5.2 - Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods / 5.3 - Agricultural Origins and Diffusions

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Topic 5.2 - Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods

Overview - Settlement patterns refer to how people organize and distribute their communities on the landscape, such as clustered (close together), dispersed (spread out), or linear (along a line like a road or river). Survey methods are ways to divide and measure land, such as the grid-like township and range system, the metes and bounds system using natural features, or the long-lot system along rivers or roads. These patterns and methods show how humans use and manage space.

Suggested Skill - Compare patterns and trends in visual sources to draw conclusions.

Enduring Understanding - Availability of resources and cultural practices influence agricultural practices and land-use patterns.

Learning Objective - Identify different rural settlement patterns and methods of surveying rural settlements.

Essential Knowledge

• Specific agricultural practices shape different rural land-use patterns.

• Rural settlement patterns are classified as clustered, dispersed, or linear.

• Rural survey methods include metes and bounds, township and range, and long lot.

Topic 5.3 - Agricultural Origins and Diffusions

Overview - Agriculture began in early hearths of domestication, such as the Fertile Crescent, Indus River Valley, Southeast Asia, and Central America, where people first cultivated plants and raised animals. Over time, farming practices, crops, and livestock spread to new regions through diffusion. Key examples include the Columbian Exchange, which brought plants, animals, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World, and agricultural revolutions, which advanced farming techniques. These processes shaped global food systems and transformed societies.

Suggested Skill - Explain spatial relationships in a specified context or region of the world, using geographic concepts, processes, models, or theories.

Enduring Understanding - Agriculture has changed over time because of cultural diffusion and advances in technology.

Learning Objective

• Identify major centers of domestication of plants and animals.

• Explain how plants and animals diffused globally.

Essential Knowledge

• Early hearths of domestication of plants and animals arose in the Fertile Crescent and several other regions of the world, including the Indus River Valley, Southeast Asia, and Central America.

• Patterns of diffusion, such as the Columbian Exchange and the agricultural revolutions, resulted in the global spread of various plants and animals.