Which type features the plow and larger surplus, leading to social changes such as stratification and urban development?

• A. Horticultural Societies
• B. Pastoral Societies
• C. Agrarian Societies
• D. Hunting and Gathering

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is that using the plow increases agricultural productivity, creating a larger surplus. When more food is produced than the community immediately needs, not everyone must farm to survive. This allows people to specialize—becoming artisans, traders, priests, administrators, and other roles. That division of labor leads to social stratification, where wealth, control, and status are distributed unevenly.

With a dependable surplus, people can settle in larger, more permanent communities and cities form around areas of production and exchange. Centralized authority and institutions (governance, religion, markets) develop to manage resources, coordinate large-scale farming, and organize trade. This urban development and complex social hierarchy are hallmarks of agrarian societies.

In contrast, subsistence systems that don’t rely on a plow and large surplus—like horticultural societies with simple tools and shifting plots, pastoral societies focused on mobile herding, or hunting and gathering groups with little surplus—tend to be more egalitarian and less urbanized, with smaller, nomadic or semi-permanent settlements and limited social stratification.