![[BuffaloHunters.jpg]] *19th-century American painting of Native American men hunting bison on the Great Plains. Big game hunting in the northeastern woodlands was similarly a male profession.* In any case, it does seem plausible to imagine a very deep origin of the types of cultivation that could later have inspired these diverse and isolated populations to develop farming and begin altering plants into staple crops. The question remains, what happened when people began to do this? So, at some point between about ten thousand years ago and about seven thousand years ago, there seems to have been a gradual shift in which _some people_ in relatively abundant regions such as river valleys began first cultivating food plants near their camps of villages, and then in several regions began altering the plants to make them more productive. It's probably worth mentioning that much of this work creating maize from teosinte, learning to freeze-dry potatoes and detoxify cassava, and identifying wheat and rice as valuable plants, was probably done by women. Other farm work, such as yoking water buffalo or oxen to plows and building irrigation dikes and canals, was probably men's work. This possible division of labor probably did not immediately change the social hierarchy or the status of women. There would have been just as much "value added" by the physical and mental contributions of women as men; and this type of value contribution probably resulted in social status. ---- Next: [[2.5 - Yoked Aurochs]] Back: [[2.3 - Native Americans an Analogy?]]