Neolithic
The Neolithic (from the Greek νεός neós 'new' and λιθικός lithikós 'of stone') is the last of the periods. Neolithic period is called the Stone Age (stone tools). This period began between 6000 BCE. C. and 4000 a. C., according to the different cultures that reached it, and it extended until 3000 a. The term, meaning "of new stone", refers to the elaborate polished stone tools that characterize this period and differentiate it from the "old" Stone Age, or Paleolithic, with carved stone tools, more rough. In American periodization, the Neolithic roughly coincides with the Archaic Period.
It is the period of human history in which agriculture and animal grazing (livestock) appeared and became widespread, giving rise to agrarian societies. Usually, but not necessarily, it was accompanied by pottery work. In the Neolithic appear the first human settlements and sedentary settlements. The Neolithic period was followed, depending on the region, by the Metal Age or directly by the Ancient Age, in which writing and agricultural civilizations arose.
In the Neolithic the sedentarization of the human being takes place. Agriculture and livestock guarantee the provision of food, and the first permanent settlements are built. It goes from a "predatory economy" (hunters/gatherers) to a productive economy because of the agricultural revolution.
Introduction
The Neolithic revolution occurred independently from at least six regions of the planet, without contact with each other, known as the cradles of civilization: Western Asia, Eastern China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, the Andes Mountains, Eastern North America, and possibly also sub-Saharan Africa and Amazonia.
The term was coined by John Lubbock in his work Prehistoric Times (1865), due to the finds of polished, rather than carved, stone tools that seemed to accompany the development and expansion of the Agriculture.
One of the main innovators in the study of the Neolithic was undoubtedly the French archaeologist Jean Guilaine, for whom «the real break [in history] was not writing, as has often been said, but agriculture. From the moment agriculture is introduced, the forests are burned, the landscape is transformed, and the crops depend on the weather. It was the moment in which the village and then the city arose. And it was also the moment when the diseases related to the animals that were domesticated appeared. Well, that was our world. We are undoubtedly the descendants of those who lived in the Neolithic.
Agriculture and livestock began to be practiced in different parts of the planet independently and on different dates. The first region where evidence of the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to producer societies is found was the Near East, around 8500 BC. C., from where it spread to Europe, Egypt, the Middle East and, perhaps, South Asia. Very soon after, the producing processes developed in a completely independent way in the north of China in the valleys of the Yellow River and the Yangtze (7500 BC). An independent early development of horticulture also occurred in New Guinea, some evidence suggesting that it was around 7500 BCE. C., although said date is still uncertain. In Africa, the first regions where the Neolithic transformations occurred were the Sahara, Sahel and Ethiopia, although there is a divergence of opinion: some authors believe that there may have been some type of influence from Asia and others consider that the development was independent since they were domesticated. local plant species. Finally, in America the development of agriculture was later, although it occurred independently in three regions: first in Mesoamerica and the Andean region (it is not known for sure if horticulture in the western Amazon was influenced by Andean region) and much later in eastern North America. In Europe the development was not independent and agriculture appeared between 6000 B.C. C. and 3500 B.C. C. (depending on the regions) thanks to the arrival of species from the Near East. For a more detailed description of the different regions:
- Neolithic in the Near East
- Neolithic in Europe
- Neolithic in East Asia
- Neolithic in América
- Neolithic in Africa
The transition stage between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic is known as the Mesolithic, while the Late Paleolithic phases contemporaneous with the Neolithic and Mesolithic in other regions of the planet are known as the Epipaleolithic. A town or community with a hunter-gatherer economy that receives some Neolithic influence, typically pottery, from its farming neighbors is called Subneolithic.
The word “neolithic” or “neolytic” means ‘of the modern stone’, being synonymous, in prehistoric language, of ‘poured stone’, for being one of its most characteristic traits; others also call it ‘of the domestic animals’, because it was the time when man finally made the conquest of the dog, the horse, the ox, the pig, etc. -J. Vilanova i Piera. |
Although Neolithic is literally translated as 'of New Stone', perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it the 'Polished Stone Age';[citation required] without forgetting that the The main characteristic that currently defines the period is none other than a new way of life based on the production of food from domesticated plant and animal species. It covers different time periods depending on location. It is located between 7000 B.C. C. and 4000 B.C. c. approximately. This period began in Kurdistan before 7000 BC. C. (perhaps around 8000 BC) and spread slowly, without being able to speak of Neolithic in Europe until dates after 5000 BC. c.
Influence of climate change
From 8000 B.C. C., climate change (postglacial era) made reindeer herds flee northward, causing a decrease in hunting. The culture declined, man returning to the caves (although in some isolated cases the huts were preserved). The cult of the dead and funeral rituals became more complex. This period is called the "marasmus period" and is located at the end of the Mesolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic. This climate change around 8000 B.C. C (in which it went to a temperate climate) caused man to modify his customs (which would be facilitated by climatic changes —temperate, cold, temperate, cold— in the period between 12,000 and 8,000 BC).
Cultural differences from one area to another are perceptible, but it is impossible to give other adjectives to men who inhabit large areas than Homo sapiens or Cro-Magnon Man, without establishing differences regional ethnic differences that necessarily had to occur due to the separate development of the different groups, the different geographical environment, the diverse climate, the different eating habits and the multiple local customs.
From the establishment of livestock and a livestock-based economy arises transhumance, which puts peoples in contact and, consequently, facilitates communication between people of different cultures, lands and tribes. The emigration of tribes and the diffusion of techniques, which each group learns from the neighboring group, spread Neolithic cultures from their original focus to the rest of the world. From these contacts and from the simultaneous development of agriculture arise, among other things, the first manual mills to grind the grains that are grown.
Neolithic Phases
The Neolithic period is divided into three phases:
- Initial Neolithic (I phase)
- Medium neolithic (II phase)
- Final neolithic (III phase).
Characteristics of this period are the complete domestication of some animals (donkeys, horses, reindeer, and others), as well as the replacement of carved stone tools with polished stone ones.
Middle or Full Neolithic
It is in this period when pottery reaches its greatest diffusion, with the importance it had for the life of man. The pottery of that time corresponds to the type called pottery with grooves, which gives an idea of a greater development of ceramics in general.
It is striking in this period the disappearance of agricultural crops, which acquired a lot of development in the previous stage, and which in this stage almost became extinct or at least regressed noticeably. The cause of this general phenomenon is not known.
It seems that this period caused massive displacements of populations that settled in certain geographical areas. In Catalonia, the settlement of a population probably coming from Switzerland and northern Italy is clearly visible, which pushed the first eastern emigrants of the previous period further south. The emigrants installed in Catalonia, who constitute the Culture of Pit Graves, contributed a culture based on agriculture and livestock, which established their villages in huts on the plains, burying themselves in pits as a grave, different from burial in caves, which It shows that they were not used. Undoubtedly after the first period of invasion, and the population solidly established, these emigrants were able to adopt new funerary, religious, economic and social customs, influenced not only by the culture from which they came, but also by the remains of the Mesolithic culture prior to the first oriental emigration, and by this first oriental culture.
Transhumance brought people from different regions into contact. Thus, the archaic culture, Asturian, of the Cantabrian and Aquitaine coast, the Culture of the Caves in the Ebro Valley (neolithic), and the Culture of the Pit Tombs in Catalonia.
At this time some copper items already appeared in France, towards the end of the period.
Life in the Neolithic Period
Climate change causes a slow conversion of the subsistence economy, based on hunting, towards a more stable economy based on pastoralism and supported by crops (agriculture). It is appreciated that man leaves the mountains to move towards the plains in pursuit of their hunting prey. The man returns to the caves although in some points he was able to preserve the use of huts in the vicinity of rivers. The development of pastoralism gives rise to transhumance and relatively frequent contacts with people from other lands, with greater intercommunication between the various tribes.
For the axes and other instruments, polished stone is used and the tools and some tools are frequently made with bone. Obsidian tools also appear.
Rise of agriculture and settlements
The Neolithic period can be followed with relative accuracy in the area of Canaan, a region where agricultural, sedentary cultures arose (the first agricultural cultures undoubtedly arose in Southeastern Anatolia (Çatalhöyük) around 8000 BC) probably before from 7000 B.C. c.
It is known about the planting, harvesting and storage of cereals. Among the useful inventions for agricultural work are the wooden sickle, the polished stone axe, the hand mill to grind grain or cereal, and esparto grass objects, such as wicker baskets, sacks, or sandals. of esparto. The plow pulled by oxen or donkeys allowed better removal of the earth and tilled a larger area of land in less time.
Pottery
An invention of vital importance for people's lives, and which developed very quickly, is pottery. It allowed the construction of containers for liquids and greatly facilitated the life of man, who no longer needed to be permanently near the water, or often make long journeys to get supplies, since he stored the water, and also grains, seeds, ground products, etc. etc., in pottery containers. He only needed to move periodically to renew the supply of the amount consumed since the previous supply.
In the past, empty gourds (which could hold water but could not be put on the fire) and wicker baskets (which could hold no water) were used. Later these wicker containers were waterproofed with sun-dried or fire-baked clay. Later they learned to shape the clay with a very simple wicker skeleton and then without a skeleton. The shape was often that of a gourd and the dimensions similar to a wicker basket.
Hunters rarely used clay pieces (for example, they did not serve as quivers due to their fragility), preferring those made of wicker or fabric. Instead, it provided ranchers and farmers with security in the storage of water and other products which, together with the means of preserving meat, made them less dependent on daily game.
At this time the use of pottery pieces spread, whose use in the Iberian Peninsula is safe, with remains from the Middle Neolithic.
When the pottery appears, the man tries to decorate it. There are indications that the first decorations were made with ropes, often used for reinforcement, but other variants were later introduced: the groove, the cord (raised rope-like line, slightly below the edge) and handles of various types.
The pottery of the initial period (around 4000 BC) is of the so-called cardial, with various types of incisions in the soft but already molded clay, made with the fingers or with bone awls or spatulas or polished stone, but mainly with the shell of the mollusk Cardium edule (cockle) from which it receives its name. The incisions, often combined, sought symmetrical effects.
Braided fibers and looms
The first braided fibers began to be used, especially in wicker.
Surely the first ones were made roughly with branches. The technique evolved until reaching baskets very well achieved in the Neolithic, product of the need to collect fruits, which existed hundreds or thousands of years ago. The baskets were made of wicker. Anyone who has seen the nests of weaver birds can easily imagine the source of inspiration for the first baskets. Eggs were probably even collected from the nests of weaver birds.
The spindle and the loom (can be seen in the attached image) are some of the most revolutionary inventions of the Neolithic period. Humans realized, for unknown reasons, perhaps by chance, that some products, such as wool and flax (and later others, such as hemp) could be stretched using a crude spindle or a round wooden bar. As an imitation of the weaving of the baskets, these threads could be woven and fabricated (wool for winter and linen for summer). Surely at first it was thought to use the invention to make lighter baskets, before using them for clothing fabrics. Another very widespread garment is the sack, woven with another material, esparto grass.
Domestication of Animals
It is known that at this time some animals were domesticated, and among them, the first, the dog.
To preserve the meat, the system is used, drying it in the sun or salting it, placing it hanging in the center of a figure of three stakes with the ground at the same vertex.
The manual skill of the settlers of the time was used in the preparation of rope traps of a certain complexity. The animal captured by the knotted ropes stretched by the man, was later finished off by him. The development of the traps coincides with the cult of the spider, widespread throughout the Neolithic cultures of Western Europe and others, a cult probably linked to the ability of this small animal to place its traps, the spider's webs.
Humans were used to following the tracks of animals and the specialization they had reached is notorious, to the point that in cave paintings, the hooves are perfectly represented on the feet as they were marked on the ground. Apparently, from the pictorial representations, the men ran at a very high speed, chasing their prey.
The first spoons are also from this period, which were not used for eating but for mixing food while cooking.
At this time, as a result of the capture of live wild boars (boars), mainly females, these animals were domesticated and gave rise to the pig (in general, wild boar was a game item). Wild boar herds that are not hunted are often depicted in paintings and could be herds in the process of being domesticated.
Ritual dances
Ritual dances, associated with fertility rites, religious practices (now unknown to us) of the time, continue to be practiced. Probably each group had a sorcerer, who adorned himself with a hollowed-out wild bull's head and a bull's skin that included the tail. These sorcerers are the ones who learned and spread the new techniques, transmitted their knowledge to their successor or successors and it is even possible that they were the authors of the cave paintings, since in general these are supposed to be associated with religious or magical rites.
The sorcerers had vague astronomical knowledge (they observed the sky and in a painting the Big Dipper is represented); they observed the customs of animals, wild or not, to make it easier to capture them or imitate them (for example, the spider, but also others) and they tested vegetables, edible or not.
Executions and assemblies of warriors
There are representations of executions: a phalanx of warriors, among whom one seems to be distinguished from the others by his position and by the use of a piece at the waist, and who probably must have been the leader of the group, shoots arrows at a condemned. In this period, assemblies or meetings of warriors were held, represented not only for executions, believing that they had political or religious importance. Scenes with about twenty warriors are represented, which would demonstrate the existence of groups of about a hundred individuals or more, since it is necessary to include women, children, the elderly, adolescents, sorcerers and their assistants, sentinels, and others (it is assumed that the Çatalhöyük population was about 3000 inhabitants). It is believed that the assembly of warriors exercised a decisive power, since in some representations it is deduced that the assembly, if it did not have a military character, had a religious purpose, venerating the paintings of the large animals or these themselves (from the veneration of the There is evidence of Neolithic paintings in later times, even in Roman times, presuming that the tradition of their veneration continued without interruption from the Neolithic to the Roman period).
First settlements
Towns of adobe houses were built, approximately rectangular in party walls, without streets and with an entrance through the roof, which was flat. Also circular, semi-subterranean huts, with a single chamber, with the walls and the floor covered with mud (Jyroquitya, in Cyprus).
Innovation spread extremely quickly and before 7000 B.C. C. there is already at least one village, Jericó, with an area of about four hectares, with a stone wall and a dug moat about 8 meters wide by 3 meters deep, and with at least one large tower. circular 9 m high, which was thought to serve as a watchtower, with a ladder to access the roof and the upper part of the wall, but which actually turned out to be a wall against floods and a grain store.
This first Neolithic culture (Pre-Pottery Neolithic) lasted from about 7500 B.C. C. to 6500 B.C. C. and was replaced by another "invasion" from the north, from Anatolia, which also lasted about a thousand years (6500 to 5500 BC); This was followed by another Neolithic culture also from the north, which lasted another thousand years (5500-4500 BC). These cultures spread throughout Eurasia, accelerating after 5000 BC. C., date on which the beginning of the Neolithic period can be established in the European continent, reaching the Iberian Peninsula shortly after.
Dense clusters of villages and small towns, initially confined to the margins of natural streams, increasingly had to resort to artificial irrigation to irrigate their wheat and barley fields. Around 6350 B.C. C. monumental adobe brick temples were built in the center of important cities such as Eridu and Al Ubaid. The first cities arose in the area of the Near East around 7,000 years old and associated with the first Neolithic cultures. The proximity of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers allowed the cultivation of cereals and other plants that could be irrigated through the canalization works carried out by the inhabitants of these first cities. The first public buildings that characterize the city, palaces and temples also arose. Both will function as large administrative offices in which control of food production and trade was carried out. The need to manage this information led to the appearance of simple forms of annotation, accounting and writing.
Honey and drinks
The use of honey continues. Its importance derives from the fact that it was the only sweet food known[citation needed], just as salt was the only salty one. In addition, wax was obtained from the honeycombs, which was surely used in magical, religious or funeral rituals.
Mead was obtained from honey at an indeterminate time, an aqueous solution of honey that, as a result of alcoholic fermentation, has lost all or part of the sugary matter and has become ethyl alcohol, being similar in taste to some types of wine The mead was bright and golden in color, similar to certain wines. To make mead, the water used to wash utensils that had contained honey was used, to which honey was added (25% honey and 75% water) with the pollen extracted from the honeycombs for fermentation (0.05%), creating a drink of about fifteen degrees.
Another drink is beer, which predates crops. It is believed that the Neolithic settlers heated a hollow stone containing water and wild plants to the maximum, fermenting it with the same herbs chewed and spat into the liquid. This procedure was still used in the Basque dairy industry at the beginning of the XX century to make curd or mamilla (although the milk is introduced into wooden containers in which the hot stones were introduced). It was in Egypt that barley brewing was learned, a system that probably did not reach Europe until the period of the Indo-Europeans or Celts.
Wine and oil were unknown, using animal fats. However, as a result of the domestication of cattle, milk was known, although only goat's milk was used, and the use of cow's milk did not spread until Roman times.[citation required ]
Flour
Wheat, which was a wild plant widespread in Asia Minor, was cultivated in the Middle East and its cultivation spread in the Neolithic, reaching Europe around 5000 BC. C. They ate grains of wheat and other cereals. Later they were crushed, eaten crushed or made into a paste. Sometimes the boiled grains were also eaten.
The system of grinding flour with stone mills spread in the Neolithic. The pasta or dough made of flour and water was cooked on hot stones. Later the fermentation system was discovered and its cooking began to be carried out in increasingly evolved ovens. Bread was made with wheat, barley and rye flour, and probably also with other cereals such as millet and oats.
Neolithic art
The Neolithic style manifests a geometric and stylized artistic intention: schematic graphs that indicate, rather than reproduce, the object, symbols instead of realistic images faithful to nature.
In addition, in this period a style of cave painting developed in the Levantine area of the Iberian Peninsula based on painting hunting scenes on rocks in the open air, with schematic representations of human figures.
Another type of remains of Neolithic cultures are anthropolites, zoolites and ornitholiths found in South America.