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Neolithic
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image:Néolithique 0001.jpg thumb|right|260px|An array of Neolithic artefacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools Image:Jfb_skara_brae.jpg thumb|right|280px|Excavated dwellings at Skara Brae Scotland. Europes most complete Neolithic village.
Image:SkaraBraeJM.jpg Scotland.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|200px|Skara Brae [[Scotland. Evidence of home furnishings i.e. shelves. In Europes most complete Neolithic village.html" title="Meaning of right|200px|Skara Brae [[Scotland">thumb|right|200px|Skara Brae [[Scotland. Evidence of home furnishings i.e. shelves. In Europes most complete Neolithic village">right|200px|Skara Brae [[Scotland">thumb|right|200px|Skara Brae [[Scotland. Evidence of home furnishings i.e. shelves. In Europes most complete Neolithic village
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 name was invented by
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury Sir John Lubbock in
1865 as a refinement of the
three-age system. The term is more commonly used in the
Old World and its application to cultures in the
Americas and
Oceania is problematic. It follows the terminal
Pleistocene ''
Epipalaeolithic'' and early
Holocene ''
Mesolithic'' periods, beginning with the start of
farming and ending when
metal tools became widespread in the Copper Age (
chalcolithic),
Bronze Age or
Iron Age, depending on geographical region. The term "Neolithic" thus does not refer to a specific chronological period but a suite of behavioural and cultural characteristics including the use of (both wild and domestic)
agriculture crops and the use of
domestication 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.
Origins and regional development
In
Southwest Asia (i.e., the
Middle East), cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing soon after the
10th millennium BC 10th millennium BCE. 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 BCE.
Neolithic sites and traditions in
South Asia include
Mehrgarh in the
Balochistan (region) Balochistan region from ca. 7000 BCE, and
Lahuradewa from ca. 6200 BCE in the
Ganges valley of the
Indian subcontinent. Earlier-dated finds (ca. 8000 BCE) of
charcoal in some Lahuradewa sites provide indications of
slash and burn cultivation techniques present in the area{{fact}}. Further to the west but still within the Ganges valley some studies of deposits at sites such as
Sanai Tal lake have reported
cereal pollens dated to ca. 13000 BCE{{fact}}, indicating that this region may have exhibited some of the earliest-known Neolithic traits (National Seminar on the Archaeology of the Ganga Plain, December 2004, Lucknow, India).
image:European Middle Neolithic.gif Neolithic Europe.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|360px|Map showing distribution of some of the main culture complexes in [[Neolithic Europe, ca.4500 BCE.html" title="Meaning of right|360px|Map showing distribution of some of the main culture complexes in [[Neolithic Europe">thumb|right|360px|Map showing distribution of some of the main culture complexes in [[Neolithic Europe, ca.4500 BCE">right|360px|Map showing distribution of some of the main culture complexes in [[Neolithic Europe">thumb|right|360px|Map showing distribution of some of the main culture complexes in [[Neolithic Europe, ca.4500 BCE
In southeast
Europe cultivational societies first appear by ca. 7000 BCE{{fact}}, and in
Central Europe by ca. 5500 BCE. Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are included the
StarÄ?evo-Körös (Cris),
Linearbandkeramic, and
VinÄ?a culture VinÄ?a). Through a combination of
cultural diffusion and
human migration migration of peoples, the Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BCE.
In Mesoamerica a similar set of events (i.e., crop domestication and sedentary lifestyles) occurred at about 4500 BCE, although here the term 'Formative' is used instead of 'Neolithic'.
Early Neolithic farming is limited to a narrow range of crops (both wild and domestic) and the keeping of
sheep and
goats, but by about 7000 BCE it included the
domestication of
cows and
pigs, the establishment of permanently or semi-permanently inhabited settlements and the use of pottery. Not all of the cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic (i.e., pottery, permanent villages, and the farming of domestic crops and animals) appear in the same order -- e.g. the earliest farming societies in the Near East do 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, India 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.
Social organization
image:Néolithique 0008.jpg thumb|right|280px|Anthropomorphic Neolithic figurine
There is little
scientific evidence evidence for developed
hierarchy hierarchies in the Neolithic, which is a cultural phenomenon more closely associated with the
Bronze Age. Families and households were still largely economically independent. Excavations in
Central Europe have also revealed that early Neolithic
Linear Ceramic cultures were building large arrangements of
circular ditches between
4800 BCE and
4600 BCE. 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 settlement at
Linearbandkeramic 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 (e.g., a '
big man', or proto-
chief) such as a lineage group head. These sociopolitical entities later developed into the
chiefdoms of the European
Bronze Age Early Bronze Age. The
Iroquois,
Pueblo people,
Maya civilization and the
MÄ?ori are 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 those areas where crop
farming and cultivation were first developed, then gradually improved. In these areas, the previous reliance upon a more
nomadic
hunter-gatherer list of subsistence techniques subsistence technique 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 labour in tending crop fields required more localised dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to
towns, and later
city 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 early onset of agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the ''
Neolithic Revolution'', a term first
neologism coined by the Australian archaeologist
Vere Gordon Childe.
One potential benefit of the increasing sophistication and development 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.
However, it should be noted that early farmers were also adversely affected in times of crop failures, such as may be caused by
drought or
pest control 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 a sometimes dramatic extent which otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by former hunter-gatherer communities. Nevertheless, despite what must have been periodic setbacks in general agrarian communities 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 (nutrition) diet. Whereas hunter-gatherer communities typically have diets with a larger proportion of
animal protein, those farmers whose opportunities and motivation for hunting had lessened might have their
food intake derived in large part just from the proceeds of their
plant cultivation. 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.
The
domestication of animals, either as
working animal or as a food source (
livestock), was another innovation which altered the societal characteristics of those Neolithic communities which adopted it. Animal by-product of
manure dung could be used as a
fertilizer, as
fuel or even as a
building material. Apart from providing a ready source of protein and
dairy-based products, livestock animals could also be used for barter and trade. For those communities where
animal husbandry pastoralism of
grazing grazing animals was developed, this often implied a more nomadic existence than is the case for purely crop-based farming, as the animals were herded or migrated to seasonal
pastures (a practice known as
transhumance).
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 tool 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,
Neolithic long house 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 camp 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 very small exceptions (a few copper
hatchet hatchets and
spear heads in the
Great Lakes (North America) Great Lakes region), the peoples of the
Americas and the
Pacific remained at the Neolithic level of
technology up until the time of European contact.
Neolithic
List of archaeological sites settlements include:
:
Jericho in the
Levant, Neolithic from around 8350 BCE, arising from the earlier
Epipaleolithic Natufian culture.
:
Çatalhöyük in
Turkey, 7500 BCE
:
Mehrgarh in
Pakistan, 7000 BCE
:
Lahuradewa in
India, 6200 BCE
:
Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ca. 9000 BCE.
:
Nevali Cori in Turkey, ca. 8000 BCE.
:
Knap of Howar and
Skara Brae, the
Orkney Islands,
Prehistoric Scotland Scotland, from 3500 BCE.
:around 2000 settlements of
Trypillian culture,
5400 BCE --
2800 BCE
:
Franchthi Cave in
Greece, epipalaeolithic (ca. 10,000 BC) settlement, reoccupied between 7500-6000 BCE
:
Dispilio in
Greece, ca. 7500 BCE
:
Cnossus in
Greece, ca. 7000 BC
The world's oldest known engineered
roadway, the
Sweet Track in
England, also dates from this time.
References
* Bellwood, Peter. (2004). ''First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies.'' Blackwell Publishers. ISBN: 0631205667
See also
*
Neolithic Europe
*
Neolithic Revolution
*
Neolithic religion
*
Ötzi the Iceman
Category:Neolithic *
Category:Holocene
Category:Stone Age
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