Illustration of neolithic agriculture showing men and women harvesting grain crops and building houses in a village. The change from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to more sedentary communities of farmers (an agrarian lifestyle) is thought to have taken place during the Neolithic period of the Stone Age, hence its name of the Neolithic Revolution. This occurred from around 12,000 years ago, first with the harvesting of wild cereal crops, and then with the crops being grown and selected to produce domesticated varieties such as wheat.