Firestarter
Indigenous peoples of the Australian continent with tens of thousands of years of cultural continuity.
Aboriginal Australians
The breeding of plants or animals to enhance desirable traits.
Artificial selection
Domesticated felines valued for rodent control and companionship; closely linked to early grain storage societies.
CATS!!!
A product derived from cacao, first cultivated in Mesoamerica and often used ritually or as currency.
Chocolate
Domesticated from wolves; first animals tamed by humans, used for hunting, herding, and companionship.
DOGS!!!
Human waste materials; accumulation of refuse is tied to permanent settlements and urban life.
Garbarge
A staple cereal domesticated in Mesoamerica from its ancestor, teosinte.
Maize
The cultivation of land and domestication of plants and animals for food.
Farming
Searching for and gathering wild food such as plants, fruits, and animals.
Foraging
A region in the Middle East where agriculture and the earliest civilizations first emerged.
Fertile Crescent
The exchange of goods, services, and ideas between people and regions.
Trade
A controlled burning technique used by Aboriginal Australians to manage ecosystems and encourage regrowth.
Firestick farming
A vital element in agriculture, necessary for plant growth and soil health.
Nitrogen
Animals considered pests, often drawn to human settlements and linked to disease.
Vermin
Also known as yam daisy; a native Australian root crop harvested by Aboriginal Australians.
Murnong
Symbolic figures from the Book of Revelation representing conquest, war, famine, and death.
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
In the book, It, which character says, "I am the eater of worlds, child."
Pennywise
The retention of juvenile traits into adulthood; observed in both human evolution and animal domestication.
Neoteny
A historical region of Central America home to advanced pre-Columbian civilizations and the site where maize was engineered.
Mesoamerica
Stephen King based his book, Cujo, on a dog that he once saw at someone's house. What breed of dog is Cujo?
Saint Bernard
A prehistoric people of the Levant (c. 15,000–11,500 years ago) who were early sedentary foragers and possibly proto-farmers.
Natufians
A wild grass native to Mesoamerica; the wild ancestor of maize.
Teosinte
Literally “maize field,” it is a traditional farming system from Mesoamerica featuring companion plants grown together at the same time.
Milpa
Volcanic glass valued for toolmaking and trade due to its sharpness and glossy finish.
Obsidian
The shift from hunting and gathering to farming and permanent settlements that began around 10,000 BCE.
The shift from hunting and gathering to farming and permanent settlements that began around 10,000 BCE.