The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age , was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic followed the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic period, 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. The Neolithic is not a specific chronological period, but rather a suite of behavioral and cultural characteristics, including the use of wild and domestic crops and the use of domesticated animals.
Neolithic culture began in the Levant (Jericho, modern-day West Bank) about 9500 BCE. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufians can thus be called "proto-Neolithic" (12,500–9500 BCE or 12,000-9500 BCE). 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 are thought to have forced people to develop farming. By 9500–9000 BCE, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa and North Mesopotamia. Early Neolithic 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, sheep and goats. By about 8000 BCE, 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 everywhere 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 that arose completely independent of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies used pottery before developing agriculture.
Unlike the Paleolithic, where more than one human species existed, only one human species ( Homo sapiens sapiens ) reached the neolithic.
The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νεολιθικός , neolithikos , from νέος neos , "new" + λίθος lithos , "stone", literally meaning "New Stone Age." The term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.
Periods by pottery phase
In Southwest Asia (i.e., the Middle East), cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC and in Africa possibly as early as the 15th 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 BCE.
The prehistoric Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, China, contains relics of a culture contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 7,000–8,000 BP, neolithic cultures east of the Taihang Mountains, filling in an archaeological gap between the two Northern Chinese cultures. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square meters and the collection of neolithic findings at the site consists of two phases.
Neolithic 1 – Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)
The Neolithic 1 (PPNA) began in the Levant (Jericho, Palestine & Jbeil (Byblos), Lebanon) around 9500 to 9000 BCE. The actual date is not established with certainty due to different results in carbon dating by scientists in the British Museum and Philadelphia laboratories.
An early temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated to 10,000 BCE may be regarded as the beginning of the Neolithic 1. This site was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. This temple site is the oldest known man-made place of worship. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects and birds. Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which may have supported roofs.
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. Emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated (animal husbandry and selective breeding).
In the 21st century, remains of figs were discovered in a house in Jericho dated to 9,400 BCE. The figs are of a mutant variety that cannot be pollinated by insects, and therefore the trees can only reproduce from cuttings. This evidence suggests that figs were the first cultivated crop and mark the invention of the technology of farming. This occurred centuries before the first cultivation of grains. (Source: "Ancient Figs May Be First Cultivated Crops" by Christopher Joyce, NPR.org, last accessed 28 January 2009. )
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 (as in Jericho). The wall served as protection from nearby groups, as protection from floods, or to keep animals penned. There are also some enclosures that suggest grain and meat storage.
Neolithic 2 – Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB)
The Neolithic 2 (PPNB) began around 8500 BCE in the Levant (Jericho, Palestine). As with the PPNA dates there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above. But this terminological structure is not convenient for southeast Anatolia and settlements of the middle Anatolia basin.This era was before the Mesolithic era.
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 of the dead, which were plastered with mud to make facial features. 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 6500 BCE 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 BCE, then the Bronze Age began about 3500 BC, replacing the Neolithic cultures.
Periods by region
Fertile Crescent
Around 9500 BC, the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the fertile crescent. Around 9000 BCE during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), the world's first town, Jericho, appeared in the Levant. It was surrounded by a stone and marble wall and contained a population of 2000–3000 people and a massive stone tower. Around 6000 BCE the Halaf culture appeared in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, and Northern Mesopotamia and subsisted on dryland agriculture.
Southern Mesopotamia
Alluvial plains (Sumer/Elam). Little rainfall, makes irrigation systems necessary. Ubaid culture from 5500 BCE.
Africa
Africans can be traced to have begun raising and domesticating crops and cattle around 15,000 years ago. African peoples have been discovered to have been raising crops of wheat, barley, lentils, dates and other vegetables and grains as far back as the tenth millennium BCE. In Africa, millet and sorghum were domesticated at least 5000 years ago. Food producing economies were established by African people living north of the equator between about 6000 and 1000 BCE.
Europe
In southeast Europe agrarian societies first appeared by ca. 7000 BCE, and in Central Europe by ca. 5500 BCE. Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are included the Sesklo culture in Thessaly , which later expanded in the Balkans giving 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 BCE. The Vinča culture may have created
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