Introduction
The Neolithic periodthe Neolithic period or New Stone Age relates to the period of human culture around 10,000 BC in the Middle East and is characterized by the domestication of plants and animals, This age also produced polished stones, flint tools, and weapons, and is associated with civilization. The advent of writing and metalworking is said to mark the end of the Neolithic Period. More is characterized by the use of stone tools, which were ground and polished, and by the dependence upon domesticated plants and animals to supplement hunting and gathering subsistencea method whereby humans are able to continue their existence; condition of being able to stay alive; practices that maintain survival practices. This period of intense development is also associated with climate change and according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia online, the keeping of dogs.
It is suggested that people became less mobile and built permanent settlements because tending crops requires constant care like watering, weeding, and harvesting. Still, they lived in mostly egalitarianegalitarian does not mean "equal," rather it means equal access to resources for survival small bands or tribes, with little or no social stratification. Staying in a permanent place also led to development of different kinds of shelters, which needed to be more lasting than straw huts. Neolithic peoples made mud into bricks to create shelters to withstand the elements. They began to make pottery, and weave mats and baskets. Building with bricks was only the beginning of creating bigger structures.
The Neolithic peoples built megalithic monuments, which are both puzzling and mysterious. One such monument, which is known the world over is the giant structure of Stonehenge.   Stonehenge is but one of many megalithic stone structures built around the world.
The first peoples to enter the European global villagethe European culture region includes Europe, excluding those parts where the Slavic language is dominant, but also includes Greenland along with islands associated with the region were these Neolithic populations, migrated west from Asia by 5,000 BC. Europe, as designated today, gets its earliest cultural influences from the first viable civilizationa highly developed and advanced human society, associated with population density, writing and record-keeping, education, art, science, and complex political and social institutions which arose around 2800 BC on the Isle of Crete. The cultural-heartha place where related changes in land-use shows periods of human occupation in which domestication of animals and plants appear; cultural hearths may contain such items as tools, cultural objects like the wheel, stone tablets, religious totems, or remains of shelters or even seeds that may have been cultivated More of Crete had social and technological advances lasting for 2,000 years.
About 10,000 years ago human beings decided it would be easier to grow their own foodany nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth and stay in one place, than to hunt and gather and always have to be on the move. We don’t know why this cultural adaptationculture is the primary way that humans adapt to their environmental surroundings More wasn’t thought of sooner, but today it is considered the greatest invention of all time!
An even more amazing fact is how the various populations, located in many places, across the planet developed this cultural adaptation, independently, around the same period of time.
People also began to realize that domesticating animals would be a big help to them in many ways, including the growing of food. Animals could be used as beasts of burdens, to be raised for eating, to work in the fields turning over the soil, to help in flooding fields, and to be used as vehicles of travel.
In order to domesticate a plant or an animal, there must be a wild ancestora person from whom you descend; grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-great grandparents, etc., direct-line ancestor, forefather or forebear More. The wild ancestors of the first domesticated plants and animals were of different species, depending upon the geographic areas where agriculturecultivation of soil to grow food plants using technologies such as plowing, irrigation, terracing, fertilizers and harnessing power of domesticated animals began to be practiced.
Without agriculture and the Neolithic Period of growth, there would not be civilization; so agriculture and civilization are co-dependents in the rise of cultural evolutionthe gradual development of something from a simple to a more complex form; in nature the process by which different organisms develop and diversify from earlier forms during the history of the earth; Darwin's theory of natural selection seeks to explain the process of evolution of all organisms, which is examined in depth in another course entitled, Evolution of Cultureculture is not genetically inherited, it is shared, learned, and dynamic- never static and “the Political.”
The video that follows is about the beginnings of the Neolithic Period; and the second one, a podcast, is about the geographic area where it all began.
Beginning of the Neolithic Period
The geography of the Fertile Crescent Area is discussed in the following podcast.
After careful study of the two above film clips, go to the online Outline of the Neolithic Revolution and the Birth of Civilization and click on the green link to follow the chronological timeline from when humans began to take control of their environmentthe surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates; the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences;Â ecology, the air, water, minerals, organisms, and all other external factors and influences, to the social implications that followed.
After studying the Neolithic Period and cultural adaptations, it is easy to see how being able to build a permanent settlement around crops leads to more sedentary lifestyles. When hunting and gathering were the only means of food acquisition, humans were traveling back and forth between “base camps” when hunting; and seasonally moving to the areas where food plants were plentiful. They walked, ran, climbed, and pulled themselves over all kinds of terrains to get to their food supplies. Lack of exercise was definitely not a problem.
We do not yet know the end result of the great Neolithic Period, but we do know that excessive urbanizationthe process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more and more people begin living and working in the central areas, lack of population control, depletion of natural resources, and epidemic-size health problems are all consequences of our cultural adaptations over the last 10,000 years.