Q-Eng

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やさしい英語によるごく簡単な文明史。 分かりやすい説明で専門語は全くない。
社会に関連した日常語が多く、覚えるのによい。

易　４分　135wpm　　　　　　 　　　　

字幕 ： 開始後 で字幕On/Off､ で言語選択。文字の色やサイズﾞはｵﾌﾟｼｮﾝから｡
.　　　　 動画を見るとき、 でフルスクリーンに拡大すると見やすい。

★下記英文は ポップアップ辞書 が使えます｡
　　トランスクリプト（テキスト）のリンクはない。

We talk about inventions（発明） and innovation（革新） as though the best things out there are the Internet, iPads, or smart phones. Or perhaps more simply, trains, planes, and automobiles. Which one is most important, the best, or the greatest? Which one has had the most impact on society?

Today the debate would probably be in favor of computer technology, but is it? Well, some would say, "Nope, not really, it's farming." Where would we be if we didn't have it? Give up? We would still be hunting and gathering with little time to invent anything, let alone the Internet.

That's right, farming is the seed of civilization（文明）. Not quite literally, but without early man's discovery of using seeds to grow grain, we wouldn't have much of anything we have today. Growing your own food changed everything. Sure, hunting and gathering worked just fine for tens of thousands of years（何万年）, but you couldn't do much else
- no time（時間がなかった）.

But when hunters and gatherers started planting seeds, they began to farm. With farming came animals, and with animals came settling down and staying in one location. So, how does this have anything to do with invention and innovation? Everything. Anyone who's ever farmed, even if it's planting a half dozen tomato plants in your backyard, knows that you usually harvest way more than you could possibly eat, a surplus（余剰）.
　surplus （黒字）、deficit （赤字）は必ず覚えておくべき単語

Farming yielded plenty of food, with enough to store, trade, and eat. In other words, not everyone needed to be farmers. Therefore, this allowed other people, non-farmers, to do other things such as make tools, craft pottery, and build homes. Farming and food surpluses led to the division of labor. This is still thousands of years ago, so life wasn't easy. But with so many people contributing to the community, small villages began to develop.

As the population of villages expanded, so did the needs of the people. Things got complicated. But, civilization is just that - advanced, complex societies. And without farming, they would not exist. Villages increased in size, eventually becoming the first cities. Cities are just one of the basic features of a civilization, the others include central government, system of writing（文字体系）, organized religion, art and architecture, urban planning（都市計画） of roads, bridges, and public works（公共事業）, social classes（社会階級）, and different jobs.

Developing expertise（専門技術）in various types of occupations（職業） allowed for innovative ways of doing things, producing new products, or making advancements in technology. As civilizations became more complex, new ways of doing things were needed. Some were out of necessity. Others because people had ideas. The sharing of ideas and technology led to the growth of things we readily use today, like the Internet. So without farming, we'd still be hunting and gathering. No video, no computers, and certainly no world wide web.
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