Neolithic
In 1865, the British archaeologist John Lubbock coined the term 'Neolithic' to describe a new phase of human history. This period marked the final division of the Stone Age across Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe, and Africa from roughly 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC. A wide-ranging set of developments known as the Neolithic Revolution appeared independently in several parts of the world. These changes included the introduction of farming, the domestication of animals, and a shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of permanent settlement. The transition began about 12,000 years ago when farming first emerged in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia. Later, similar shifts occurred in other regions like China, Scandinavia, and Ancient Egypt. In Egypt, this era lasted until the Protodynastic period around 3150 BC. By contrast, the Neolithic in China persisted until circa 2000 BC with the rise of the pre-Shang Erlitou culture.
The story begins in the Levant around 10,200 BC when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming within the Natufian culture. Climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas event forced people to develop farming techniques after becoming dependent on wild cereals for their diet. The founder crops of the Fertile Crescent were wheat, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax. Among the other major crops to be domesticated were rice and millet. Early Neolithic age farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs. By about 8000 BC, it included domesticated sheep and goats, cattle and pigs. An array of Neolithic artifacts including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools has been found at sites like Göbekli Tepe. This site in southeastern Turkey dates to around 9500 BC and may be regarded as the beginning of the period. It was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes as shown by the absence of permanent housing nearby.
Not all cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order or time. In Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to regionally distinctive cultures that arose completely independently of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture. The neolithization of Northwestern Africa was initiated by Iberian, Levantine, and perhaps Sicilian migrants around 5500, 5300 BC. During the Middle Neolithic period, an influx of ancestry from the Levant appeared in Northwestern Africa coinciding with the arrival of pastoralism. In southeast Europe, agrarian societies first appeared in the 7th millennium BC attested by one of the earliest farming sites of Europe discovered in Vashtëmi, southeastern Albania and dating back to 6500 BC. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with the migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago. This process was not just a cultural exchange but involved actual movement of people.
The identifying characteristic of Neolithic technology is the use of polished or ground stone tools in contrast to the flaked stone tools used during the Paleolithic era. Neolithic people were skilled farmers manufacturing a range of tools necessary for tending, harvesting and processing crops such as sickle blades and grinding stones. They were also skilled manufacturers of other types of stone tools including projectile points, beads, and statuettes. But what allowed forest clearance on a large scale was the polished stone axe above all other tools. Together with the adze, fashioning wood for shelter, structures and canoes enabled them to exploit the newly developed farmland. The growth of agriculture made permanent houses far more common. At Çatalhöyük 9,000 years ago doorways were made on the roof with ladders positioned both on the inside and outside of the houses. Stilt-house settlements were common in the Alpine and Pianura Padana region. Remains have been found in the Ljubljana Marsh in Slovenia and at the Mondsee and Attersee lakes in Upper Austria. Neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia were also accomplished builders utilizing mud-brick to construct houses and villages.
Settlements became more permanent with circular houses much like those of the Natufians but these houses were for the first time made of mudbrick. A settlement of 3,000 inhabitants called 'Ain Ghazal was found in the outskirts of Amman Jordan considered to be one of the largest prehistoric settlements in the Near East. It was continuously inhabited from approximately 7250 BC to approximately 5000 BC. Settlements have rectangular mud-brick houses where the family lived together in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult where people preserved skulls of the dead which were plastered with mud to make facial features. The rest of the corpse could have been left outside the settlement to decay until only the bones were left then buried inside the settlement underneath the floor or between houses. In South Asia Mehrgarh remains one of the key sites because it has provided the earliest known undisputed evidence for farming and pastoral communities in the region. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built enormous settlements in Romania Moldova and Ukraine from 5300 to 2300 BC. The megalithic temple complexes of Ggantija on the Mediterranean island of Gozo and of Mnajdra are notable for their gigantic Neolithic structures.
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Common questions
Who coined the term Neolithic and when was it created?
The British archaeologist John Lubbock coined the term Neolithic in 1865 to describe a new phase of human history. This period marked the final division of the Stone Age across Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe, and Africa from roughly 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC.
When did farming first emerge during the Neolithic Revolution?
Farming first emerged about 12,000 years ago in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia. The transition began around 10,200 BC in the Levant within the Natufian culture before spreading to other regions like China, Scandinavia, and Ancient Egypt.
What are the founder crops of the Fertile Crescent associated with the Neolithic era?
The founder crops of the Fertile Crescent were wheat, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax. Other major crops domesticated during this period included rice and millet alongside early Neolithic age farming limited to plants such as einkorn wheat and spelt.
Where is the earliest known site of the Neolithic period located and when was it developed?
Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey dates to around 9500 BC and may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes as shown by the absence of permanent housing nearby.
How did social inequality change after the domestication of large animals around 8000 BC?
Domestication of large animals resulted in a dramatic increase in social inequality where possession of livestock allowed competition between households and inherited inequalities of wealth. Evidence suggests that some influential individuals organized human labor to construct large arrangements of circular ditches between 4800 and 4600 BC.