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Antiquity: history of agriculture (c. 3000 BCE – 500 CE)

Farming in the first states and empires: estates, taxation, tools and the movement of crops along trade routes.

Indus agriculture: cities, rivers and two growing seasons: c. 2600–1900 BCE, Present-day Pakistan and northwestern India. Diverse winter and summer crops supplied the cities and villages of the extensive Harappan civilisation.
Grain, granaries and administration in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom: c. 2055–1650 BCE, Nile Valley, Egypt; examples from Thebes and Edfu. Harvest storage, accounts and food allocations connected Egyptian households with state institutions and mortuary cults.
Chicken Domestication: From Asian Fields to Poultry Keeping: c. 1650–1250 BCE · evidence from Ban Non Wat, Ban Non Wat, northeastern Thailand; subsequent Eurasian history. Cereal fields, genetic exchange and changing uses of birds reveal the successive stages of chicken, meat and egg production.
Andean agriculture: terraces, raised fields and farming across elevations: 1st millennium BCE–16th century · selected pre-Columbian systems, Central and southern Andes · Peru and Bolivia. How Andean communities combined hillside terraces, raised fields, diverse crops and food storage.
Persian qanats: groundwater and dryland agriculture: 1st millennium BCE and later history, Iranian Plateau; the agricultural landscape of Kashan as an example. Gently sloping tunnels brought groundwater to fields and settlements, connecting technical knowledge with organised resource sharing.
African Rice: Independent Domestication and Farmer Knowledge: First millennium BCE · early evidence in Mali, Inland Niger Delta, Mali; West Africa and later the Guianas. Archaeology, genetics and social history reveal African rice origins and farmers’ contributions to the creation and survival of varieties.
Columella and Roman agricultural knowledge: c. 60–65 CE · De re rustica, Roman Italy · Mediterranean connections. Twelve books on crops, animals, processing and labour, read as the prescriptions of an estate owner.
Barbegal: Roman watermills: 2nd–3rd centuries CE · built in the 2nd century, Barbegal near Arles · present-day France. Sixteen mills arranged in two cascades reveal the scale of Roman grain processing. Carbonate deposits help reconstruct machinery that has disappeared.
Desert Farming in the Negev: From the Nabataeans to Byzantium: Fourth–seventh centuries CE · expansion; partial later continuity, Negev Highlands, especially around Shivta, Avdat and Nessana. Terraces, channels and sustained labour turned episodic runoff into a farming resource, supporting wine production for distant markets.
Hohokam Canals: Farming the Sonoran Desert: c. 450–1450 CE · irrigation traditions are much older, Salt and Gila valleys, present-day Arizona, USA. Canal networks connected fields, settlements and shared work in the Sonoran Desert; their transformation did not mean the disappearance of its peoples.