UNIT 1: NEOLITHIC

REVOLUTION,CIVILIZATION

Objectives:

1. Identify the importance of the Neolithic Revolution.

2. Define Civilization.

THE BASICS OF ARCHEOLOGY

Prehistory-Time before written history.

Artifacts- Remains such as tools and jewelry, and other human made objects that give clues to people’s culture.

CULTURE- People’s unique way of life.

Prehistoric Cave Painting, Lascaux Cave, France

Prehistoric Stone Tools

STONE AGE

Paleolithic Age1. “Old Stone Age”2. NOMADIC

lifestyle-people migrated following the herds.

3. Hunter-Gatherer societies.

4. Used the oldest stone chopping tools.

Neolithic Age1. “New Stone Age”2. SEDENTARY

lifestyle.3. Farming societies,

animal DOMESTICATION

4. People learned to polish tools.

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION-

Agricultural revolution- NOW PEOPLE CAN GROW FOOD AND LIVE IN ONE PLACE!!

SLASH and BURN FARMING-Farming technique where trees are cut and burned to clear a field.

DOMESTICATION-Taming of animals for food and work purposes.

Villages began to develop in Africa, China, Mexico, Central America, and Peru.

VILLAGES GROW INTO CITIES

Economic Changes:1. Irrigation

systems 2. Food surplus

allows for other jobs (pottery, metal tools, woven cloth).

3. Trade develops.4. Invention of the

wheel and sail helped move trade.

Social Changes:1. Special

groups of workers form social classes.

2. Religion centered around natural forces.

ÇATALHÜYÜK

WHAT IS A CIVILIZATION?

Advanced Cities- center of trade. Specialized Workers- different jobs

(traders, government officials, priests, and artisans).

Complex Institutions- government, religion, economy.

Record Keeping- writing systems used by professional writers called scribes.

Advanced Technology- new tools and technology (irrigation, plows, pottery, metal weapons).

Domestication:

What was domesticated for consistent human use during the Neolithic Revolution?

• Plants

o Crops provided a source of food more reliable than hunting and gathering.

• Animals

o Animals provided a reliable source of meat, milk, wool, and labor.

AREAS OF IMPORTANCE: CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING SLIDES FOR

DISCUSSION. KNOW AND BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE

THESE IMPORTANT CONCEPTS.

THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION: ANALYZING PRIMARY SOURCES

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the shift in human culture that began to take place around 10,000 B.C. This was the beginning of settled agriculture and the emergence of urban life: the Neolithic Revolution. For the first time communities enjoyed a surplus of food. Freed of the need to grow their own food, workers could specialize, arts and writing flourished, and an elite class emerged that did not need to work at all. Not everyone made the transition from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles, but those who did changed the course of history.

“Plant-cultivation and stock-breeding – in a word, food-production – constituted an epoch-making innovation. It is rightly taken to mark in archaeology the beginning of a new age – the Neolithic or New Stone Age – or in socio-economic terms the boundary between Savagery and Barbarism. Throughout the several hundred millennia of the Old Stone Age all human societies all over the world remained parasitic, depending entirely for their food on what natural processes happened to supply. Neolithic societies began deliberately co-operating with nature to increase the productivity of edible plants and to protect and foster the multiplication of animals that yield food as meat, blood, or milk.”

       —Vere Gordon Childe, The Prehistory of European Society

Changes During the Neolithic Revolution

In the broadest sense, a revolution is any massive, fundamental change. The Neolithic shift from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture fundamentally changed the way people lived, allowing for the following developments:

• Specialization of labor

• Creation of cities

• Emergence of a barter economy