Domestication refers to the process of making some species of wild animals and plants more suitable for human use. By domesticating plants and animals, some human societies began to change from hunter-gatherer groups, which relied on a changing environment for daily food, to farming. This is sometimes called the Agricultural Revolution. Domestication began one of the most dramatic revolutions in how people ate, moved, and lived.

Domestication started around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago by several different groups throughout the Fertile Crescent, which includes parts of what are now Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel, Palestine and Türkiye. The region’s climate made it relatively easy for crops to grow. Plants like emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils and flax were some of the earliest to be domesticated. Animals like sheep and goats were domesticated around the same time. Archaeologists like National Geographic Explorer Melinda A. Zeder used genetic testing to study plants and bones found in ancient sites to learn more about this early domestication.

Wolves (Canis lupus) were domesticated to dogs (Canis familiaris) much sooner, however. The domestication of dogs likely happened two different times: some time 30,000 to 15,000 years ago and again about 15,000 years ago. This change may have been spurred by wolves that were especially social, not humans, to more easily access food with the help of humans. Domesticated plants and animals spread across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America over the next 2,000 years.

Domestication has occurred independently many times outside of the Fertile Crescent. Agriculture emerged in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and West Africa’s Niger River Basin. Agriculture also developed in different parts of the Americas: the south-cental region of the Andes, Mexico and eastern North America.

Not only did domestication develop independently in different parts of the world, some objects of domestication were cultivated independently. Rice was domesticated independently in Asia, Africa and South America and cattle were independently domesticated in Africa.

Different crops and animals were also developed in regions outside of the Fertile Crescent. Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and black-eyed peas (Vigna unguiculata), and the donkey was domesticated in Africa. Taro (Colocasia esculenta), bananas and yams were cultivated in New Guinea. Maize (Zea mays), squash and sunflowers were domesticated in North America. Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) were cultivated in the Andes region of South America.

The domestication process began when people chose wild plants that would be useful for eating or making clothing, harvested their seeds, and deliberately planted them. Over time, people took seeds from farmed plants, which had desirable qualities like taste or size, and used these seeds to grow the next year’s crop. Slowly, these plants grew more useful for humans and very different from the wild plants they came from.

Animals were chosen for their valuable products like fur, meat, and milk, or for their abilities to help humans with their labors. The animals were selectively bred with other members of their species to ensure that offspring would possess only the most useful traits. Domestication represents a species-wide genetic change from wild animals, rather than just the taming of individual animals. A tiger cub raised by humans is not domesticated, because it still has the genetics of a wild animal. However, a house cat (Felis catus) is domesticated because the species cannot survive without human help, and has been genetically affected by human actions.

Domesticated plants and animals are often seen as part of a sedentary farming society, where members remain in a single location. However, hunter-gatherers also domesticate animals. Dogs and horses (Equus caballus) are useful for hunting and transportation in tribes that travel across vast expanses. Goats (Capra hircus), sheep (Ovis aries) and cattle (Bos taurus) are also domesticated by nomadic people.

In many ways, domestication made life easier for human societies. Plant domestication meant there would be an abundant and reliable source of food for farmers. Animal domestication meant less hunting, and different foods like milk were available. Plants like cotton and flax (Linum usitatissimum), and animals like sheep and cows, could be used to make clothing. Horses, cows and camels transported people, while dogs and cats served as companions and performed household tasks, such as killing rodents. Not every society began farming after domesticated plants were known, for reasons like an unsuitable environment or cultural practices. However, the domestication of plants and animals was an extraordinary tool, which had a profound impact on human development.

Domestication has had broad effects on cultural exchange. Imagine Italy without pizza–tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas–or the United States without burgers–Europeans brought cattle to the Americas. Horses were used as weapons of subjugation against Native Americans by the Spanish, but were then used by Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, like the Lakota, Tsistsistas, Hinono'ei and Comanche Nation, to improve their ability to travel, hunt buffalo and fight. Horses were native to the Americas once, but went extinct on the continent a few thousand years ago from climate change or overhunting, or both.

The introduction of farming brought about societal changes with food surpluses enabling the specialization of duties, larger populations and the development of more permanent residences. These changes, however, were often worse for the people themselves. People in hunter-gatherer communities generally work less, have more leisure time, have more varied diets and are healthier. Farming also has further-reaching negative effects, including causing human-caused climate change, social inequality and epidemics. Typically, hunter-gatherer societies are less gender biased and less hierarchical than agrarian societies.