Discuss the role of geography in the development of specialization of trades and the emergence of religious and political elites.

What will be an ideal response?

From 10,000 to 8,000 BCE, the ice that covered the Northern Hemisphere receded and people began cultivating food, like wheat, millet, rice, squash, beans, and corn. Gradually, farming replaced hunting as the primary means of sustaining life. Agricultural production seems to have originated about 10,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent. By about 8000 BCE, Neolithic agricultural societies began to concentrate in the great river valleys of the Middle East and Asia (Map 1.2). Gradually, as the climate warmed, Neolithic culture spread across Europe—Spain and France by about 5000 BCE and in northern Europe around 4000 BCE—and throughout Africa and America in the second millennia. With environments that could support a large population, civilizations began to form. An increasing population, in turn, requires increased production of food and other goods, not only to support itself, but to trade for other commodities.