What were the disadvantages that humans experienced as a result of the neolithic agricultural revolution?
It reduces land available for living on by handing it to farmers. It reduces land available for living on by earmarking it as “common land” for the grazing of animals. It reduces space for wild animals and plants which were used for food. It causes a population to change from a nomadic lifestyle to living in a fixed location. It causes a loss of skill and knowledge of food gathering and hunting, and people can’t readily revert to this lifestyle in the result of crop failure. Most famers of crops would have been “smallholders” – many famers each farming a tiny plot. Each family would have had their own animals grazed communally on common land. Without enclosure of land farming would be fragmented, disorganised, and yields could therefore have been poorer. It took until the 18th century to properly enclose England and get it farmed on a commercial basis with optimal output.
