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So we've already talked about Ards, you know they're the primitive [Man pulling an ard across a field]

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plows that scratched at the surface of the dirt. But today we're taking digging

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a little deeper, yeah digging pun mildly intended. By about [Man pushing a motorized plow]

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3000 BCE, Ards and other primitive plows were in use everywhere from Egypt to

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China to southern Europe. But over the next couple thousand years there were

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some major improvements made to Ards which officially made them moldboard [Ard evolves into more modern plows]

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plows, which have nothing to do with mold... Man, time to demote whoever was in charge of

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naming these things. All right so the moldboard was a big triangular wedge of

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wood added to the front of the plow it was set in an angle so that the tip [Man starts pulling a moldboard plow]

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would dig into the dirt and the dirt would slide up the moldboard and just

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roll right on over, that way more dirt nutrients were brought to the surface

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plus the plow was covering a much wider strip of the field. But adding a mold [Crops grow on the field]

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board made plows heavier, that was great for the whole plowing into hard dirt

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baked by the Sun thing, but it was less great for the whole human muscle power

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has to drag it along the ground situation. Well as plows got heavier and [Man looks tired dragging the moldboard plow]

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more advanced more cultures hooked their domesticated critters up to em. Well that

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was a big leap in energy efficiency, a weak ox can do more than well pretty

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much any man well maybe not this man, but most men. Okay so in 6000 BCE and we've [Man in gym shorts plowing faster than the ox]

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got bigger and better plows and some nice strong critters to pull em so what

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do we care. Well we care because those things started the urban revolution. Well [Ox pulls a trailer with a city on the back]

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the urban revolution, just like the agricultural revolution wasn't really

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much of a revolution. It was a slow scattered and piecemeal kind of thing. [3 people stood with pitchforks]

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Still there were some big changes, for one there was more food some people

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estimate that there was a 50 percent jump in food surplus around this time. [Cart full of produce]

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Well more efficient plows also meant that larger fields could be planted, also

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more laborers were needed to plant irrigate and harvest. [Lots of people rush to the farm]

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Well this created a peasant class of laborers working under a single King

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Pharaoh chief or other big dude in charge and the village organization [Man wearing a crown]

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system started to evolve into bigger cities and even Kingdoms. Well divisional

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labour also became a thing, if we have a food surplus that means some people [Man on the floor with a plow on top of him]

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don't have to be growing food, well they can be building houses

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or weaving or collecting taxes or making crazy sculptures. Well it led to different

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people doing different jobs and a kind of cultural explosion in the good way. [Man making a sculpture]

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People had more time to like, you know work on their art man, groovy...

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And finally at long last the idea of the nagging mother was born. [Boy looks unhappy as mother complains]

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