For most archaelogists, however, humans' 'greatest idea' is a far more down-to-earth practical notion. For them, the domestication of plants and animals - the invention of agriculture - was easily the greatest idea because it produced what was ba fyar the most profound transformation in the way that humans have lived.

Ideas: a history of thought and invention /Peter Watson, 1st ed. p. 53.

One or more of three criteria are generally taken as evidence of domestication: a sudden increase in the proportion of a species within the sequence of one site; a change in size - most wild species are larger than their domestic relatives, because humans found it easier to control smaller animals; and a change in population structure - in a domestic herd or flock, the age and sex structure is manipulated by its owners to maximise outputs, usually by the conservation of females and the selection of sub-adult males.Ibid, p. 55
So far as animal domesication is concerned, it first took place in the hilly/mountainous region..., the most likely reason for this being that, in a situation whre most wild species wer not naturally domesticable, hilly regions ( with a variety of altitudes and therefore of vegetation) would have produced the greatest range of animal species, and the greatest variation of individuals within species. Such an environment would have been the most likely to have produced smaller types, more amenable to control. Ibid. p. 56

around 9,500BC, according to Cauvin, we see dawning in the Levant 'in a still unchanged economic context of hunting and gathering', the development of two dominat symbolic figures, the Woman and the Bull. The Woman is the supreme figure, he says, often shown as giving birth to a Bull.
Cauvin sees in this the true origin of religion. His main point is that this is the first time humans have been represented as gods, that the femalie and male principle are both represented, and that this marked achange in mentality before the domestication of plants and animals took place. It is easier to see why the female should be chosen rather than the male. The female form is a symbol of fertility. At a time when child mortality was high, true fertility would have been highly prized. Such worship was designed to ensure the well-being of the tribe or family unit. Ibid. p 60

Cauvin's central point... is that.. the development of domestication was not a sudden event owing to penury, or some other economic threat. Instead, sedentism long preceded domestication, houses had already changed from the primitive round structures, half underground, to rectangular buildings above ground, and that bricks and symbolic artefacts were already being produced. From this, he says, we may infer that early man, roughly 12,000-10,000 years ago, underwent a profound psychological change, essitially a religious revolution, and that this precided domestication of animals and plants. Ibid. p 60-61.

...the all-important innovation in ideas is not so much the domestication of plants and animals, but the cultivation of wild species of cereals that grew in abundance in the Levant and allowed sedentism to occur. It was sedentism which allowed the interval between births to be reduced, boosting population, as a result of which villages grew, social organisation became more complicated and, perhaps, a new concept of religion was invented, which in some ways reflected the village situation, where leaders and subordinates would have emerged. Once these changes were set in train, domesticated plants at least would have developed almost unconsciosly as people 'selected' wild cereals which were amenable to this new lifestyle. Ibid. p. 61
There was now more need for starage space, for larger families and, possibly, for defence ( with sedentism the number of material possessions grows and there's more to envy/steal). p. 62.

...the fertility of women must have been the greatest mystery and greatest miracle known to mankind, before the male function was discovered... Ibid. p.65

...another reason why stones and the landscape should become sacred, and it had nothing to do with astronomy. At some point after 4000 bc, early humans experienced the apparently magical transformation by which solid rock, when treated in a certain way through heat, can produce molten metal, sometimes of a very different colour.
Pottery was the first of five new substances - the culture of fire - which laid the basis for what would later be called civilisation. The other four were metals, glass, terra-cotta and cement. [use] of pyrotechnological substances underline the continuing importance of fire in antiquity, and show how sophisticated early humans became in their understanding, and manipulation, of heat and flame. Ibid, 67