With the beginning of the Neolithic age human beings became less dependent on hunting and food- gathering and began to produce their own food. Cultivation of cereals and development in agriculture transformed the nomadic hunter-gatherers into sedentary farmers.
This led to the beginning of village settlements, manufacturing of new types of tools and greater control over nature by exploitation of natural resources.
The North-western region, i.e. present day Afghanistan and Pakistan, provides the earliest evidence of the origin of wheat and barley. Excavations at Mehrgarh have indicated that the cereals cultivated in this region included two varieties of barley and three varieties of wheat.
Charred seeds of plum and date were found from the very beginning of the settlements. We have also evidence of cultivation of cotton and grape by the Mehrgarh people.
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Probably the Harappans inherited the knowledge of wheat, barley and cotton from their early ancestors at Mehrgarh.
Village settlements appeared in the Kashmir Valley by about 2.500 BC. Excavations at Burzahom and Gufkral have given evidences of lentil, masur, pea, wheat and barley.
Chopani-Mando in Belan Valley yields significant evidence of the presence of wild rice, while excavations at Koldihawa, another site in the Valley, have given the evidence of domestication of modern variety of rice.
At Senuwar (Rohtas, Bihar), the Neolithic farmers cultivated rice, barley, field pea, lentil and some millets. From this site a variety of wheat and grass pea have also been found.
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In South India, millet (ragi) was one of the earliest crops cultivated by the Neolithic farmers. It is generally believed that the domesticated ragi came from East Africa.
Other crops cultivated by the Neolithic people in South India were wheat, horse gram and moong (green gram). Date palm was also grown. Wood of the date palm is reported from Tekkalakota. Terracing seems to have been an important feature of the method of cultivation in South India during this period.
It was employed for making tiny fields for growing crops. Field-terraces are still widely constructed by the villagers throughout this region.
It is therefore highly likely that Neolithic cultivation was restricted to terraced fields and that it never spread to the black cotton soil, which at the first rain becomes sticky and too heavy to work without a plough.