All this last section was about Europe. How about the rest of the world when the last glaciers were melting away? We simply don’t know much about this particular time in other parts of the world except in Europe, the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. People were certainly continuing to move into the New World by way of Siberia and the Bering Strait about this time. But for the greater part of Africa and Asia, we do not know exactly what was happening. Some day, we shall no doubt find out; today we are without clear information. REAL CHANGE AND PRELUDE IN THE NEAR EAST The appearance of the microliths and the developments made by the “Forest folk” of northwestern Europe also mark an end. They show us the terminal phase of the old food-collecting way of life. It grows increasingly clear that at about the same time that the Maglemosian and other “Forest folk” were adapting themselves to hunting, fishing, and collecting in new ways to fit the post-glacial environment, something completely new was being made ready in western Asia. Unfortunately, we do not have as much understanding of the climate and environment of the late Ice Age in western Asia as we have for most of Europe. Probably the weather was never so violent or life quite so rugged as it was in northern Europe. We know that the microliths made their appearance in western Asia at least by 10,000 B.C. and possibly earlier, marking the beginning of the terminal phase of food-collecting. Then, gradually, we begin to see the build-up towards the first _basic change_ in human life. This change amounted to a revolution just as important as the Industrial Revolution. In it, men first learned to domesticate plants and animals. They began _producing_ their food instead of simply gathering or collecting it. When their food-production became reasonably effective, people could and did settle down in village-farming communities. With the appearance of the little farming villages, a new way of life was actually under way. Professor Childe has good reason to speak of the “food-producing revolution,” for it was indeed a revolution. QUESTIONS ABOUT CAUSE We do not yet know _how_ and _why_ this great revolution took place. We are only just beginning to put the questions properly. I suspect the answers will concern some delicate and subtle interplay between man and nature. Clearly, both the level of culture and the natural condition of the environment must have been ready for the great change, before the change itself could come about.