behalf, which is the kind of non-ideal social order that tends to be associated with agricultural communities. So why did agriculture happen?

Wait, I haven't talked about herders. Herders, man! Always getting the short end of the stick. Herding is a really good and interesting alternative to foraging and agriculture. You domesticate some animals and then you take them on the road with you. The advantages of herding are obvious. First, you get to be a cowboy. Also, animals provide meat and milk, but they also help out with shelter because they can provide wool and leather.

The downside is that you have to move around a lot because your herd always needs new grass, which makes it hard to build cities, unless you are the Mongols. [Mongoltage] By the way, over the next forty weeks you will frequently hear generalizations, followed by "unless you are the Mongols" [Mongoltage].

But anyway one of the main reasons herding only caught on in certain parts of the world is that there aren't that many animals that lend themselves to domestication. Like, you have sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, camels, donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks, all of which have something in common. They aren't native to the Americas. The only halfway useful herding animal native to the Americas is the llama. No, not that Lama, two L's. Yes, that llama.

Most animals just don't work for domestication. Like hippos are large, which means they provide lots of meat, but unfortunately, they like to eat people. Zebras are too ornery. Grizzlies have wild hearts that can't be broken. Elephants are awesome, but they take way too long to breed. Which reminds me! It's time for the Open Letter.

The Open Letter

Elegant. But first, let's see what the Secret Compartment has for me today. Oh! It's another double cheeseburger. Thanks, Secret Compartment. Just kidding, I don't thank you for this. An Open Letter to elephants.

Hey elephants,

You're so cute and smart and awesome. Why you gotta be pregnant for 22 months? That's crazy! And then you only have one kid. If you were more like cows, you might have taken us over by now. Little did you know, but the greatest evolutionary advantage: being useful to humans.

Like, here is a graph of cow population, and here is a graph of elephant population. Elephants, if you had just inserted yourself into human life the way cows did, you could have used your power and intelligence to form secret elephant societies, conspiring against the humans! And then you could have risen up, and destroyed us, and made an awesome elephant world with elephant cars, and elephant planes!

It would have been so great! But noooo! You gotta be pregnant for 22 months and then have just one kid. It's so annoying!

Best wishes, John Green.

Why the Agricultural Revolution Happened

Right, but back to the agricultural revolution and why it occurred. Historians don't know for sure, of course, because there are no written records. But, they love to make guesses. Maybe population pressure necessitated agriculture even though it was more work, or abundance gave people leisure to experiment with domestication, or planting originated as a fertility rite--or as some historians have argued--people needed to domesticate grains in order to produce more alcohol.

Charles Darwin, like most 19th century scientists, believed agriculture was an accident, saying, "a wild and unusually good variety of native plant might attract the attention of some wise old savage." Off topic, but you will note in the coming weeks that the definition of "savage" tends to be be "not me."

Maybe the best theory is that there wasn't really an agricultural revolution at all, but that agriculture came out of an evolutionary desire to eat more. Like early hunter gatherers knew that seeds germinate when planted. And, when you find something that makes food, you want to do more of it. Unless it's this food. Then you want to do less of it. I kinda want to spit it out. Ewww. Ah, that's much better.

So early farmers would find the most accessible forms of wheat and plant them and experiment with them not because they were trying to start an agricultural revolution, because they were like, you know what would be awesome: more food!

Like on this topic, we have evidence that more than 13,000 years ago humans in southern Greece were domesticating snails. In the Franchthi Cave, there's a huge pile of snail shells, most of them are larger than current snails, suggesting that the people who ate them were selectively breeding them to be bigger and more nutritious.

Snails make excellent domesticated food sources, by the way because

A) surprisingly caloric

B) they're easy to carry since they come with their own suitcases, and

C) to imprison them you just have to scratch a ditch around their living quarters.

That's not really a revolution, that's just people trying to increase available calories. But one non-revolution leads to another, and pretty soon you have this, as far as the eye can see.

Many historians also argue that without agriculture we wouldn't have all the bad things that come with complex civilizations like patriarchy, inequality, war, and unfortunately, famine. And, as far as the planet is concerned, agriculture has been a big loser. Without it, humans never would have changed the environment so much, building dams, and clearing forests, and more recently, drilling for oil that we can turn into fertilizer.

Many people made the choice for agriculture independently, but does that mean it was the right choice? Maybe so, and maybe not, but, regardless, we can't unmake that choice. And that's one of the reasons I think it's so important to study history.

History reminds us that revolutions are not events, so much as they are processes; that for tens of thousands of years people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today. Just as today we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions.

Next week we're going to journey to the Indus River Valley - whoa - very fragile, our globe, like the real globe. We're going to travel to the Indus River Valley. I'll see you then.

Credits

Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself, and our graphics team is Thought Bubble.

If you want to guess at the phrase of the week, you can do so in comments. You can also suggest future phrases of the week. And if you have a question about today's video, please leave it comments where our team of semi-professional quasi-historians will aim to answer it.

Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.

Crash Course World History #1: The Agricultural Revolution

https://quizlet.com/_2d3997

Crash Course World History #1: The Agricultural Revolution

https://quizlet.com/_2d3997

Crash Course World History #1: The Agricultural Revolution

https://quizlet.com/_2d3997

Crash Course World History #1: The Agricultural Revolution

https://quizlet.com/_2d3997

Question 1:

John Green says in the video: “I think it’s so important to study history.”

Do you agree or disagree?  Give reasons to support your answer.

Question 2:

Were humans happier before civilization? Give reasons to support your answer.

Question 3:

When future historians write about our time period, what will they describe as the big revolutions?

What changes are happening now that could have a huge impact on future society?

Question 1:

John Green says in the video: “I think it’s so important to study history.”

Do you agree or disagree?  Give reasons to support your answer.

Question 2:

Were humans happier before civilization? Give reasons to support your answer.

Question 3:

When future historians write about our time period, what will they describe as the big revolutions?

What changes are happening now that could have a huge impact on future society?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Talk about this question with a partner:

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Look at these points about the modern world.  Which ones are positive points, and which ones are negative points?

1._______ Infant mortality rates have dropped on account of improved living conditions and public health services.

2.________ There has been a general improvement in human rights.

3._______ Communication has progressed remarkably.

4._______The increase in air pollution since industrialisation.

5._______ Life expectancies have steadily increased in most regions due to medical breakthroughs such as the discovery of penicillin and vaccines to counter a host of previously life-threatening diseases.

6. _______Urbanization has led to overcrowded, dirty cities, which have various social problems.

Below are examples of the main points above.  See if you can match the example to the main point.

A. Factories emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide during the production process. Also, the number of vehicles on the road has increased dramatically in recent years, adding to the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

B. The right to vote is now enjoyed by men and women in almost every country of the world.

C. Unemployment and crime have become common in many large cities.

D. One hundred years ago the telephone was cutting-edge technology for the rich; now, ordinary people can keep in touch with each other via mobile phones and the Internet.

Below is a sample essay.  It is missing an introduction, the topic sentences for each body paragraph, and a conclusion.  Your teacher will give you 6 sentences.  See if you can match the sentences to the blanks

(1)_______________________________________________________________________

(2)_______________________________________________________________________

(3)_______________________________________________________________________

(4)________________________________________________________________________. Perhaps the most serious of these is the increase in air pollution since industrialisation. Factories emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide during the production process. Also, the number of vehicles on the road has increased dramatically in recent years, adding to the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is a major issue because these gases cause global warming. Urbanization has also led to overcrowded, dirty cities, which have various social problems. Unemployment and crime have become common in many large cities.

(5)________________________________________________________________________. For example, life expectancies have steadily increased in most regions due to medical breakthroughs such as the discovery of penicillin and vaccines to counter a host of previously life-threatening diseases. Infant mortality rates have also dropped on account of improved living conditions and public health services. Communication is another area that has progressed remarkably. One hundred years ago the telephone was cutting-edge technology for the rich; now, ordinary people can keep in touch with each other via mobile phones and the Internet. There has also been a general improvement in human rights. The right to vote, for instance, is now enjoyed by men and women in almost every country of the world.

(6________________________________________________________________________

Cut up strips and shuffle and have students match the sentences to paragraphs in groups

There have been countless technological and social developments during this period.

There are undoubtedly some problems associated with development.

Some people feel that many of these changes have been negative, while others believe that now is the best time to be alive because of these developments.

Despite the above-mentioned negatives, people have benefitted greatly from technological and social progress.

In conclusion, due to improvements in technology and human rights, life is generally better now than it was in the past.

The world has seen dramatic change over the past century.

Cut up strips and shuffle and have students match the sentences to paragraphs in groups

There have been countless technological and social developments during this period.

There are undoubtedly some problems associated with development.

Some people feel that many of these changes have been negative, while others believe that now is the best time to be alive because of these developments.

Despite the above-mentioned negatives, people have benefitted greatly from technological and social progress.

In conclusion, due to improvements in technology and human rights, life is generally better now than it was in the past.

The world has seen dramatic change over the past century.

Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better time to be alive than now.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Paragraph 1: Introduce the topic Introduce 2 sides Paragraph 2: Negative points of development Paragraph 3: Positive points Conclusion Life is better now

The world has seen dramatic change over the past century. There have been countless technological and social developments during this period. Some people feel that many of these changes have been negative, while others believe that now is the best time to be alive because of these developments.    There are undoubtedly some problems associated with development. Perhaps the most serious of these is the increase in air pollution since industrialisation. Factories emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide during the production process. Also, the number of vehicles on the road has increased dramatically in recent years, adding to the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is a major issue because these gases cause global warming. Urbanization has also led to overcrowded, dirty cities, which have various social problems. Unemployment and crime have become common in many large cities. Despite the above-mentioned negatives, people have benefitted greatly from technological and social progress. For example, life expectancies have steadily increased in most regions due to medical breakthroughs such as the discovery of penicillin and vaccines to counter a host of previously life-threatening diseases. Infant mortality rates have also dropped on account of improved living conditions and public health services. Communication is another area that has progressed remarkably. One hundred years ago the telephone was cutting-edge technology for the rich; now, ordinary people can keep in touch with each other via mobile phones and the Internet. There has also been a general improvement in human rights. The right to vote, for instance, is now enjoyed by men and women in almost every country of the world. In conclusion, due to improvements in technology and human rights, life is generally better now than it was in the past.

Word Count: 285