The Secondary Products Revolution: wool, traction and transport
- Date
- c. 3500–3000 BCE
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Near East and Europe
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
The Secondary Products Revolution: wool, traction and transport (c. 3500–3000 BCE) was a landmark economy & trade development in Near East and Europe.
Building on early milking, Old World farming communities increasingly exploited their herds for a wider range of renewable products from the fourth millennium BCE onward — a set of innovations the archaeologist Andrew Sherratt grouped as the 'Secondary Products Revolution.' Selective breeding produced woolly sheep, making wool a major textile fiber alongside flax; cattle were yoked to the ard or scratch-plough, dramatically increasing the area one household could cultivate and opening heavier soils; and oxen and other animals were harnessed to sledges, carts and eventually wheeled wagons for bulk transport. Riding and pack animals extended human mobility and trade. Together these developments intensified agriculture, enabled specialised pastoralism geared toward exchange, and helped generate the surpluses and social differentiation that fed into the rise of towns and early states. Modern research has revised Sherratt's tidy model, showing that milk, wool and traction appeared at different times and places rather than as a single synchronised event, but the broad transformation of livestock economies remains a landmark in prehistory.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Related economy & trade events
- Domestication of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs in Southwest Asiac. 8500–7500 BCE
- Clay tokens, seals and the threshold of writingc. 5500–3400 BCE
- Domestication of the potato, quinoa and Andean camelidsc. 8000–4000 BCE
- Standardised Binary Weights System of the Indusc. 2600 BCE
- Meluhha: Indus Trade with Akkadian Mesopotamiac. 2400-2300 BCE
- Hatshepsut's expedition to the Land of Puntc. 1469 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.