NEOLITHIC: CHARACTERISTICS, ART, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION, RELIGION - HISTORY - 2025

The Neolithic was the last stage of the Stone Age. The word means "new stone" and refers to the emergence of new techniques for making tools. While in the first period of Prehistory, the Paleolithic (ancient stone), the stone was carved more roughly, in the Neolithic the material was polished to improve the final result.

Although the Neolithic period developed at a different rate depending on the area of ​​the planet, in general terms it is considered that it spanned between 6,000 BC. C and 2 000 a. C, approximately. The factor that led to this period was the end of the ice age, which led to great changes in the way of life of human beings.

Agriculture in the Neolithic. Image via

In addition to the new techniques of stone carving, the transformations during this period were of such magnitude that many experts speak of a true Neolithic revolution. The human being, until then nomadic and hunter-gatherer, learned to cultivate the fields and domesticated animals.

The inhabitants of the time began to build the first fixed settlements. This meant that specialization in work appeared and some sectors began to accumulate wealth and to trade with other localities.

characteristics

Map showing approximate centers of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistoric times: eastern United States. (4000-3000 BC), Central Mexico (5000-4000 BC), Northern South America (5000-4000 BC), Sub-Saharan Africa (5000-4000 BC, exact location unknown), Middle Fertile (11000 BC), Yangtze basins and the Yellow River (9000 BC) and the New Guinea Highlands (9000-6000 BC). Joe roe

The Neolithic was the third stage of the Stone Age, after the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. This periodization is based on the techniques developed by humans to carve the stone. Thus, the Neolithic term means "new stone" and refers to the fact that humans began to polish this material to improve their utensils.

Stages

In turn, the Neolithic has been divided by experts into three different phases. The first was the early Neolithic, which spanned approximately 6,000 BC. C and 3 500 a. C.

This first stage was followed by the Middle Neolithic. This, which comprised between 3 000 a. C and 2 800 a. C, is considered as the golden age of this period.

Finally, between 2 800 a. C and 2 300 a. C, is the final Neolithic. At the end it gave way to the Age of Metals.

Climate change

The Paleolithic had been marked by a series of glaciations that had forced humans to take shelter in caves in order to survive. The situation began to change about 10,000 years ago, when the climate began to be more temperate.

Taking advantage of improved environmental conditions, human beings changed their way of life. The disappearance of extreme cold allowed him to start practicing agriculture and livestock and, thanks to this, he left nomadism behind and settled in stable settlements.

Perfecting the tools

Neolithic cutlery and food found in Switzerland. Items include: millstones, charred bread, small grains and apples, a clay pot, and containers made of antlers and wood. Historical Museum of Bern

As the very name of the period indicates, the human being perfected the way of making tools in a remarkable way. The new techniques differed from those used up to that time by polishing the stone, which made the utensils more resistant and effective.

In addition to the tools already invented in previous periods, such as arrows or spears, some new ones were invented at this time, many related to agriculture.

Sedentary lifestyle and the beginning of agriculture

The discovery of agriculture and the abandonment of nomadism were two directly related events. From the moment that humans could obtain food without relying only on hunting, it was no longer necessary to move to search for new prey.

This allowed stable settlements to begin to arise. At first, they were a few huts, but over time they became towns and villages.

Neolithic houses

The construction of fixed settlements forced humans to improve the quality of their homes. For this they began to use materials such as adobe.

Little by little, these settlements began to grow. Normally, they were located in places with nearby water sources and where it was easy to cultivate the field.

When agriculture began to produce surpluses, it became necessary to erect buildings to serve as warehouses. Likewise, the increasing complexity of societies ended up causing buildings for administration to be built.

Development of the textile industry

Although the men of the Paleolithic already treated the skins of animals to use them as clothing, it was not until the Neolithic that the textile industry appeared.

On the one hand, tools for this activity were invented and, on the other, the materials used to make the clothes were expanded.

Tools and inventions

The Neolithic was the time of greatest splendor for the lithic industry. At the same time, it was also the last period in which it mattered. Later, entering the Copper Age, metals replaced stone as the most important raw material of humanity.

Within the periodization of the lithic industry, the one practiced during the Neolithic was the so-called technical mode 5, characterized by the polishing of the stone.

Polishing the stone

The very name of this period, Neolithic (new stone) refers to the new way of working with stone. The old method of building tools by percussion was a substitute for polishing. With this system, they managed to make the edges sharper and the utensils more resistant.

Another change that took place gradually was the replacement of flint, the type of stone most used in earlier times, by other harder rocks. In part, this was because humans began to do new jobs, such as logging, and the flint did not have enough strength to be able to do them correctly.

Pottery

Pottery was born during this period when clay or clay began to be used to make dishes, pots and similar utensils.

The objective was to have containers that could be used to store food or liquids at a time when food production began to produce surpluses. Furthermore, in the case of water, being able to store it meant not having to travel to fetch it every time it was needed.

One of the inventions related to this activity were ovens. The first artisans made the pieces by hand and, later, baked them in the ovens they had built.

Other inventions

The new activities that appeared during the Neolithic were accompanied by inventions related to them.

One of these inventions was the wheel, which appeared around 3,500 BC. At first, the wheels were not used for transportation, but for agricultural or pottery work.

On the other hand, the new textile industry was favored by the appearance of the loom. It was a weaving machine made of wood.

Finally, the reciprocating mill was one of the most important inventions during the Neolithic. Its function was to grind the grain to use it directly or to turn it into flour.

Political and social organization

The abandonment of nomadism in favor of sedentary lifestyle caused great transformations in the way of social organization. During the Paleolithic, human groups had been very small, with members related by family ties. Its organization was simple and was based on cooperation between all components.

Instead, the stable settlements soon began to grow. The new economic activities caused the appearance of new concepts such as the accumulation of wealth or the specialization of work and, with it, social stratification.

First settlements

There is evidence that around the year 7,000 BC. C some stable communities already existed. This sedentary lifestyle appeared at the same time in several areas of the planet: the Middle East, Anatolia, Greece or in the Indus Valley, among other places.

Social stratification

As has been pointed out, human settlements soon began to grow, in part due to the increase in population that allowed for better food and better climatic conditions.

Within these towns, human beings began to develop new economic activities, from agriculture to crafts. Over time, this ended up causing workers to specialize.

Unlike during the Paleolithic, social differentiation no longer had to do with strength or skill in hunting, but with the type of work performed.

In this way, Neolithic society was stratifying. According to anthropologists, it is the first time that social organization can be described with a pyramid.

Its base was made up of those who were engaged in agriculture and livestock, who formed the largest group. In a second step were the artisans, highly valued for carrying out a new activity. Finally, at the top, was the head of the settlement, who was originally elected by the inhabitants.

Later, when some families began to accumulate wealth and power, the headship began to fall on them. It would be, in some way, the equivalent of the future nobility.

Art

As in other areas, art in the Neolithic period also underwent its own evolution. To begin with, it stopped depicting natural images or scenes and became more schematic and symbolic.

Painting

Neolithic cave paintings found in the Tassil-n-Ajjer (Abyss Plateau) region of the Sahara

Although experts point out that there were particularities depending on the geographical area, some general characteristics can be pointed out.

Among them, it stands out that the theme of these artistic manifestations is more varied, with the human being displacing the animals as the central theme. However, the painted figures cease to be naturalistic and become more symbolic.

On the other hand, fertility became one of the most frequent themes in these works. This resulted in numerous paintings that reflect natural elements associated with it.

Sculpture

Female and male figurines; 9000-7000 BC Made of plaster with inlays of bitumen and stone. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (USA)

The sites dating from the Paleolithic have shown that humans from that period made small anthropomorphic statuettes. These, however, practically disappeared during the Mesolithic.

Already in the Neolithic, artisans recovered this type of small human representations. In addition to the traditional stone ones, clay was also used to model them.

Mother Goddess. Cucuteni culture. Piatra Neamt Museum. Authorship: CristianChirita, wikimedia commons.

As in earlier periods, most of these statuettes depicted female figures, with fertility-related features exaggerated. Anthropologists point out that they were representations of the Mother Goddess, linked to harvests and births.

Architecture

Within the art that was developed in this period, the great megalithic monuments stood out in a remarkable way. As their name indicates, they are construction made with huge stones that differ in the elements they contain.

Despite its spectacular nature, experts do not know one hundred percent what its function was. There are several theories, ranging from the possibility that they were astronomical observatories or funerary constructions.

Apart from this, tombs built in imitation of caves have also appeared. These burial sites have several galleries and a chamber in which human remains were placed. Inside these chambers domes were often erected using masonry.

Ceramics

The birth of pottery was not only of great practical importance, but also became a new type of artistic manifestation.

In the beginning, ceramics were directly related to basketry. Its first use was as a waterproofing layer for containers made of clay. Later, it was used to fill a kind of basic wicker structure. Finally, ceramics became the material with which the whole object was made.

Once the use of ceramics spread, humans began to decorate their creations. The vessels or containers that were made used to have very simple shapes, but the ornaments were more varied.

Economy

The great economic transformation in this period was the appearance of agriculture and livestock. A little earlier, during the Mesolithic, some human groups had already begun to cultivate the land, but it was in the Neolithic when this spread.

The most accepted theory affirms that the development of agriculture was a long process and based on the observation of what happened when seeds were thrown to the ground.

Something similar happened with livestock. The human being had domesticated dogs in the Paleolithic and it is assumed that he used the same methods to, little by little, do the same with other animals.

From hunter-gatherer to farmer and rancher

The dominant economic system during the Paleolithic era was the predator. In this model, the human being hunted and collected fruits and vegetables in order to feed and dress, taking advantage of what he found around him.

It was a system in which there was no type of division of labor. There were also no commercial activities beyond the exchanges that could be carried out through barter.

Specialists mark the ninth millennium BC as the beginning of the great transformations that have been called the Neolithic revolution. The human being went from this predatory economy to a productive one, changing hunting and gathering for livestock and agriculture.

Migration

Along with livestock, a concept emerged that ended up favoring contact and communication between the different human communities: transhumance. In this, the shepherds move the cattle from one place to another in search of better pastures.

The encounters that took place thanks to herding were essential to exchange technical and cultural knowledge.

Wealth concept

The appearance of the productive economy brought about an absolute change in the Neolithic society. The consequences of the new economic system based on agriculture and livestock were the appearance of production surpluses, the division and specialization of labor, private property and, consequently, wealth.

Although all these new concepts appeared as soon as production began, it was not until the Middle Neolithic that they were consolidated. At that time there was a great improvement in the cultivation tools and in the irrigation methods, which allowed to increase the surpluses.

Commerce

The aforementioned accumulation of surpluses and the appearance of new economic activities, such as pottery or handicrafts, led to human beings starting to trade with each other. At first, trade was limited by distance, as moving goods was very slow.

However, as time went by, traders began to move away from their place of origin in order to reach more distant markets. Little by little, more or less stable trade routes were established.

farming

The development of agriculture was one of the events that favored the social and economic changes that occurred during the Neolithic. For humans, it meant not having to depend on what they found around them to survive, since by controlling the crops, periodic harvests were ensured.

One of the effects of moving to an economy based on agriculture was an increase in population. Thanks to this, many individuals were migrating to other regions, which made the Neolithic reach Europe.

On the other hand, the introduction of cereals and other similar products into the human diet represented an improvement in their diet. Consequently, their life expectancy was increasing.

The fertile crescent

According to anthropologists, the first place on the planet where agriculture began to be practiced was in the so-called Fertile Crescent, an area located between Mesopotamia, Persia and the Mediterranean Levant.

The favorable climatic and geographical conditions of this area allowed its inhabitants to start cultivating the land. Likewise, it is thought that it was there that the first animals dedicated to livestock were domesticated and where ceramics began to be worked.

Primitive crops

As has been indicated, the evidence found so far places the beginning of agriculture in the northern part of Mesopotamia and in present-day Turkey. According to anthropologists, these first crops were produced around the 9th millennium BC. C.

Since there are no written references, it is impossible to know how humans of that time learned to master agriculture. The most widely accepted theory states that they had to learn by observing the plants that grew spontaneously around them.

In this way, it is probable that they began to look at the dates on which the most consumed products matured and, little by little, they learned to plant and cultivate them.

The first crops were wheat and barley, cereals very present in the area and that need little care. Later, they began to plant and cultivate other types of cereals, such as rye or millet, along with some legumes.

Itinerant crops

The way to practice agriculture in this first phase was by means of the itinerant cultivation method. This consisted of removing vegetation from an area and burning it in order to plant in it. Once that soil showed signs of depletion, the first farmers selected a new area and repeated the process.

Later on, humans learned to improve the system. This allowed them to achieve better harvests, in addition to being able to take advantage of the same soils without having to abandon them every few years.

Other areas

Agriculture was, little by little, establishing itself in other areas of the planet. The environmental conditions marked which type of crop was predominant in each one of them.

Meanwhile, as noted, barley and wheat were the most frequent in the Middle East, while in China their role was played by rice. On the other hand, it is known that corn was the most important crop in America, a continent in which it began to be cultivated from the 7th millennium BC.

Agricultural technical innovations

Since he began to practice agriculture, Neolithic man began to make new tools with which to improve the harvest.

Many of them were adaptations of existing utensils, such as when flint teeth were attached to wooden handles to use as sickles. They did something similar with the axes, which with those handles became hoes.

Another important advance was the creation of mortars. Its structure was very similar to that of current mortars, although the grain was ground by hitting it with a stone. In this way, flour was obtained to be used in food.

Cattle raising

Livestock was the other great economic activity that was born during the Neolithic. Like agriculture, the domestication of cattle was first carried out in the Fertile Crescent, around 9,000 BC. C.

First domesticated species

Humans had already managed to domesticate canids in the Upper Paleolithic. Possibly, during the Neolithic they used the same techniques to domesticate other animals.

According to the remains found, the first animal that was used as cattle was the goat. Evidence of the presence of this species in settlements has been found in some sites in present-day Iran and Iraq. In addition to its meat, milk was also used.

Following the goats, humans proceeded to domesticate other species. According to experts, the next were sheep, cows, pigs and some birds. Later, they did the same with other larger animals, such as horses or oxen.

Selection of animals

The first farmers did not limit themselves to domesticating the animals, but also proceeded to select those specimens that best suited their needs. Normally, they chose the smallest and most docile.

Over time, this selection produced a kind of genetic modification of animals, which explains why domesticated species (including plants) present notable differences from their wild counterparts.

Weapons

The entire Neolithic lithic industry presented news on previous techniques. This includes the manufacture of weapons, the improvements of which represented an increase in their efficiency.

A good example was the tips of flint. During this period, artisans made them smaller and sharper, which made it possible to attach handles to them so that they were easier to use.

One of the most important novelties in this area were the arches, made with tendons. The arrows were made of polished stones and carved into the proper shape. On the other hand, bone arrows have been found in some sites.

Generally speaking, Neolithic weapons were adaptations of older weapons. For example, from the stick the spear, the spear with its impeller and the bow itself were created.

The ax

The polished stone ax became one of the most widely used weapons in the Neolithic. Like other articles of this type, it is actually the evolution of the hand ax that was already used in the Paleolithic.

In addition to the improvement in the treatment of the stone, this type of ax had a wooden or bone handle that made its use much easier.

Other weapons that were also widely used were the club and the spear. The first, very simple in its conception, caused lethal damage to enemies, as some experiments carried out in England have shown. The spear, for its part, improved its effectiveness thanks to the polishing of the tip.

Bow and arrow

As already noted, the bow and arrow were the most advanced weapon in the entire Stone Age. It is a late invention, since it did not begin to be used until the end of the Neolithic Age, when the Metal Age was about to begin.

Faced with other weapons that required their wielder to approach their prey, the bow made it possible to attack from afar. On the contrary, some skill in its use was needed to achieve the objective.

In the Age of Metals, humans continued to use the bow and arrow. The difference was that they changed the stone tips for others made with iron.

War in the Neolithic

Apart from the technical improvement when it comes to making weapons, what made the difference between the Neolithic and previous periods is that they began to be used in warfare.

War was an unknown phenomenon during the Paleolithic. Possibly there were clashes, but not in a general and organized manner. Instead, evidence has been found that this did happen in the Neolithic.

One of the most impressive deposits in this regard was found in Talheim, Germany. There, a mass grave with about 7,500 years old appeared. The buried human remains show signs of having been killed with great violence, possibly in the course of a battle. According to experts, some 34 individuals were executed with a blow to the head.

Religion

Paleolithic man, especially since the appearance of Neanderthals, had some beliefs that can be assimilated to religion. In that period, the human being was a totemist and believed that animal spirits influenced their existence.

The Neolithic changes caused humans to transfer their adoration of animals to the earth as a provider of food and life.

Fertility

Agriculture and livestock changed the way that human beings had to relate to their environment. For the first time, he was able to produce his own food, although he was still dependent on nature for good crops. For this reason, the fertility of the land and animals became of decisive importance.

This made the ancient rituals intended for good hunting to cease to make sense. Instead, they were replaced by others whose aim was to make the land fertile.

Goddesses of fertility

This change in religious paradigm has been verified thanks to the archaeological remains found in various sites.

The main evidence is the clay figurines that represented the Goddess-mother or goddesses of fertility. These female figures were buried in fields destined for crops so that the harvest would be abundant.

The same purpose led Neolithic humans to worship other elements of nature, such as the sun, rain or the plants themselves.

First priests

The greater complexity of Neolithic societies also had an impact on religion. Thus, the first priests began to appear to direct the rituals that were celebrated and, from very early on, they were among the most powerful characters.

On the other hand, the first sanctuaries and temple were built to carry out religious ceremonies. The most common were ritual dances. Directed by religious authority they were destined to favor the fertility of the fields and animals.

Funeral rites

One of the aspects of human life in which religious rituals were first performed was burials. Already the Neanderthals, during the Paleolithic, buried their dead and adorned their graves with ceremonial reasons.

In the Neolithic tombs, metal vessels and objects have been found that should have been used by the deceased to enter the world of the dead correctly.

The remains found indicate that the deceased were buried with great care in excavated tombs or in structures designed for that purpose. Normally, burial sites were near towns or occasionally next to houses.

References

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