Explore the mysteries of the Neolithic era and discover the remarkable advancements made by early civilizations in agriculture, technology, and art.The Neolithic is the period of Prehistory that lasted from 5000 BC to 3000 BC.It is a time of transcendental changes, and is the phase before the Metal Age .
What is the Neolithic
The term Neolithic was coined by John Lubbock in 1865 to refer to the prehistoric phase characterized by the polishing of stone, as opposed to the carving characteristic of the Paleolithic . However, it has subsequently been proven that this characteristic was only one more manifestation of a much deeper cultural change, which would generate new forms of relationship between human beings and the environment. Human communities will stop depending on gathering, hunting and fishing to survive. Neolithic cultures will learn to produce their food through agriculture and livestock and will preserve it in ceramic containers . This brought about radical changes.
Human communities will become sedentary, cities will allow the population to increase, private property appears, and with it the first laws, the economy becomes specialized and the division of labor, making trade necessary; and finally beliefs change. This radical change has been called the Neolithic Revolution, although it is not clear that it occurred so quickly as to be a revolution, it is a radical change with the previous world, it is the process of Neolithization.
Traditionally, two stages are established in the Neolithic process: the Preceramic Neolithic (or Early Neolithic ) and the Full Neolithic .
Theories of the Neolithic process
There are three fundamental theories that explain the process of Neolithization: that of climatic changes, that of population growth and that of cultural evolution.
According to the theory of climate change , sponsored by Gordon Childe , the end of the last ice age caused a progressive desertification, which significantly affected the Near East . The desiccation brought with it a scarcity of plants and animals, which encouraged people in favourable areas, oases , to start caring for plants and animals, thus discovering the techniques of agriculture and livestock. However, it does not seem that climate change was fast enough to force nomadic tribes to do so.
The theory of population increase , supported by Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery , states that natural population increase caused scarcity and the need to resort to the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals in order to feed the population. However, it does not explain why this sudden increase in population occurred, or whether it was due to greater availability of resources.
The theory of cultural evolution , supported by Robert J. Braidwood , maintains that the transformations in economic processes are a consequence of the evolution of the food methods of Paleolithic peoples, who, knowing perfectly the territory in which they lived, realized where the plants that served as food grew. In addition, they observed that if they took care of those places there were more; thus, over time, they would learn to cultivate the land. Cultivation of the land makes them sedentary and they will have the need to domesticate animals so as not to have to hunt them. This theory does not exclude the other two.
The process of domestication of plants and animals
The origin of the neolithic process is the domestication of plants and animals, the discovery of agriculture and livestock. It is not clear whether these two activities arose at the same time or whether one came first and then the other; nor which came first. However, it seems clear that the process did not arise in a single place from which it spread, but rather appeared in different places; that they could have been in contact, although this is not probable; and that they followed different models. Some human groups could have followed an agricultural neolithic process, others a livestock-based one and others a mixed one.
The discovery of agriculture would begin with wild cereals in the region of the Near East . In places where vegetation was destroyed, cereals appeared more easily , especially if these areas were close to human settlements and were fertilized with excrement. Due to their high yield, they were collected, but we can only talk about agriculture when part of what was collected was planted again to obtain a greater production. The most widespread cereals, due to their high productivity and because they are suitable for bread , were: wheat , spelt , barley and corn (a plant created in America ). The cultivation systems were those of slash and burn , to clear the cultivable areas of other competing plants. This technique makes itinerant agriculture .
The domestication of animals began with the knowledge derived from following herds for hunting. At first it was limited to a control of animal resources, protecting the fauna from other predators and selective hunting. Later, the animals were guarded, for which a certain number of them were hunted and kept in corrals. But it is only possible to speak of livestock farming when the animal is raised: controlling its reproduction and caring for it during the winter, for which it is necessary to establish how the needs of the herd are to be met.
Domestic animals have wild relatives, but domestication and artificial selection have made them distant relatives. Cattle , sheep , goats and pigs were the first animals domesticated for livestock farming. It seems that the first domestic animal was the dog , which accompanied man on hunting trips, even before livestock farming.
With a few exceptions, all societies, regardless of whether they were first farmers or herders, will end up adopting both systems and complementing the different activities. Agricultural communities tend to be sedentary and create cities. Towards the year 5000 BCE, a large number of villages are fortified and already have an urban character. Some of them, such as Mersin , Hacilar , Satal or the tell of Hasmar and Haji Mohamed will have several thousand inhabitants. Housing tends to be artificial and to be located in easily defensible places, and which are not useful agricultural land. Their activity is limited to the surroundings of the population, creating a more or less itinerant cultivation system; part of the land is exploited and the rest is left fallow for recovery or for livestock to graze.
The slash-and-burn system quickly depletes the soil. Not all land is suitable for growing the same thing, so each city specializes in a certain product, the rest is bought from other cities, this creates tensions and the cities become fortified, but trade also appears. To sustain this system, a centralized authority emerges to direct the work. This authority, in principle, is also a farmer, but over time it will leave these functions to the rest of the population. The livestock communities were essentially nomadic, so they tend to be fewer in number, and poorer, but they are the ones that maintain the communication routes and trade.
New technologies have emerged in relation to the new ways of exploiting the environment to make better use of the increase in productivity. The most important are: pottery, the loom and stone polishing. Pottery is the industry necessary to preserve and store the food collected, so that it lasts all year round. Although there were Neolithic societies that did not know about it. The loom appeared to make clothes. Wool was an abundant by-product of livestock farming. Its construction is very complex. Each utensil has a function, which indicates a very high degree of material specialization.
For a long time, stone polishing was the hallmark of Neolithic societies. Polishing allowed the use of harder stones than those of the Paleolithic, such as obsidian, and therefore the tools were better. The most characteristic tool was the axe, widely used in agricultural work. Objects made of wood and bone continued to be used, as in the later stages of the Paleolithic.