Neolithic age

Also called: New Stone Age · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation"

Meaning

The Neolithic age (New Stone Age) is the last phase of the Stone Age. In this phase people moved from gathering food to producing it: they farmed, herded animals, used polished and grinding stone tools, made pottery and lived in permanent villages. It matters because the extra food it produced (a surplus, more food than people needed to eat at once) led to larger villages, trade, leaders and in time towns. That is why its change is called the Neolithic Revolution, the starting point of civilisation.

Explanation

Background: why farming began

• "Neolithic" comes from neo (new) and lithos (stone).
• Hunter-gatherers knew their land well.
• Over thousands of years they learned the seasons.
• They learned where plants grew, when fruits ripened and when animals gave birth.

• This knowledge made a gradual move to food production possible.

• Britannica places one of the oldest such changes in Southwest Asia, c. 14,500–12,000 BP (BP = "before present"). It happened among Epipalaeolithic people, who used tiny stone blades called microblades [2].

• Dogs were domesticated in Central Asia by at least 15,000 years ago, before farming began [2].

Core feature: domestication

• Domestication means bringing chosen plants and animals under human control.
• Humans chose which seeds to sow and which animals to breed.
• Over many generations this produced new breeds, different from their wild parents.

• So domestication is more than taming. It changes the plant or animal itself.

• The earliest evidence of crop domestication is from c. 12,000 years ago. Einkorn (an early kind of wheat) from Nevalı Çori, Turkey, dates to c. 10,500 BP [2].

• By c. 10,000 BP, people of the eastern Fertile Crescent kept goats and sheep as livestock [2].

How we recognise a Neolithic site

• Tools change their purpose.
• Earlier tools were for getting food: hunting, cutting, scraping.

• Neolithic tools were for producing and processing food. Examples are grinding stones, querns (stones for grinding grain), pestles, and polished axes for clearing land.

• Earthenware pottery appears, in many shapes and sizes.

• Pots were used to store grain, cook it and carry water.

• Storage was the key change, because a surplus is useless if it cannot be kept.

• The first villages appear.

• People stopped moving with the herds and settled in one place.

• Villages grew up near rivers, for two reasons:

• water for drinking and irrigation;
• fertile soil on the flood plains.

Results: a more complex society

• Surplus food made communities grow in size and number.
• Leaders called 'chieftains' appeared.
• Their job was the welfare of the people.

• They led by responsibility. This was not yet kingship.

• Land was not owned by individuals.

• The group sowed and harvested it together.

• Private ownership of land came later.

• Hamlets grew into villages, and some villages into small towns.

• Villages exchanged food, clothing and tools.

• Networks of communication and exchange formed between them.

• New technologies followed settled life in this order: pottery → copper → iron.

• It was gradual in speed but revolutionary in result.
• It took thousands of years, and nobody invented farming at a single moment.
• But the surplus it created made civilisation possible.

Time, place and evidence

• It did not happen everywhere at once. Each region domesticated different plants and animals at different times:
• Southwest Asia: wheat (einkorn), barley, goats and sheep, from c. 12,000–10,000 years ago [2].
• East Asia: millet and rice, by c. 8500–8000 BP [2].
• Southern Mexico and northern Peru: squash, by c. 10,000–9000 BP [2].

• Grapes, olives and date palms came much later, from the end of the Neolithic into the Bronze Age, c. 6000–3000 BCE [2].

• Indian subcontinent: Mehrgarh

• Location: Balochistan, in present-day Pakistan.
• Period: c. 8000–5000 BCE [3].
• First inhabitants: from c. 6500 BCE, farmers who grew wheat and barley and kept cattle, sheep and goats [3].
• Main crop: barley, in its fully domesticated form, six-row barley, with some wheat [4].
• Local breeding: the early grains are mostly small and round. This shows that local varieties were bred to suit local soil and weather [4].
• Way of life: people made pottery, built permanent mud-brick houses and buried their dead with ritual [3].

• Trade: jewellery was made from seashells, turquoise and lapis lazuli. These materials are not found locally, so trade reached the coast and probably Central Asia [3].

• How we know: this period has no writing, so all the evidence comes from archaeology: tools, querns, pottery, house remains, burials and grain remains. The NCERT account is in Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans", which includes a chart of when different regions domesticated different species.

Don't confuse with

• Epipalaeolithic / Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age): people still hunted and gathered and used tiny microblades. The Neolithic is marked by food production, pottery and settled villages.
• Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone Age): people used copper alongside stone. Copper came after pottery in the order pottery → copper → iron.
• Urban revolution (Harappan cities): this was the rise of cities. The Neolithic created the villages and surplus on which those cities were later built.
• Taming vs domestication: taming only controls a wild animal. Domestication, through breeding, creates new breeds that differ from their wild ancestors.

Prelims Hooks

• Mehrgarh (Balochistan) spans c. 8000–5000 BCE. Its earliest farmers, from c. 6500 BCE, grew wheat and barley and herded cattle, sheep and goats [3].
• The main crop at Mehrgarh was six-row barley, not wheat [4].
• Trap: dogs were domesticated in Central Asia by at least 15,000 years ago, which is before crop farming began [2].
• Earliest domesticated einkorn wheat: Nevalı Çori, Turkey, c. 10,500 BP [2].
• Lapis lazuli and turquoise at Mehrgarh show trade with the coast and probably Central Asia [3].
• In Neolithic society there was no individual ownership of land. Land was sown and harvested collectively, and 'chieftains' looked after people's welfare. Technology order: pottery → copper → iron.

Mains Points

• It is called a "revolution" because of its results, not its speed.
• The change took thousands of years, so it was gradual.
• It still produced surplus food, storage, permanent villages and spare time for crafts. These were the basic conditions for civilisation.

• It shows that a slow process in history can still be revolutionary.

• Surplus links the economy to society, and villages to cities.

• Surplus → larger groups → exchange between villages → chieftains to manage welfare → some villages become towns.

• So the Harappan cities should be read as the end of a long village story, not a sudden beginning.

• Farming had no single place of origin, and India bred its own crops.

• Southwest Asia (wheat, barley), East Asia (rice, millet) and the Americas (squash) each domesticated their own species at their own time [2].
• Mehrgarh's small, round, locally adapted grains show that the subcontinent bred its own varieties [4]. This argues against the idea that farming spread from one source.
• Collective land and welfare-based leaders also give a baseline for measuring later inequality: kings, taxes and private land.

Related concepts

• Neolithic revolution
• Domestication of animals

Read more

• The Neolithic Revolution