ABSTRACT
Cereal crops, also pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle, were first domesticated in in the Middle East around 11000 BC, resulting in major changes in local society. The new economies spread rapidly, for they offered chances to adapt successfully to drier climatic conditions. Sites like Abu Hureyra in Syria and Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey offer chances to study life in such settlements, where ritual observances were of great importance. So does Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, where shrines and ancestor worship, also the obsidian trade, were of great importance by 6000 BC. The earliest farmers in Europe after 6500 BC placed great emphasis on cattle, also on ancestors and ritual landscapes. Rice agriculture was well established in China by 7000 BC along the Yangtze River, and in the north with cereals in the Yellow River Valley slightly later. In Central America and the Andes, maize became a staple, domesticated from wild teosinte, and other crops like potatoes assumed great importance in South America.
