In her article entitled Women and the Agricultural Revolution, Elise Boulding argues that women initiated the Agricultural Revolution. According to Boulding, the Agricultural Revolution occurred in two stages, horticulture and agricultural proper. Boulding defines horticulture as farming carried out by hand tools that produce enough food for subsistence only. She defines agricultural proper as farming that produces surpluses of food by using plows and other machinery. The result of what women did throughout these two stages of the Agricultural Revolution was crucial because it led to the establishment of settlements and changed the roles of people and their relationships with each other. Boulding indicates that everything women did throughout this time period had an impact on the future. .
Through cause and effect, Boulding shows how women discovered the value of a simple grain of einkorn and how that triggered a series of events that changed the world forever. According to the article, women had discovered the value of einkorn as long ago as the year 20,000 B.C. The women of the nomadic herds of this time would gather these grains of einkorn while at their various campsites. Due to the construction of the einkorn seed, it was easily able to plant itself. When the women would gather and bring in the plant, grains would drop and the following year when the nomadic herds would return to their campsite, there would be a stand of grain waiting for them. The women caught on to this and began making a point to scatter extra grain so that there would be einkorn waiting for them when they returned to camp. This was the beginning of planting. Eventually the amount of einkorn that grew would last the nomadic herds for the year, and there would be no need for them to leave. This was the establishment of settlements. .
Boulding explains that the earliest settlements used horticulture farming, a style she argues was completely dominated by women.
