History of farming technology
44 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
How the inventions are connected
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90000 BC | Harpoon | A thrown weapon with a barbed point. | Spear | |
| 23000 BC | Fish hook | A hook for catching fish. | ||
| 10000 BC | Sickle | A curved blade for harvesting. | Stone tool | Lawn mower, Combine harvester, Reaper, Scythe |
| 10000 BC | Grain | The grain of cereals (wheat, barley, rice) grown in fields since the Neolithic. | ||
| 10000 BC | Domestication | Taming plants and animals; the Neolithic Revolution. | ||
| 9000 BC | Millstone | A stone disc for grinding grain. | ||
| 9000 BC | Quern | Two stones for grinding grain. | Gristmill, Threshing machine | |
| 8000 BC | Fishing net | A woven mesh for catching fish. | ||
| 6000 BC | Hoe | A tool for loosening soil. | Stone tool | Plough |
| 6000 BC | Irrigation | Artificial watering of fields. | ||
| 5000 BC | Brewing | Making a drink by fermenting grain. | ||
| 4000 BC | Plough | A tool for tilling soil. | Hoe | Steel plough |
| 4000 BC | Yoke | A harness for a pair of oxen. | ||
| 3000 BC | Shovel | A tool for digging. | ||
| 3000 BC | Terrace farming | Stepped fields on slopes. | ||
| 2000 BC | Shaduf | A well sweep for lifting water: a lever with a counterweight. | ||
| 1000 BC | Pitchfork | A tool for hay. | ||
| 800 BC | Qanat | An underground channel that collects groundwater by gravity. | ||
| 500 BC | Scythe | A long curved blade for mowing. | Sickle | Lawn mower |
| 400 BC | Incubator | A device for hatching chicks; with a thermostat — Réaumur. | Infant incubator | |
| 300 BC | Noria | A water-lifting wheel with buckets turned by the current. | ||
| 300 BC | Sakia | A water-lifting wheel driven by an animal through a gear. | ||
| 300 BC | Gristmill | A mill for grinding grain into flour. | Quern | Roller mill |
| 250 BC | Archimedes’ screw | A screw inside a tube that lifts water as it turns. | Propeller, Auger | |
| 30 | Greenhouse | A glazed structure for growing plants. | Crystal Palace | |
| 300 | Flail | A tool for threshing by hand. | Threshing machine | |
| 800 | Crop rotation | Alternating crops to preserve fertility (three-field system, Norfolk system). | Mineral fertilizer | |
| 1701 | Seed drill | Tull’s mechanical seed drill. | ||
| 1786 | Threshing machine | A machine for threshing grain (Meikle). | Quern, Flail | Combine harvester |
| 1831 | Reaper | McCormick’s horse-drawn reaper. | Sickle | Combine harvester |
| 1835 | Combine harvester | A machine that reaps, threshes and cleans grain at the same time. | Sickle, Reaper, Threshing machine | |
| 1837 | Steel plough | Deere’s plough with a polished steel share. | Plough | |
| 1842 | Mineral fertilizer | Lawes’s superphosphate; nitrogen fertilizers. | Crop rotation | |
| 1842 | Grain elevator | A granary with a bucket lift (Dart). | ||
| 1870 | Roller mill | Grinding grain with steel rollers. | Gristmill | |
| 1873 | Silo | A store for fodder and grain. | ||
| 1874 | Barbed wire Joseph Glidden, Lucien B. Smith | Wire with barbs for fences (Glidden). | ||
| 1878 | Cream separator | A centrifuge that separates cream (de Laval). | ||
| 1892 | Tractor | A self-propelled machine for pulling farm implements. | Watt steam engine | |
| 1892 | Milking machine | A vacuum milking machine. | ||
| 1929 | Hydroponics Francis Bacon, Aztec | Growing plants without soil. | ||
| 1939 | Pesticide | A crop-protection chemical (DDT). | ||
| 1959 | Drip irrigation | Delivering water to the roots through tubes (Blass). | ||
| 1983 | Genetically modified crops | Plants with an altered genome. |