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99-508: The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their distinct material culture , who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed to have originated from the northern Philippines , either directly, via the Mariana Islands , or both. They were notable for their distinctive geometric designs on dentate-stamped pottery, which closely resemble

198-581: A Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6200 BC, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon domesticated animals, and a fusion with Harifian hunter gatherers in the Southern Levant, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt . Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down

297-596: A ceremonial culture. Isotope analysis was performed on the excavated individuals to determine the characteristics of human migration in the Pacific during this time period. Researchers were able to analyze isotopes from 17 of the individuals. Subsequently, they found that four individuals had different isotope levels from the remaining 13. It is believed that these four individuals were immigrants, and in addition to having different isotope levels, they may have been different culturally as well. In 2016, researchers extracted

396-536: A culture contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 6000–5000 BC, Neolithic cultures east of the Taihang Mountains , filling in an archaeological gap between the two Northern Chinese cultures. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards (1,000 m ; 0.10 ha), and the collection of Neolithic findings at the site encompasses two phases. Between 3000 and 1900 BC,

495-515: A division into five periods. They also advanced the idea of a transitional stage between the PPNA and PPNB between 8800 and 8600 BC at sites like Jerf el Ahmar and Tell Aswad . Alluvial plains ( Sumer / Elam ). Low rainfall makes irrigation systems necessary. Ubaid culture originated from 6200 BC. The earliest evidence of Neolithic culture in northeast Africa was found in the archaeological sites of Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa in what

594-412: A dramatic increase in social inequality in most of the areas where it occurred; New Guinea being a notable exception. Possession of livestock allowed competition between households and resulted in inherited inequalities of wealth. Neolithic pastoralists who controlled large herds gradually acquired more livestock, and this made economic inequalities more pronounced. However, evidence of social inequality

693-592: A hole' or 'the place where one digs', during the 1952 excavation in New Caledonia . The Lapita archaeological culture is named after the type site where it was first uncovered in the Foué peninsula on Grande Terre , the main island of New Caledonia . The excavation was carried out in 1952 by American archaeologists Edward W. Gifford and Richard Shutler Jr at 'Site 13'. The settlement and pottery sherds were later dated to 800 BCE and proved significant in research on

792-674: A later period before the settlement of Eastern Polynesia when the Western Polynesians of the time had given up pottery production altogether. Archaeological evidence indicates that plainware pottery ceases abruptly in Samoa around 1 CE. According to Smith: "Ceramics were not manufactured by Polynesian societies at any time in East Polynesian prehistory". Matthew Spriggs stated: "The possibility of cultural continuity between Lapita Potters and Melanesians has not been given

891-551: A living tradition in small and extremely remote and inaccessible pockets of West Papua . Polished stone adze and axes are used in the present day (as of 2008 ) in areas where the availability of metal implements is limited. This is likely to cease altogether in the next few years as the older generation die off and steel blades and chainsaws prevail. In 2012, news was released about a new farming site discovered in Munam-ri , Goseong , Gangwon Province , South Korea , which may be

990-593: A major archaeological site 800 m (2,625 ft) from Teouma Bay on the island of Éfaté in Vanuatu . The site contains the oldest known cemetery within the Pacific Islands , and has been important in the gathering of information relating to the Lapita people of the ninth and tenth centuries BC. In late 2003, 26 inhumations consisting of 36 individuals were found in the largest-known cemetery located on

1089-608: A non-hierarchical system of organization existed is debatable, and there is no evidence that explicitly suggests that Neolithic societies functioned under any dominating class or individual, as was the case in the chiefdoms of the European Early Bronze Age . Possible exceptions to this include Iraq during the Ubaid period and England beginning in the Early Neolithic (4100–3000 BC). Theories to explain

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1188-513: A number of different ancient languages, and material culture uncovered by archaeology does not generally provide clues to the language spoken by the makers of the artifacts. Furthermore, certain Lapita groups are likely to have differences in speech and appearance from their relatives in different archipelagos or islands. Matthew Spriggs sees the Lapita as the source of Oceanic Austronesian languages and of cultural and religious concepts in much of

1287-637: A rarely used and not very useful concept in discussing Australian prehistory . During most of the Neolithic age of Eurasia , people lived in small tribes composed of multiple bands or lineages. There is little scientific evidence of developed social stratification in most Neolithic societies; social stratification is more associated with the later Bronze Age . Although some late Eurasian Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms or even states , generally states evolved in Eurasia only with

1386-520: A significant portion of their ancestry from the Anatolian hunter-gatherers (AHG), suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region. The Neolithic 1 (PPNA) period began around 10,000 BC in the Levant . A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe , dated to around 9500 BC, may be regarded as the beginning of

1485-423: A single location and ancestral wild species are still found. [1] Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat , millet and spelt , and the keeping of dogs . By about 8000 BC, it included domesticated sheep and goats , cattle and pigs . Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in

1584-596: A site in the village of Mulifanua in Samoa uncovered two adzes that strongly indicate Lapita influence. Carbon dating of material found with the adzes suggests there was a Lapita settlement at this site in roughly 1000 BCE. Radio carbon dating of sites in New Caledonia suggest there were Lapita settlements there as early as 1,110 ago. The dates and locations of more northerly Lapita-influenced settlements are still largely up for debate. The Lapita complex has been divided into three geographical subregions or provincesː

1683-527: A subdivision of Early and Late Eastern Lapita variations. Linguists and other researchers theorize that the people of the Lapita cultural complex spoke Proto-Oceanic , which is a branch of the Austronesian language family widely distributed in Southeast Asia today. However, the particular language or languages spoken by the Lapita is unknown. The languages spoken in the region today derive from

1782-758: A term coined in the 1920s by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe . One potential benefit of the development and increasing sophistication of farming technology was the possibility of producing surplus crop yields, in other words, food supplies in excess of the immediate needs of the community. Surpluses could be stored for later use, or possibly traded for other necessities or luxuries. Agricultural life afforded securities that nomadic life could not, and sedentary farming populations grew faster than nomadic. However, early farmers were also adversely affected in times of famine , such as may be caused by drought or pests . In instances where agriculture had become

1881-550: Is a large body of evidence for fortified settlements at Linearbandkeramik sites along the Rhine , as at least some villages were fortified for some time with a palisade and an outer ditch. Settlements with palisades and weapon-traumatized bones, such as those found at the Talheim Death Pit , have been discovered and demonstrate that "...systematic violence between groups" and warfare was probably much more common during

1980-563: Is better explained by lineal fission and polygyny. The shelter of early people changed dramatically from the Upper Paleolithic to the Neolithic era. In the Paleolithic, people did not normally live in permanent constructions. In the Neolithic, mud brick houses started appearing that were coated with plaster. The growth of agriculture made permanent houses far more common. At Çatalhöyük 9,000 years ago, doorways were made on

2079-540: Is now southwest Egypt. Domestication of sheep and goats reached Egypt from the Near East possibly as early as 6000 BC. Graeme Barker states "The first indisputable evidence for domestic plants and animals in the Nile valley is not until the early fifth millennium BC in northern Egypt and a thousand years later further south, in both cases as part of strategies that still relied heavily on fishing, hunting, and

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2178-1024: Is still disputed, as settlements such as Çatalhöyük reveal a lack of difference in the size of homes and burial sites, suggesting a more egalitarian society with no evidence of the concept of capital, although some homes do appear slightly larger or more elaborately decorated than others. Families and households were still largely independent economically, and the household was probably the center of life. However, excavations in Central Europe have revealed that early Neolithic Linear Ceramic cultures (" Linearbandkeramik ") were building large arrangements of circular ditches between 4800 and 4600 BC. These structures (and their later counterparts such as causewayed enclosures , burial mounds , and henge ) required considerable time and labour to construct, which suggests that some influential individuals were able to organise and direct human labour – though non-hierarchical and voluntary work remain possibilities. There

2277-591: Is supported by the pottery evidence: Lapita pottery is more similar to pottery recovered from the Philippines (at the Nagsabaran archaeological site on Luzon Island) than it is to pottery discovered anywhere else. Other evidence suggests that the Luzon area may have been the original homeland of the stamped pottery tradition that is carried forward in Lapita culture. Archaeological evidence also broadly supports

2376-615: Is the so-called "Triple-I model" (short for “intrusion, innovation, and integration"). This model posits that the Early Lapita culture arose as the result of a three-part process: “intrusion” of the Austronesian peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia (and their language, materials, and ideas) into Near Oceania; “innovation” by the Lapita people, once they reached in Melanesia, in the form of new technologies; and “integration” of

2475-621: The Bronze Age began about 3500 BC, replacing the Neolithic cultures. Around 10,000 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the Fertile Crescent. Around 10,700–9400 BC a settlement was established in Tell Qaramel , 10 miles (16 km) north of Aleppo . The settlement included two temples dating to 9650 BC. Around 9000 BC during

2574-631: The Jordan Valley ; Israel (notably Ain Mallaha , Nahal Oren , and Kfar HaHoresh ); and in Byblos , Lebanon . The start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming. In the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain

2673-820: The Lapita model between these discoveries and additional excavations were proven in the 1960s by Jack Golson , predating the Melanesian cultures and other Western Polynesian cultures. Some of the notable archeological locations include the Lolokoka site in Niuatoputapu and within the Eastern Lapita, the Nenumbo site in the Reef Islands which includes the expansion to the Solomon Islands, and

2772-559: The Longshan culture existed in the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas of northern China. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the population decreased sharply in most of the region and many of the larger centres were abandoned, possibly due to environmental change linked to the end of the Holocene Climatic Optimum . The 'Neolithic' (defined in this paragraph as using polished stone implements) remains

2871-703: The Marianas Islands , or through the Philippines , or both. The strongest support for the theory that the original people of the Lapita culture were Austronesian is linguistic evidence showing very considerable lexical continuity between Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (presumably spoken in the Philippines) and Proto-Oceanic (presumably spoken by the Lapita people). In addition, the patterns of linguistic continuity correspond to patterns of similarity in material culture. In 2011, Peter Bellwood proposed that

2970-463: The Middle East , cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC. Early development occurred in the Levant (e.g. Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B ) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are also attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived

3069-636: The Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BC), marked by the development of metallurgy , leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age . In other places, the Neolithic followed the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and then lasted until later. In Ancient Egypt , the Neolithic lasted until the Protodynastic period , c. 3150 BC. In China , it lasted until circa 2000 BC with

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3168-655: The Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into southern Iraq . The Late Neolithic began around 6,400 BC in the Fertile Crescent . By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia). This period has been further divided into PNA (Pottery Neolithic A) and PNB (Pottery Neolithic B) at some sites. The Chalcolithic (Stone-Bronze) period began about 4500 BC, then

3267-539: The Rift Valley of East Africa and surrounding areas during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic . They were South Cushitic speaking pastoralists, who tended to bury their dead in cairns whilst their toolkit was characterized by stone bowls, pestles, grindstones and earthenware pots. Through archaeology, historical linguistics and archaeogenetics, they conventionally have been identified with

3366-985: The material culture found in excavations, especially pottery, related to these ancestral communities. 'Classic' Lapita pottery was produced between 1,600 and 1,200 BCE on the Bismarck Archipelago . Artifacts exhibiting Lapita designs and techniques from a period later than 1,200 BCE have been found in the Solomon Islands , Vanuatu and New Caledonia . Lapita pottery styles from around 1,000 BCE have been found in Fiji and Western Polynesia. In Western Polynesia, Lapita pottery became less decorative and progressively simpler over time. It seems to have stopped being produced altogether in Samoa by about 2,800 years ago, and in Tonga by about 2,000 years ago. Pottery whose detailed decorative designs suggest Lapita influence

3465-730: The Balkans from 6000 BC, and in Central Europe by around 5800 BC ( La Hoguette ). Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are the Sesklo culture in Thessaly, which later expanded in the Balkans giving rise to Starčevo-Körös (Cris), Linearbandkeramik , and Vinča . Through a combination of cultural diffusion and migration of peoples , the Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BC. The Vinča culture may have created

3564-531: The Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to permanently settled farming towns , and later cities and states whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands. The profound differences in human interactions and subsistence methods associated with the onset of early agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the Neolithic Revolution ,

3663-608: The DNA from the petrous bone of three of the individuals buried at Teouma. This is the first successful DNA extraction from ancient samples taken from the tropics. The remains date to around 3,110 to 2,710 years old. DNA analysis confirmed that all three of the individuals were female. They all belong to Haplogroup B4a1a1a , the typical 'Polynesian motif'. aDNA analysis shows that the three individuals cluster together with another Lapita sample, dating to around 2,680 to 2,340 years old, taken from Talasiu, Tongatapu , Tonga; all together,

3762-673: The Far Western Lapita, the Western Lapita, and the Eastern Lapita. Within the Far Western Lapita is the New Britain or Bismarck archipelago, including the area discovered by Otto Meyer in 1909. The Western Lapita includes the artifacts found within the Solomon Islands to New Caledonia. The Eastern Lapita is attributed to the Fiji, Tonga and Samoa region. Discoveries of unique patterns within the Eastern Lapita region suggest

3861-448: The Lapita peoples into the pre-existing (non-Austronesian) populations. In 2016, DNA analysis of four Lapita skeletons found in ancient cemeteries on the islands of Vanuatu and Tonga showed that the Lapita people had descended from inhabitants of Taiwan and of the northern Philippines . This evidence of the Lapita peoples’ migration route was corroborated in 2020 by a study that did a complete mtDNA and genome-wide SNP comparison of

3960-496: The Maltese archipelago) and of Mnajdra (Malta) are notable for their gigantic Neolithic structures, the oldest of which date back to around 3600 BC. The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni , Paola , Malta, is a subterranean structure excavated around 2500 BC; originally a sanctuary, it became a necropolis , the only prehistoric underground temple in the world, and shows a degree of artistry in stone sculpture unique in prehistory to

4059-443: The Maltese islands. After 2500 BC, these islands were depopulated for several decades until the arrival of a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta. In most cases there are small chambers here, with the cover made of a large slab placed on upright stones. They are claimed to belong to a population different from that which built

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4158-651: The Middle East. The neolithization of Northwestern Africa was initiated by Iberian , Levantine (and perhaps Sicilian ) migrants around 5500-5300 BC. During the Early Neolithic period, farming was introduced by Europeans and was subsequently adopted by the locals. During the Middle Neolithic period, an influx of ancestry from the Levant appeared in Northwestern Africa, coinciding with

4257-599: The Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas (about 10,000 BC) are thought to have forced people to develop farming. The founder crops of the Fertile Crescent were wheat , lentil , pea , chickpeas , bitter vetch, and flax. Among the other major crop domesticated were rice, millet, maize (corn), and potatoes. Crops were usually domesticated in

4356-475: The Neolithic than in the preceding Paleolithic period. This supplanted an earlier view of the Linear Pottery Culture as living a "peaceful, unfortified lifestyle". Control of labour and inter-group conflict is characteristic of tribal groups with social rank that are headed by a charismatic individual – either a ' big man ' or a proto- chief – functioning as a lineage-group head. Whether

4455-781: The PPNA, one of the world's first towns, Jericho , appeared in the Levant. It was surrounded by a stone wall, may have contained a population of up to 2,000–3,000 people, and contained a massive stone tower. Around 6400 BC the Halaf culture appeared in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. In 1981, a team of researchers from the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée , including Jacques Cauvin and Oliver Aurenche, divided Near East Neolithic chronology into ten periods (0 to 9) based on social, economic and cultural characteristics. In 2002, Danielle Stordeur and Frédéric Abbès advanced this system with

4554-402: The Pacific. The Lapita complex is part of the eastern migration branch of the Austronesian expansion , which started from Taiwan between about 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. Some of the emigrants reached Melanesia and were distant descendants of much earlier migrations into the super-continent of Sahul . There are different theories about the route they took to get there. They may have gone through

4653-574: The Talepakemalai in Massau that exemplifies the earliest Lapita group within the Bismarck archipelago. As the archaeological record improved in the 1980s and 1990s, the Lapita people were found to be the original settlers in parts of Melanesia and Western Polynesia. Many scientists believe Lapita pottery in Melanesia to be proof that Polynesian ancestors passed through this area on their way into

4752-531: The apparent implied egalitarianism of Neolithic (and Paleolithic) societies have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism . Genetic evidence indicates that a drop in Y-chromosomal diversity occurred during the Neolithic. Initially believed to be a result of high incidence of violence and high rates of male mortality, more recent analysis suggests that the reduced Y-chromosomal diversity

4851-558: The area". The research team will perform accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating to retrieve a more precise date for the site. In Mesoamerica , a similar set of events (i.e., crop domestication and sedentary lifestyles) occurred by around 4500 BC in South America, but possibly as early as 11,000–10,000 BC. These cultures are usually not referred to as belonging to the Neolithic; in North America, different terms are used such as Formative stage instead of mid-late Neolithic, Archaic Era instead of Early Neolithic, and Paleo-Indian for

4950-499: The area's first Afroasiatic -speaking settlers. Archaeological dating of livestock bones and burial cairns has also established the cultural complex as the earliest center of pastoralism and stone construction in the region. In southeast Europe agrarian societies first appeared in the 7th millennium BC , attested by one of the earliest farming sites of Europe, discovered in Vashtëmi , southeastern Albania and dating back to 6500 BC. In most of Western Europe in followed over

5049-436: The arrival of pastoralism in the region. The earliest evidence for pottery, domestic cereals and animal husbandry is found in Morocco, specifically at Kaf el-Ghar . The Pastoral Neolithic was a period in Africa's prehistory marking the beginning of food production on the continent following the Later Stone Age . In contrast to the Neolithic in other parts of the world, which saw the development of farming societies,

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5148-407: The artifacts between 2,800 and 2,450 years bp . Gifford later demonstrated the connection between the evidence from previous discoveries, including Merye's Watom islands sherds and McKern's Bayard Dominick expedition . Gifford also proved a relationship between his Lapita artifacts and those discovered by Pieter Vincent van Stein Callenfels along the Karama River in Sulawesi . The time scale of

5247-487: The beach, or on small offshore islets. These locations may have been chosen because inland areas – for example in New Guinea – were already settled by other peoples. Or they may have been chosen in order to avoid areas inhabited by mosquitoes carrying malaria, against which Lapita people likely had no immune defence. Some of their houses were built on stilts over large lagoons. In New Britain , however, there were inland settlements; they were located near obsidian sources. And on

5346-423: The bow and arrow and ceramic pottery were also introduced. In later periods cities of considerable size developed, and some metallurgy by 700 BC. Australia, in contrast to New Guinea , has generally been held not to have had a Neolithic period, with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle continuing until the arrival of Europeans. This view can be challenged in terms of the definition of agriculture, but "Neolithic" remains

5445-559: The central Pacific. The earliest archaeological site in Polynesia is in Tonga. Other early Lapita discovery sites dating back to 900 BCE are also found in Tonga and contain the typical pottery and other archaeological "kit" of Lapita sites in Fiji and eastern Melanesia of about that time and immediately before. Anita Smith compares the Polynesian Lapita period with the later Polynesian Plainware ceramic period in Polynesia: "There do not appear to be new or different kinds of evidence associated with plain-ware ceramics (& lapita), only

5544-409: The consideration it deserves. In most sites there was an overlap of styles with no stratigraphic separation discernible. Continuity is found in pottery temper, importation of obsidian and in non-ceramic artefacts". Neolithic The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia , and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in

5643-399: The dead, which were plastered with mud to make facial features. The rest of the corpse could have been left outside the settlement to decay until only the bones were left, then the bones were buried inside the settlement underneath the floor or between houses. Work at the site of 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan has indicated a later Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period. Juris Zarins has proposed that

5742-406: The disappearance of a minor component of material culture and faunal assemblages is apparent. There is continuity in most aspects of the archaeological record that appears to mimic post Lapita sequences of Fiji and island Melanesia (Mangaasi and Naviti pottery).” Plainware pottery is found on many Western Polynesian islands and marks a transitional period between when only Lapita pottery was found and

5841-542: The earliest farmland known to date in east Asia. "No remains of an agricultural field from the Neolithic period have been found in any East Asian country before, the institute said, adding that the discovery reveals that the history of agricultural cultivation at least began during the period on the Korean Peninsula ". The farm was dated between 3600 and 3000 BC. Pottery, stone projectile points, and possible houses were also found. "In 2002, researchers discovered prehistoric earthenware , jade earrings, among other items in

5940-408: The earliest system of writing, the Vinča signs , though archaeologist Shan Winn believes they most likely represented pictograms and ideograms rather than a truly developed form of writing. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built enormous settlements in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine from 5300 to 2300 BC. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (in

6039-421: The early peopling of the Pacific Islands . More than 200 Lapita sites have since been uncovered, ranging more than 4,000 km from coastal and island Melanesia to Fiji and Tonga with its most eastern limit so far in Samoa . The term Lapita is now used to refer to the collection of theories regarding the origin and features of the ancestors of the people that speak the Oceanic languages. It also refers to

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6138-446: The enclosures also suggest grain and meat storage. The Neolithic 2 (PPNB) began around 8800 BC according to the ASPRO chronology in the Levant ( Jericho , West Bank). As with the PPNA dates, there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above. This system of terminology, however, is not convenient for southeast Anatolia and settlements of the middle Anatolia basin. A settlement of 3,000 inhabitants called 'Ain Ghazal

6237-520: The first cultivated crop and mark the invention of the technology of farming. This occurred centuries before the first cultivation of grains. Settlements became more permanent, with circular houses, much like those of the Natufians, with single rooms. However, these houses were for the first time made of mudbrick . The settlement had a surrounding stone wall and perhaps a stone tower (as in Jericho). The wall served as protection from nearby groups, as protection from floods, or to keep animals penned. Some of

6336-437: The first form of African food production was mobile pastoralism , or ways of life centered on the herding and management of livestock. The term "Pastoral Neolithic" is used most often by archaeologists to describe early pastoralist periods in the Sahara , as well as in eastern Africa . The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic or SPN (formerly known as the Stone Bowl Culture ) is a collection of ancient societies that appeared in

6435-403: The gathering of wild plants" and suggests that these subsistence changes were not due to farmers migrating from the Near East but was an indigenous development, with cereals either indigenous or obtained through exchange. Other scholars argue that the primary stimulus for agriculture and domesticated animals (as well as mud-brick architecture and other Neolithic cultural features) in Egypt was from

6534-406: The heads had been reburied. One grave contained the skeleton of an elderly man with three skulls sitting on his chest. Another grave contained a burial jar depicting four birds looking into the jar. Carbon dating of the shells placed this cemetery as having been in use around 1000 BCE. Lapita culture villages on islands in the area of Remote Oceania tended not to be located inland, but instead on

6633-399: The increase in population above the carrying capacity of the land and a high sedentary local population concentration. In some cultures, there would have been a significant shift toward increased starch and plant protein. The relative nutritional benefits and drawbacks of these dietary changes and their overall impact on early societal development are still debated. Teouma Teouma is

6732-415: The initial movement of Malayo-Polynesian speakers into Oceania was from the northern Philippines eastward into the Mariana Islands , then southward into the Bismarcks. An older proposal was that Lapita settlers first arrived in Melanesia via eastern Indonesia. Bellwood’s proposal included the possibility that both migration patterns happened, with different migrants taking different routes. Bellwood’s proposal

6831-427: The islands at the eastern end of the archipelago, all settlements were located inland rather than on the beaches – sometimes fairly far inland. The Lapita complex encompasses a very large geographic region from Mussay to Samoa . Lapita pottery has been found in Near Oceania as well as Remote Oceania , as far west as the Bismarck Archipelago , as far east as Samoa, and as far south as New Caledonia. Excavation at

6930-436: The next 1,500 years. Populations began to rise after 3500 BC, with further dips and rises occurring between 3000 and 2500 BC but varying in date between regions. Around this time is the Neolithic decline , when populations collapsed across most of Europe, possibly caused by climatic conditions, plague, or mass migration. Settled life, encompassing the transition from foraging to farming and pastoralism, began in South Asia in

7029-440: The next two thousand years, but in some parts of Northwest Europe it is much later, lasting just under 3,000 years from c. 4500 BC–1700 BC. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with the migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange. Anthropomorphic figurines have been found in

7128-700: The period. This site was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, as evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity, and may be the oldest known human-made place of worship. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres (10 ha), contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, and birds. Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Palestine , notably in Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho ) and Gilgal in

7227-609: The possibility that early Lapita Austronesians were direct descendants of the early colonists of the Marianas (who preceded them by about 150 years); this idea is also consistent with the pottery evidence. Recent DNA studies show that the Lapita people and modern Polynesians have a common ancestry with the Atayal people of Taiwan and the Kankanaey people of the northern Philippines. The first recorded discovery of Lapita materials

7326-464: The pottery recovered from the Nagsabaran archaeological site in northern Luzon . The Lapita intermarried with the Papuan populations to various degrees, and are the direct ancestors of the Austronesian peoples of Polynesia , eastern Micronesia , and Island Melanesia . The term 'Lapita' was coined by archaeologists after mishearing a word in the local Haveke language , xapeta'a , which means 'to dig

7425-601: The pottery – or transferred from the pottery onto those materials. Other important parts of the Lapita repertoire were: undecorated ("plain-ware") pottery, including beakers, cooking pots, and bowls; shell artifacts ; ground-stone adzes ; and flaked-stone tools made of obsidian , chert, or other available kinds of rock. The Lapita kept pigs, dogs, and chickens. Horticulture was based on root crops and tree crops, most importantly taro , yam , coconuts , bananas, and varieties of breadfruit . These foods were likely supplemented by fishing and mollusc gathering . Long-distance trade

7524-536: The preceding period. The Formative stage is equivalent to the Neolithic Revolution period in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the southwestern United States it occurred from 500 to 1200 AD when there was a dramatic increase in population and development of large villages supported by agriculture based on dryland farming of corn (maize), and later, beans, squash, and domesticated turkeys. During this period

7623-454: The predominant way of life, the sensitivity to these shortages could be particularly acute, affecting agrarian populations to an extent that otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by prior hunter-gatherer communities. Nevertheless, agrarian communities generally proved successful, and their growth and the expansion of territory under cultivation continued. Another significant change undergone by many of these newly agrarian communities

7722-417: The previous megalithic temples. It is presumed the population arrived from Sicily because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens to some small constructions found there. With some exceptions, population levels rose rapidly at the beginning of the Neolithic until they reached the carrying capacity . This was followed by a population crash of "enormous magnitude" after 5000 BC, with levels remaining low during

7821-496: The previous reliance on an essentially nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique or pastoral transhumance was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the foods produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labor in tending crop fields required more localized dwellings. This trend would continue into

7920-422: The region of Balochistan , Pakistan, around 7,000 BC. At the site of Mehrgarh , Balochistan, presence can be documented of the domestication of wheat and barley, rapidly followed by that of goats, sheep, and cattle. In April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first Early Neolithic ) evidence for the drilling of teeth in vivo (using bow drills and flint tips)

8019-583: The relics dating from after the Lapita horizon. The older material culture appears to have contributed only a few elements to the later Lapita material culture: some crops and some tools. The vast majority of the Lapita material-culture elements are clearly Southeast Asian in origin. These include pottery, crops, paddy field agriculture, domesticated animals (chickens, dogs, and pigs), rectangular stilt houses , tattoo chisels, quadrangular adzes, polished stone chisels, outrigger boat technology, trolling hooks, and various other stone artifacts. Lapita pottery offers

8118-469: The remains of early settlers of the Mariana Islands with the remains of early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga . The results suggest that both groups had descended from the same ancient Austronesian source population in the Philippines . The complete absence of "Papuan" admixture in these remains suggest that the voyages of the migrants bypassed eastern Indonesia and the rest of New Guinea . The study authors noted that their results also support

8217-692: The rise of metallurgy, and most Neolithic societies on the whole were relatively simple and egalitarian. Beyond Eurasia, however, states were formed during the local Neolithic in three areas, namely in the Preceramic Andes with the Caral-Supe Civilization , Formative Mesoamerica and Ancient Hawaiʻi . However, most Neolithic societies were noticeably more hierarchical than the Upper Paleolithic cultures that preceded them and hunter-gatherer cultures in general. The domestication of large animals (c. 8000 BC) resulted in

8316-685: The rise of the pre-Shang Erlitou culture , as it did in Scandinavia . Following the ASPRO chronology , the Neolithic started in around 10,200 BC in the Levant , arising from the Natufian culture , when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming . The Natufian period or "proto-Neolithic" lasted from 12,500 to 9,500 BC, and is taken to overlap with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) of 10,200–8800 BC. As

8415-771: The roof, with ladders positioned both on the inside and outside of the houses. Stilt-house settlements were common in the Alpine and Pianura Padana ( Terramare ) region. Remains have been found in the Ljubljana Marsh in Slovenia and at the Mondsee and Attersee lakes in Upper Austria , for example. A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in areas where crop farming and cultivation were first developed:

8514-505: The same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. In other parts of the world, such as Africa , South Asia and Southeast Asia , independent domestication events led to their own regionally distinctive Neolithic cultures, which arose completely independently of those in Europe and Southwest Asia . Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture. In

8613-518: The samples form a genetically distinct population when compared against modern populations. When compared against modern populations, the ancient samples from Teouma and Talasiu are genetically closest to the Ami and Atayal people from Taiwan, and the Kankanaey people from the northern Philippines, while sharing little similarity with modern Papuans. According to Matthew Spriggs , the ancient population at Teouma came " straight out of Taiwan and perhaps

8712-566: The sherds were prehistoric Fijian ceramics. The connection between Meyer's sherds and those excavated by McKern was made in 1940 with the discovery of pottery on the Ile des Pins . In the 1950s, Edward Winslow Gifford , who assisted McKern in 1920, led expeditions that eventually centered on the beach of the Koné Peninsula from where the Lapita term was coined. Gifford used the recently invented carbon dating on his excavated charcoal, dating

8811-557: The south coast of Éfaté Island in Vanuatu in the Pacific. The cemetery is thought to be between approximately 3200 and 3000 years old. A common feature of these burials is the presence of red pottery fragments bearing intricate designs. These individuals were buried in various positions. One consistent feature of the burials was the removal of the skull, following the decomposition of the periodontal ligaments. Once removed, these skulls were replaced with cone shell rings. This demonstrates

8910-585: The strongest evidence of an Austronesian origin. It has very distinctive elements, like the use of the red slips , tiny punch marks, dentate stamps, circle stamps, and a cross-in-circle motif. Similar pottery has been found in Taiwan , the Batanes and Luzon islands of the Philippines , and the Marianas . The orthodox view, advocated by Roger Green and Peter Bellwood , and accepted by most specialists today,

9009-404: The theory that the people of the Lapita culture are of Austronesian origin. On the Bismarck Archipelago , around 3,500 years ago, the Lapita complex appears suddenly, as a fully-developed archaeological horizon with associated highly developed technological assemblages. No evidence has been found on the archipelago of settlements in earlier developmental stages. This suggests that the Lapita culture

9108-426: Was brought in by a migrating population, and did not – as had been proposed in the 1980s and 1990s by scholars like Jim Allen and J. Peter White – evolve locally. There is evidence that western Melanesia was continuously occupied by indigenous Papuans beginning between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago. That evidence includes recovered artifacts. But those remnants of the older material culture are far less diverse than

9207-566: Was by Otto Meyer, a Sacred Heart missionary working on Watom Island in 1909. Meyer discovered potsherds after a tropical storm hit the island and exposed the artifacts. The decorated sherds were sent by Meyer to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. In 1920, anthropologist William C. McKern unearthed over 1500 potsherds in the island of Tongatapu as part of a widespread expedition, most with stamped motifs. McKern wasn't aware of Meyer's discoveries and assumed

9306-869: Was found in Mehrgarh. In South India, the Neolithic began by 6500 BC and lasted until around 1400 BC when the Megalithic transition period began. South Indian Neolithic is characterized by Ash mounds from 2500 BC in Karnataka region, expanded later to Tamil Nadu . In East Asia, the earliest sites include the Nanzhuangtou culture around 9500–9000 BC, Pengtoushan culture around 7500–6100 BC, and Peiligang culture around 7000–5000 BC. The prehistoric Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, China, contains relics of

9405-409: Was found in the outskirts of Amman , Jordan . Considered to be one of the largest prehistoric settlements in the Near East , it was continuously inhabited from approximately 7250 BC to approximately 5000 BC. Settlements have rectangular mud-brick houses where the family lived together in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult where people preserved skulls of

9504-455: Was ground into flour. Emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated ( animal husbandry and selective breeding ). In 2006, remains of figs were discovered in a house in Jericho dated to 9400 BC. The figs are of a mutant variety that cannot be pollinated by insects, and therefore the trees can only reproduce from cuttings. This evidence suggests that figs were

9603-453: Was made from a variety of materials, depending on what was available, and their crafters used a variety of techniques, depending on the tools they had. But, typically, the pottery consisted of low-fired earthenware, tempered with shells or sand, and decorated using a toothed (“dentate”) stamp. It has been theorized that these decorations may have been transferred from less hardy material, such as bark cloth (“tapa”) or mats, or from tattoos, onto

9702-402: Was one of diet . Pre-agrarian diets varied by region, season, available local plant and animal resources and degree of pastoralism and hunting. Post-agrarian diet was restricted to a limited package of successfully cultivated cereal grains, plants and to a variable extent domesticated animals and animal products. Supplementation of diet by hunting and gathering was to variable degrees precluded by

9801-512: Was practiced; items traded included obsidian , adzes , adze source-rock, and shells. In 2003, at the Teouma archeological excavation site on Efate Island in Vanuatu , a large cemetery was discovered, including 25 graves containing burial jars and a total of 36 human skeletons. All the skeletons were headless: At some point after the bodies had originally been buried, the skulls had been removed and replaced with rings made from cone shells, and

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