Which Neolithic development most directly transformed food production?

Neolithic communities increasingly cultivated plants, managed animals and established more enduring settlements, although the timing varied regionally. The wheel later aided pottery production and transport, but treating both uses as one universal Neolithic invention imposes a simple chronology on diverse evidence. The source tradition places the person, work and event in a defined historical setting. Cultivation and animal herding fits that evidence because it matches the specific chronology, agency and function contained in the question. A comparison with the alternatives is useful: Use of steam engines, Iron rail transport and Oceanic compass navigation are genuine historical terms or names, but each belongs to a different office, patron, text, region or sequence. The common error is to select the most familiar option without checking whether it performs the role described in the stem. Reading the question as a relationship among person, period, place and institutional purpose prevents that mistake. The compact memory link is therefore Cultivation and animal herding together with the factual context above, not the isolated option letter.