Transcript Reviewing the Neolithic

WHAT does
'neolithic' mean?
WHAT does
'neolithic' mean?
Neo = New
Lithic = Stone (from the Greek lithikós)
Neolithic = New Stone Age
WHAT characterised
the neolithic period?
WHAT characterised the
neolithic period?
• More sophisticated stone tools
• Food production - agriculture and
animal domestication
• Sedentary living
• Pottery
WHEN was the
neolithic period?*
WHEN was the
neolithic period?*
•8000 - 3500 BC
* Bearing in mind it happened in
different times in different places.
WHY is an appreciation of the neolithic
period important to our study of the
civilizations of Mesopotamia and the
Ancient Mediterranean, beginning about
3000 BC?
WHY is an appreciation of the neolithic
period important to our study of the
civilizations of Mesopotamia and the
Ancient Mediterranean, beginning about
3000 BC?
• The Fertile Crescent (including Mesopotamia)
was the first part of the world to enter the
Neolithic stage and food production took off
there in the most dramatic fashion. This goes a
long way to explain why this is where we find the
first 'civilizations' there.
The Fertile Crescent
Jared Diamond 2005,
Guns, Germs & Steel
Chapter 5: Apples or Indians?
1. Two contrasting explanations of why agriculture
arose in some places and not in others.
1.1 Agriculture never arose independently in some
fertile & highly suitable areas.
1.11 Eg. California, Europe temperate Australia,
subequatorial Africa
1.2 Problem with the local people or problems with
the locally available wild plants?
Apples or Indians?
• 2. Wild plants
2.1 Worldwide - 200, 000 wild flowering plants
2.2 Vast majority are unsuitable for domestication
2.21 They are woody
2.22 No fruit, their leaves and roots are inedible
2.3 Only a few thousand are eaten by humans and
only a few hundred have been domesticated
2.31 Of those plants that have been domesticated,
most are only minor supplements to our diet. A
dozen plants make up 80% of the world’s annual
tonnage of all crops
Apples or Indians?
• 3. Plants domesticated in one area but not
another
3.1 Eg, why did the native people of southern
Africa not cultivate sorghum for themselves?
3.2 Eg, Western Europe and North Africa failed
to domesticate flax
3.3 Einkorn wheat not cultivated in the Balkans
3.4 Apple and grape domesticated in Eurasia
but not in Eurasia
Apples or Indians?
• 4. Many domesticable plants and animals necessary to
make a food-producing existence worthwhile
4.1 We need to assess the potential of an entire local
flora for domestication.
4.2 Fertile Crescent – the earliest centre of food
production. New Guinea and the eastern United States
domesticated local crops but they were few in variety.
4.21 ‘Food package’ in PNG and US did not support
extensive development of human technology and
political organisation.
4.3 Did flora and environment of the Fertile Crescent
have advantages over PNG and the US?
Apples or Indians?
• 5. Fertile Crescent
5.1 Earliest site for a whole string of developments; cities, writing,
empires, civilization
5.2 These developments enabled by the early development of
food production
5.21 food production > dense population > stored food surpluses
> feeding of nonfarming specialists
5.3 Extensive knowledge about rise of agriculture
5.31 Relationship between crops and wild plant ancestors proven
by genetic and chromosomal studies
5.31 Geographic range of wild plants known
5.32 Changes due to domestication known precisely – observable
in the archaeological record
5.33 Place and time of domestication known
Apples or Indians?
• 6. Advantage of Fertile Crescent Flora #1 – annual
plants
6.1 Mediterranean climate (long, hot, dry summers)
selects for annuals.
6.2 Annuals tend to put their energy into producing
big seeds (ready to sprout quickly when the rain
comes).
6.21 Many of the big seeds are edible by humans
(cereals and pulses).
6.211 6 of the world’s 12 major crops today
6.22 Annual seeds well adapted to being held in long
storage by humans