What occurred during the Neolithic Period?
When did the Neolithic Period begin?
How did Neolithic technologies spread outward from the Fertile Crescent?
How long did it take other cultures to reach the Neolithic stage of development?
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Neolithic, final stage of the Stone Age. It was characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, dependence on domesticated plants and animals, settlement in permanent villages, and the appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving. Chipped-stone tools, characteristic of the preceding Paleolithic Period, continued to be used by Neolithic peoples in many parts of the globe. In Asia and Europe the Neolithic is succeeded by the Bronze Age, when human societies learned to combine copper and tin or arsenic to make bronze, which replaced stone as a material for tools and weapons.
A brief treatment of the Neolithic follows. For full treatment, see Stone Age: Neolithic and technology: The Neolithic Revolution.
General characteristics
The Neolithic did not occur at a single time across the world. Rather, different regions of the world have different Neolithic Periods based on when (and if) they adopted a certain set of features. All Neolithic Periods occurred during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700 years of Earth history), with the earliest Neolithic beginning about 10,000 bce in the Middle East. During that time, humans learned to raise crops and keep domestic livestock and were thus less dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. Neolithic cultures made stone tools useful for grain processing by grinding and polishing relatively hard rocks. Neolithic peoples throughout the world cultivated crops, often cereal grains, built permanent dwellings and congregated in villages. Intensive food production allowed some members of farming communities to pursue specialized crafts.
Eastern Hemisphere
From Mesopotamia to Europe
Archaeological evidence indicates that the transition from food-collecting cultures to food-producing ones gradually occurred across Asia and Europe from a starting point in the Fertile Crescent. The first evidence of cultivation and animal domestication in southwestern Asia has been dated to roughly 9500 bce, which suggests that those activities may have begun before that date. A way of life based on farming and settled villages had been firmly achieved by 7000 bce in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys (now in Iraq and Iran) and in what are now Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. Those earliest farmers raised barley and wheat and kept sheep and goats, later supplemented by cattle and pigs. Their innovations spread from the Middle East northward into Europe by two routes: across Turkey (Türkiye) and Greece into central Europe, and across Egypt and North Africa and thence to Spain. Farming communities appeared in Greece as early as 7000 bce, and farming spread northward throughout the continent over the next four millennia. This long and gradual transition, known as the Mesolithic, was not completed in Britain and Scandinavia until after 3000 bce.
The Indus River valley
Neolithic technologies had appeared in the Indus River valley of India by 5000 bce. Domesticated wheat, barley, goat, and sheep reached the region by Mehrgarh Phase 1A, some 9,000 years ago. The importance of sheep and goat, however, were eclipsed in the 7th–6th millennium bce by humped cattle (Bos indicus), which was likely domesticated in the Indus region. Trade in semiprecious stones, including turquoise and lapis lazuli, was established about this time.
China
From earliest times, agriculture in China was divided into two major regions by the Qin Mountains, with wheat and millet predominant in the northern realm and rice in the south. At different periods and places, subsidiary native domesticates included soybeans; tree fruits such as peach and persimmon; hemp (Cannabis sativa); beefsteak plant (Perilla frutescens); rapeseed, or canola (Brassica campestris); tea (Camellia sinensis); water chestnut (Trapa natans); and silk (via sericulture, the raising of silkworms). Domesticated animals included dogs, pigs, chickens, goats, and cattle.
New Guinea
An independent Neolithic arose in New Guinea some 5,000 years ago. By that time the inhabitants of the highlands had begun cultivating banana, taro, and yam, plants whose wild ancestors likely lived in the lowlands. Other plants domesticated in New Guinea include edible pitpit, pili nut, sago, and sugarcane, along with several species of the Pandanus and Terminalia plant genera. Stone figurines appeared in the archaeological record at this time, as did tools for processing different foods and fibers. Ground-stone adzes emerged at this time. Obsidian from the Bismarck Archipelago found in the highlands of New Guinea attests to the presence of trade networks.
Western Hemisphere
While the Neolithic was conceptualized to describe developments in the Old World, some scholars apply the term to changes that happened in the Americas. Neolithic society grew largely independently in three areas in the Americas: Central America, the Andes of South America, and the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Corn was first domesticated about 8000 bce in what is now southern Mexico from a wild grass called teosinte. Squash was also domesticated around this time, or perhaps a bit earlier. By 1500 bce the growing of these two early crops was combined with the cultivation of beans to create the milpa, an agricultural system in which the three plants are grown together in a symbiotic system. A number of other domestic species were exploited by the peoples of this area, including multiple species of chili pepper, cassava, avocado, cotton, cacao, common beans, lima beans, manioc, and tomatoes. Turkeys and Muscovy ducks were the only animals domesticated in the region, although dogs, likely domesticated in Eurasia, were also known.
- Also called:
- New Stone Age
- Context:
- Stone Age
To the south, the people of the Andes region domesticated potatoes and quinoa, along with the guinea pig, llama, and alpaca. The lima bean and common bean may also have originated in the southern Andes. People here also cultivated avocados, cacao, chili peppers, cotton, squash, manioc, corn, papayas, sweet potatoes, and tobacco. Eastern Woodlands peoples, located in what are now the U.S. states of Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas, domesticated the sunflower, species of Cucurbita pepo, sumpweed (Iva annua), and lamb’s-quarters (Chenopodium album).