The ard plough and the Secondary Products Revolution
- Date
- c. 4500 to 3500 BCE
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Near East and Europe
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
From the fifth millennium BCE, farming communities across the Near East and Europe began to exploit domestic animals not only for meat but for renewable 'secondary' products, milk, wool and muscle power.
Central to this shift was the ard, a simple scratch-plough dragged by oxen that broke and furrowed the soil far faster than digging sticks or hoes, allowing larger fields and heavier harvests. Direct evidence survives as preserved ard furrows and cattle hoof-prints beneath later sites in Switzerland and Italy, dated to the early-to-mid fourth millennium BCE, while milk-fat residues in pottery and the spread of wool-bearing sheep document the parallel rise of dairying and textiles. Archaeologist Andrew Sherratt named this cluster of innovations the 'Secondary Products Revolution'. Together with traction for ploughs and carts, it intensified agriculture, reorganised labour and land use, and helped generate the surpluses on which later complex societies depended.
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Related science, technology & invention events
- Gunditjmara Build the Budj Bim Eel Aquaculture Systemc. 4600 BCE
- The first copper smelting and the dawn of the Chalcolithicc. 5000 to 4600 BCE
- Domestication of sorghum and pearl millet in the African Sahelc. 4000 to 2500 BCE
- Invention of the wheel and wheeled vehiclesc. 3500 BCE
- Development of large-scale irrigation agriculture in southern Mesopotamiac. 5300 to 4100 BCE
- Early horse domestication on the Eurasian steppec. 3500 BCE
Essential reading
- Monumental urbanism at Caral and the Norte Chico civilisationc. 2600 BCE
- Standardised Binary Weights System of the Indusc. 2600 BCE
- Rise of Kerma as an Urban Centre in Nubiac. 2500 BCE
- Decline and De-urbanisation of the Indus Civilisationc. 1900 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
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