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The Neolithic, or "New" Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic periods, beginning with the rise of farming, which produced the "Neolithic Revolution" and ending when metal tools became widespread in the Copper Age (chalcolithic) or Bronze Age or developing directly into the Iron Age, depending on geographical region.

Neolithic culture appeared in the Levant (Jericho, modern-day West Bank) about 8500 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered wild cereal use, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufians can thus be called "proto-Neolithic" (11,000–8500 BC). As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas forced people to develop farming. By 8500–8000 BC farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Anatolia, North Africa and North Mesopotamia.

Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of crops, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt and the keeping of sheep and goats. By about 7000 BC it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery. Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery, and, in Britain, it remains unclear to what extent plants were domesticated in the earliest Neolithic, or even whether permanently settled communities existed. In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own regionally-distinctive Neolithic cultures which arose completely independent of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies used pottery in the Mesolithic for example.

Periods

In Southwest Asia (i.e., the Middle East), cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing soon after the 10th millennium BC. Early development occurred in the Levant (e.g., Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are also attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by ca. 8000 BC.

Neolithic 1 — Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)

The Neolithic 1 (PPNA) began in the Levant (Jericho, Palestine & Jbeil (Byblos), Lebanon) around 8500 to 8000 BC. The actual date is not established with certainty due to different results in carbon dating by the British Museum and Philiadelphia laboratories.

The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming. In the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour. By the Neolithic 1 true farming began, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated (animal husbandry and animal breeding).

Settlements became more permanent with circular houses, much like those of the Natufians, with single rooms. However, these houses were for the first time made of mudbricks. The husband had one house, while each of his wives lived with their children in surrounding houses. The settlement had a surrounding stone wall and perhaps a stone tower (like Jericho). The wall served as protection from nearby groups, as protection from floods, or to keep animals penned. There are some enclosures that suggest grain storage.

Neolithic 2 — Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB)

The Neolithic 2 (PPNB) began around 7500 to 7000 BC in the Levant (Jericho, Palestine). Like the PPNA dates there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above.

Settlements have rectangular mudbrick houses where the family lived together in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult where people preserved skulls from the dead which were plastered with mud to make facial features. The dead skull may have been asked for advice and blessings. The rest of the corpse may have been left outside the settlement to decay until only the bones were left, then the bones were buried inside the settlement underneath the floor or between houses.

Neolithic 3 — Pottery Neolithic (PN)

The Neolithic 3 (PN) began around 6000 to 5500 BC in the Fertile Crescent. By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia).

The Chalcolithic period began about 4500 BC, then the Bronze Age began about 3500 BC, replacing the Neolithic cultures.

In the Fertile Crescent

The Levant, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, Northern Mesopotamia. Halafian culture (5500 BC) more...

Southern Mesopotamia

Alluvial plains (Sumer/Elam). Little rainfall, makes irrigation systems necessary. Ubaid culture from 5500... more.

Egypt

In Egypt pre-dynastic farming communities emerged after 8000 BC, as farming was introduced from the Levant. Two cultures emerged; one in the Upper Nile Region and one in the Lower Nile Region.

Europe

In southeast Europe agrarian societies first appeared by ca. 7000 BC, and in Central Europe by ca. 5500 BC. Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are included the Starčevo-Körös (Cris), Linearbandkeramic, and Vinča. Through a combination of cultural diffusion and migration of peoples, the Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BC.

South and East Asia

The oldest neolithic site in South Asia is Mehrgarh in the Balochistan, Pakistan from 7000 BC). In East Asia the earliest sites include Pengtoushan culture around 7500 BC to 6100 BC, Peiligang culture around 7000 BC to 5000 BC.

America

In Mesoamerica a similar set of events (i.e., crop domestication and sedentary lifestyles) occurred for sure around 4500 BC, but possibly as early as 11,000–10,000 BC, although here the term Pre-Classic (or Formative) is used instead of mid-late Neolithic, Archaic Era for the Early Neolithic, and Paleo-Indian for the preceding period.

Social organization

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There is little scientific evidence for developed hierarchies in the Neolithic; hierarchies are more closely associated with the later Bronze Age. Families and households were still largely economically independent. Excavations in Central Europe have, however, revealed that early Neolithic Linear Ceramic cultures ("Linearbandkeramik") were building large arrangements of circular ditches between 4800 BC and 4600 BC. These structures (and their later Neolithic equivalents such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds, and henges) required considerable time and labour to construct, which suggests that some influential individuals were able to organise and direct human labour. There is also good evidence for fortified settlements at Linearbandkeramik sites along the Rhine, as well as evidence for inter-group conflict from Neolithic sites in Britain. Control of labour and inter-group conflict is characteristic of corporate-level or 'tribal' groups, headed by a charismatic individual, whether a 'big man', or proto-chief or a matriarch, functioning as a lineage-group head. These sociopolitical entities later developed into the chiefdoms of the European Early Bronze Age. In the New world, the Iroquois, Pueblo people, Maya civilization and in Oceania the Māori are all examples of stone-tool-dependent cultures with complex social and political systems.

Farming

A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in areas where crop farming and cultivation were first developed: the previous reliance upon an essentially nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique or pastoral transhumance was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the yield produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labor in tending crop fields required more localized dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to towns, and later cities and states whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands.

The profound differences in human interactions and subsistence methods associated with the onset of early agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the Neolithic Revolution, a term first coined by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.

One potential benefit of the development and increasing sophistication of farming technology was an ability (if conditions allowed) to produce a crop yield which would be surplus to the immediate needs of the community. When such surpluses were produced they could be preserved and sequestered for later use during times of seasonal shortfalls, traded with other communities (giving rise to a nascent non-subsistence economy), and in general allowed larger populations to be sustained. The storage site might need to be defended from marauders, increasing the cultural investment in a particular site.

However, it should be noted that early farmers were also adversely affected in times of famine, such as may be caused by drought or pestilence. In instances where agriculture had become the predominant way of life the sensitivity to these shortages could be particularly acute, affecting agrarian populations to an extent which otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by prior hunter-gatherer communities. Nevertheless, despite what must have been periodic setbacks, agrarian communities generally proved successful, and their growth and the expansion of territory under cultivation continued.

Another significant change undergone by many of these newly-agrarian communities was one of diet. Pre-agrarian diets varied by region, season, available local plant and animal resources and degree of pastoralism and hunting. Post-agrarian diet was restricted to a limited package of successfully cultivated cereal grains, plants and to variable extents domesticable animals and animal products. Supplementation of diet by hunting and gathering was to variable degrees precluded by increase of population above the carrying capacity of the land and high sedentary local population concentration. In some cultures there would have been a significant shift toward increased starch and plant protein. The relative nutritional benefits and disadvantages of these dietary changes, and their overall impact on early societal development is still the subject of some debate.

In addition, increased population density, decreased population mobility, increased continuous proximity to domesticated animals, and continuous occupation of comparatively population-dense sites would have altered patterns of disease and sanitary needs.

Technology

Neolithic peoples were skilled farmers, manufacturing a range of tools necessary for the tending, harvesting, and processing of crops (such as sickle blades and grinding stones) and food production (e.g. pottery, bone implements). They were also skilled manufacturers of a range of other types of stone tools and ornaments, including projectile points, beads, and statuettes. Neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia were also accomplished builders, utilising mud-brick to construct houses and villages. At Çatalhöyük, houses were plastered and painted with elaborate scenes of humans and animals. In Europe, long houses built from wattle and daub were constructed. Elaborate tombs for the dead were also built. These tombs are particularly numerous in Ireland, where there are many thousand still in existence. Neolithic people in the British Isles built long barrows and chamber tombs for their dead and causewayed camps, henges, flint mines and cursus monuments. It was also important to figure out ways of preserving food for future months, such as fashioning relatively airtight containers, and using substances like salt as preservatives.

With limited exceptions (a few copper hatchets and spear heads in the Great Lakes region), the peoples of the Americas and the Pacific retained the Neolithic level of tool technology up until the time of European contact. There are numerous examples(Inca, Maya, Aztec, Iroquois, Mississippian, Maori), however, of development of complex socio-political organization, building technology, scientific knowledge and linguistic culture in these regions that parallel post-neolithic developments in Africa and Eurasia.

Neolithic settlements include:

Spirit Cave in Thailand

Franchthi Cave in Greece, epipalaeolithic (ca. 10,000 BC) settlement, reoccupied between 7500–6000 BC

Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ca. 9000 BC

Gobustan in Azerbaijan, ca. 8000-5000 BC

Jericho in the Levant, Neolithic from around 8350 BC, arising from the earlier Epipaleolithic Natufian culture

Nevali Cori in Turkey, ca. 8000 BC

Çatalhöyük in Turkey, 7500 BC

Pengtoushan culture in China, 7500–6100 BC

'Ain Ghazal in Jordan, 7250–5000 BC

Sesklo in Greece, 6850 BC (with a +/- 660 year margin of error)

Dispilio in Greece, ca. 5500 BC

Jiahu in China, 7000 to 5800 BC

Mehrgarh in Pakistan, 7000 BC

Knossus on Crete, ca. 7000 BC

Lahuradewa in India, 6200 BC

Porodin in Republic of Macedonia, 6500 BC

Vrshnik (Anzabegovo) in Republic of Macedonia, 6500 BC

Hemudu culture in China, 5000–4500 BC, large scale rice plantation

around 2000 settlements of Trypillian culture, 5400 BC — 2800 BC

Knap of Howar and Skara Brae, Orkney, Scotland, from 3500 BC

Brú na Bóinne in Ireland, ca. 3500 BC

Lough Gur in Ireland from around 3000 BC

The world's oldest known engineered roadway, the Sweet Track in England, also dates from this time.

Footnotes

1. The name was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. The term is more commonly used in the Old World, as its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania that did not fully develop metal-working technology raises problems. The term "Neolithic" thus does not refer to a specific chronological period, but rather to a suite of behavioural and cultural characteristics including the use of (both wild and domestic) crops and the use of domesticated animals. Some archaeologists have long advocated replacing "Neolithic" with a more descriptive term, such as Early Village Communities, although this has not gained wide acceptance.
2. The potter's wheel was a later refinement that revolutionized the pottery industry.

Bibliography

• Bellwood, Peter. (2004). First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20566-7

See also

• European Megalithic Culture
• Neolithic Europe
• Neolithic Revolution
• Neolithic religion
• Ötzi the Iceman
• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

External links

• Neolithic Stone Tools and Artifacts — World Museum of Man
• Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons
• Vincha Neolithic Script

Internal links:

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• Neolithic
• Holocene
• Stone Age