Mankind turned from a roaming hunter-gatherer society to permanent settlements with the development of farming. Farming enabled larger concentrations of people to be established in villages that ultimately grew into towns and cities. Food was easier to gather via farming, affording more free time for individuals to become specialists in crafts, such as pottery, metal smelting, weaving and arts. As farming developed, so too did the specialisation of crops; this included growing specific medical herbs and plants to use in remedies to treat ill health. Individuals with herbal knowledge handed remedies down by word of mouth, and later by the written word. This was the foundation of what we call medicine today.