The Neolithic (from Greek 'new' and 'stone'), or New Stone Age, is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Asia, Europe and Africa ( to c. 2,000 BC). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.

The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic West Asia and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in West Asia until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BC), marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age.

In other places, the Neolithic followed the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and then lasted until later. In ancient Egypt, the Neolithic lasted until the Protodynastic period, 3150 BC. In China, it lasted until circa 2000 BC with the rise of the pre-Shang Erlitou culture, as it did in Scandinavia.Encyclopedia Britannica, "Stone Age"

Origin

Following the ASPRO chronology, the Neolithic started in around 10,200 BC in the Levant, arising from the Natufian culture, when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming. The Natufian period or "proto-Neolithic" lasted from 12,500 to 9,500 BC, and is taken to overlap with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) of 10,200–8800 BC. 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 (about 10,000 BC) are thought to have forced people to develop farming.

The founder crops of the Fertile Crescent were wheat, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax. Among the other major crops to be domesticated were rice and millet. Crops were usually domesticated in a single location and ancestral wild species are still found.

Early Neolithic age 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. By about 8000 BC, it included domesticated sheep and goats, cattle and pigs.

Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the West Asia did not use pottery. 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, which arose completely independently of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture.

Periods by region

Near East (Western Asia)

In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th 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, northern Mesopotamia, and the Sinai Peninsula by around 8000 BC, reflecting the southward expansion of Pre-Pottery Neolithic traditions across the Levantine corridor.

Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived a significant portion of their ancestry from the Anatolian hunter-gatherers (AHG), suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A

The Neolithic 1 (PPNA) period began around 10,000 BC in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe, dated to around 9500 BC, may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, as shown by the absence of permanent housing nearby, and may be the oldest known human-made place of worship. At least seven stone circles, covering , 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 might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Palestine, notably in Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) and Gilgal in the Jordan Valley; Israel (notably Ain Mallaha, Nahal Oren, and Kfar HaHoresh); in Byblos, Lebanon; and in Sinai, including sites such as Abu Madi.

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 2006, remains of figs were discovered in a house in Jericho dated to 9400 BC. 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.

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 mudbrick. 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. Some of the enclosures also suggest grain and meat storage.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

The Neolithic 2 (PPNB) began around 8800 BC according to the ASPRO chronology in the Levant (Jericho, West Bank). As with the PPNA dates, there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above. This system of terminology, however, is not convenient for southeast Anatolia and settlements of the middle Anatolia basin. Studies of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultural complex indicate that its long-lived and widely distributed tradition extended across the Levant from the Taurus Mountains in the north to the Sinai in the south, reflecting its broad geographic scope during this phase. A settlement of 3,000 inhabitants called 'Ain Ghazal was found in the outskirts of Amman, Jordan. Considered to be one of the largest prehistoric settlements in the Near East, it was continuously inhabited from approximately 7250 BC to approximately 5000 BC.

Settlements have rectangular mud-brick 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 could 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.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic C

Work at the site of 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan has indicated a later Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period. Juris Zarins has proposed that a Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6200 BC, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon domesticated animals, and a fusion with Harifian hunter gatherers in the Southern Levant, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into southern Iraq.Zarins, Juris (1992) "Pastoral Nomadism in Arabia: Ethnoarchaeology and the Archaeological Record", in Ofer Bar-Yosef and A. Khazanov, eds. "Pastoralism in the Levant"

Late Neolithic

The Late Neolithic began around 6,400 BC in the Fertile Crescent. By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia). This period has been further divided into PNA (Pottery Neolithic A) and PNB (Pottery Neolithic B) at some sites. In the southern Negev and Sinai deserts, the Late Neolithic is characterised by the pastoralist Timnian culture, which persisted into the Bronze Age.

The Chalcolithic (Stone-Bronze) period began about 4500 BC, then the Bronze Age began about 3500 BC, replacing the Neolithic cultures.

Fertile Crescent

Around 10,000 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the Fertile Crescent. Around 10,700–9400 BC a settlement was established in Tell Qaramel, north of Aleppo. The settlement included two temples dating to 9650 BC.Yet another sensational discovery by polish archaeologists in Syria . eduskrypt.pl. 21 June 2006 Around 9000 BC during the PPNA, one of the world's first towns, Jericho, appeared in the Levant. It was surrounded by a stone wall, may have contained a population of up to 2,000–3,000 people, and contained a massive stone tower."Jericho", Encyclopædia Britannica Around 6400 BC the Halaf culture appeared in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia.

In 1981, a team of researchers from the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, including Jacques Cauvin and Oliver Aurenche, divided Near East Neolithic chronology into ten periods (0 to 9) based on social, economic and cultural characteristics.Haïdar Boustani, M. "The Neolithic of Lebanon in the context of the Near East: State of knowledge" (in French), Annales d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie, Universite Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth, Vol. 12–13, 2001–2002. Retrieved on 3 December 2011. In 2002, Danielle Stordeur and Frédéric Abbès advanced this system with a division into five periods. Natufian between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, Khiamian between 10,200 and 8800 BC, PPNA: Sultanian (Jericho), Mureybetian, Early PPNB (PPNB ancien) between 8800 and 7600 BC, middle PPNB (PPNB moyen) between 7600 and 6900 BC, Late PPNB (PPNB récent) between 7500 and 7000 BC, A PPNB (sometimes called PPNC) transitional stage (PPNB final) in which Halaf and dark faced burnished ware begin to emerge between 6900 and 6400 BC.Stordeur, Danielle., Abbès Frédéric., "Du PPNA au PPNB: mise en lumière d'une phase de transition à Jerf el Ahmar (Syrie)", Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, Volume 99, Issue 3, pp. 563–595, 2002 They also advanced the idea of a transitional stage between the PPNA and PPNB between 8800 and 8600 BC at sites like Jerf el Ahmar and Tell Aswad.PPND – the Platform for Neolithic Radiocarbon Dates – Summary. exoriente. Retrieved on 3 December 2011.

Southern Mesopotamia Alluvial plains (Sumer/Elam). Low rainfall makes irrigation systems necessary. Ubaid culture originated from 6200 BC.

Northeastern Africa

The earliest evidence of Neolithic culture in northeast Africa was found in the archaeological sites of Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa in what is now southwest Egypt. Domestication of sheep and goats reached Egypt from the Near East possibly as early as 6000 BC. Graeme Barker states "The first indisputable evidence for domestic plants and animals in the Nile valley is not until the early fifth millennium BC in northern Egypt and a thousand years later further south, in both cases as part of strategies that still relied heavily on fishing, hunting, and the gathering of wild plants" and suggests that these subsistence changes were not due to farmers migrating from the Near East but was an indigenous development, with cereals either indigenous or obtained through exchange. Other scholars argue that the primary stimulus for agriculture and domesticated animals (as well as mud-brick architecture and other Neolithic cultural features) in Egypt was from the Middle East.

Northwestern Africa