Chelsea Morgan Historic Article Review
AP World History Mr. Nadeem
Article: Great Leap To Agriculture by John Noble Wilford Great Leap to Agriculture written by John Noble Wilford is based on scientific findings that help piece together where and how cereal grains were domesticated during agricultures' birth in the Fertile Crescent nearly 10,000 years ago. John Noble Wilford, was born on October 3rd, 1933 in Murray, Kentucky. He studied in the universities of Tennessee and Syracuse. Wilford is known for his Pulitzer Prize for National reporting in 1984 and was nominated for National Book Award of History in 1983. John Noble Wilford retired as a senior science correspondent for The New York Times. Wilford covers all article information based on archeological findings that date back to thousands of years ago! Great Leap To Agriculture is an original, yet informative article that gives us a taste of exactly what scientists are looking for. To this day, Scientists and archeologists are still looking for artifacts or useful clues that help us understand how, when, and where our natural behaviors and agriculture began. This review will evaluate the quality of Wilford's writing as well as his main arguments. As described above, Wilford's main purpose for writing this article is to present and analyze the possible location for the beginning of agriculture based on the discoveries of others. His three main arguments are his presentation and analysis of each of the observations made by the scientists he values information from. He bases his analyses of each of these scientific findings and experiments and his own theories. For example, Wilford argues that excavations at more than 50 sites over the last half- century have established the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East as the homeland of the first farmers.(44) He bases this theory on information he gathered from historians and archeologists. Wilford continuously uses the details determined by scientists studying the case arguments throughout the text to back up his personal thinking.

Wilford begins his article by stating that the greatest thing before sliced bread was bread itself. He gives us the feeling that every great thing has something even greater behind it. Not to say that bread is the best of all, but to provide a personal account of the everyday life learning and taking advantage of agriculture. The first part of the article mainly focuses on the idea that the question of: Where in the Fertile Crescent were the first wheat and barley crops produced? It gives us the opportunity to wonder why agriculture flourished so much faster in that particular area and what enabled it to do so. However, the author of the article tells us, with the opinion presented by arguing that there are many grains that resemble their wild cousins, with a few crucial differences. Wilford also claims that if several scientist from different colleges and universities have analyzed DNA and other sorts of biological evidence that support why agriculture began in the Fertile Crescent. Those who began the study of this undeniable fact have used einkorn domestication to explain to us way this may be so. The author calls this information the beginnings of culture, agriculture, and cities. The entire article is written with the interests of the author himself and other scientists who gather information to predict the beginnings of agriculture. It addresses various factors that increase the variety of details and leads us to questions not asked directly. The article also suggests that cycles of harvesting and reseeding have changed in development, affecting the previous studies and finding that led us to believe agriculture did begin the Fertile Crescent. However, the article fails to develop concrete evidence explaining why