Livestock, poultry and pigs were domesticated between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago in the Neolithic period, also referred to as the “Neolithic revolution”. This occurred simultaneously and quite spontaneously in different regions around the world and forever changed the history and fate of humankind. The most significant consequence of the domestication of animals was the emancipation of humankind, driven primarily by peoples’ need to secure food for times when hunting was poor.  People were "freed” from the labour of collecting food into doing other work, like building shelters, houses and later cities, developing the sciences, arts and philosophies and refining religions. Sedentary communities arose across the world – the most prominent examples include the Iranian highlands, Syria and Levant as established from tools, artefacts and artistic expressions in caves at Lascaux and Altamira. This represents the first important shift, namely that from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalists.