Food & agriculture · c. 4,000 BCE

Ard plough

A pointed wooden stick pulled by oxen scratched furrows far faster than any hoe.

The ard appeared in Mesopotamia by the 4th millennium BCE. Harnessing oxen to tillage multiplied the land one family could farm and made cattle central to agriculture from Egypt to China.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

What it led to 2

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)

World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)