New Stone Age
Neolithic, also called New Stone Age, final stage of cultural evolution or
technological development among prehistoric humans. It was characterized
by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, dependence
on domesticated plants or animals, settlement in permanent villages, and the
appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving. The Neolithic followed
the Paleolithic Period, or age of chipped-stone tools, and preceded the Bronze
Age, or early period of metal tools.The Neolithic stage of development was
attained during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700 years of Earthhistory). The
starting point of the Neolithic is much debated, with different parts of the world
having achieved the Neolithic stage at different times, but it is generally thought
to have occurred sometime about 10,000 BCE. During that time, humans
learned to raise crops and keep domestic livestock and were thus no longer
dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants.
Neolithic cultures made more-useful stone tools by grinding and polishing
relatively hard rocks rather than merely chipping softer ones down to the desired
shape. The cultivation of cereal grains enabled Neolithic peoples to build
permanent dwellings and congregate in villages, and the release
from nomadism and a hunting-gathering economy gave them the time to
pursue specialized crafts. Archaeological evidence indicates that the transition
from food-collecting cultures to food-producing ones gradually occurred across
Asia and Europe from a starting point in the Fertile Crescent. The first evidence of
cultivation and animal domestication in southwestern Asia has been dated to
roughly 9500 BCE, which suggests that those activities may have begun before
that date. A way of life based on farming and settled villages had been firmly
achieved by 7000 BCE in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys (now
in Iraq and Iran) and in what are now Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. Those
earliest farmers raised barley and wheat and kept sheep and goats, later
supplemented by cattle and pigs. Their innovations spread from the Middle
East northward into Europe by two routes: across Turkey and Greece into central
Europe, and across Egypt and North Africa and thence to Spain.
Farming communities appeared in Greece as early as 7000 BCE, and farming
spread northward throughout the continent over the next four millennia. This
long and gradual transition was not completed in Britain and Scandinavia until
after 3000 BCE and is known as the Mesolithic.
Old Stone Age
The Paleolithic or Palaeol, also called the Old Stone Age, is a period in
human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that
covers c. 99% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest
known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of
the Pleistocene c. 11,650 cal BP.
The Paleolithic Age is followed in Europe by the Mesolithic Age, although the
date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years.
During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such
as bands, and subsisted by gathering plants and fishing, hunting or scavenging
wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of knapped stone
tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other
organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and
vegetable fibers; however, due to their rapid decomposing nature, these have
not been preserved to any great degree.
About 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts.
In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record.
The first evidence of human fishingis also noted, from artifacts in places such
as Blombos cave in South Africa. Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last
50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving
tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools.
Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo—such
as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern
humans as well as behaviorally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic. During
the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age,
humans began to produce the earliest works of art and began to engage in
religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual. The climate during the
Paleolithic Age consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the
climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.
Archaeological and genetic data suggest that the source populations of
Paleolithic humans survived in sparsely wooded areas and dispersed through
areas of high primary productivity while avoiding dense forest cover.
By c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP,
humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe. By c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached,
and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At
the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age, a group of humans crossed Beringia and
quickly expanded throughout the Americas.
