A stalagmite from a cave in Kurdistan has provided unprecedented detail on local climatic conditions from 18,000 to 7,500 years ago, as Earth was leaving the last glacial period. Lying so close to the valleys where agriculture and civilization were born, the find offers great insight into the conditions that drove their rise. Moreover, the shifts the stalagmite reveals match those occurring in Greenland, showing the global influence on the place where it all began. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The question of why agriculture started when and where it did is one of the big mysteries of how we came to be. The fact that the first evidence for agriculture appeared in many unconnected places relatively soon after the end

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