Implements and Machines
Sickle
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The curved harvesting blade, older than agriculture itself: flint-bladed sickles from the Natufian culture predate domesticated grain, cutting wild stands of wheat and barley. For ten thousand years after, until the reaper, virtually every grain harvest on Earth ended in a hand holding one, and it remains the harvest tool of much of the world's smallholder farming.
Facts
Disputed
Introduced YearFlint sickle blades with cereal-harvesting gloss are widely attested in the Natufian culture by circa 10000 BCE, matching this entity's own origin-note; composite harvesting tools existed earlier without attestation as a farming implement proper (use-wear evidence at Ohalo II is dated far earlier, on wild rather than domesticated cereals), and the precise point at which the sickle became an agricultural rather than a foraging tool remains debated among archaeologists. OriginFlint sickles attested in the Natufian culture circa 10000 BC, before crop domestication 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Had replaced the sickle for reaping crops by the 16th century
Sources
1. Sickle (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationEarly history sectionQuote, Early history section
Flints from these sickles have been discovered near Mt. Carmel, which suggest the harvesting of grains from the area about 10,000 years ago.
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