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91-641: The Pengtoushan culture was a Neolithic culture located around the central Yangtze River region in northwestern Hunan province, China . It dates to around 7500–6100 BC, and was roughly contemporaneous with the Peiligang culture to the north. It is named after the type site at Pengtoushan. Pengtoushan, located in Li County, Hunan , is the type site for the Pengtoushan culture. Excavated in 1988, Pengtoushan has been difficult to date accurately, with

182-581: 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

273-516: A battle axe with an iron blade and gold-decorated bronze shaft were both found in the excavation of Ugarit. A dagger with an iron blade found in Tutankhamun's tomb , 13th century BCE, was recently examined and found to be of meteoric origin. Iron-working Phoenician colonization along the coast and trade with the inland caused the Maghreb to rapidly transfer from this intermediary stage to

364-502: A characteristic "wavy line" pottery ), Arkell inferred "a common fishing and hunting culture spread by negroid people right across Africa at about the latitude of Khartoum at a time when the climate was so different that it was not desert." Hunter-fishers, who created the wavy line pottery in 6700 BCE, were black African rather than Mediterranean in origin and showed signs of intentional cultivation of grain crops instead of simply gathering wild grains. Several scholars have argued that

455-536: 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,

546-515: 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

637-412: 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

728-455: A dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years (17,000 AD). During the last glacial period , the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries. The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to

819-626: A large variability in dates ranging from 9000 BC to 5500 BC. Cord-marked pottery was discovered among the burial goods. Another important site is Bashidang , also in Li County, belonging to the late stage of the Pengtoushan culture. It features a wall and a ditch, as well as a star-shaped platform. Rice residues at Pengtoushan have been carbon dated to 8200–7800 BC, showing that rice had been domesticated by this time. At later stages, pots containing grains of rice were also dated to approximately 5800 BC. By 4000 BC, evidence of rice domestication in

910-551: 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

1001-608: 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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1092-581: A pastoral community during a period of pastoralism . Human remains were found by archaeologists in 2000 at a site known as Gobero in the Ténéré Desert of northeastern Niger . The Gobero finds represent a uniquely preserved record of human habitation and burials from what is now called the Kiffian (7700 BCE – 6200 BCE) and the Tenerian (5200 BCE – 2500 BCE) cultures. The classic account of

1183-637: 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

1274-520: 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

1365-423: 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

1456-758: 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

1547-550: 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

1638-593: Is an archaeological site located in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach in northern Sudan , which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldest open-air hut in the world) and diverse hunting and gathering loci some 50,000 years old". The Iberomaurusian culture seems to have appeared around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum , sometime between c. 25,000 cal BP and 23,000 cal BP. It will have lasted until

1729-563: 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

1820-497: Is now Morocco , approximately 300,000 years ago. Human groups of Nazlet Sabaha , Egypt engaged in chert mining , as early as ~100,000 years ago, likely for use as tools. In the Sahara , Aterians camped near lakes, rivers, and springs, and engaged in the activity of hunting (e.g., antelope, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros) and some gathering. As a result of a hyper-aridification event of Saharan Africa , which occurred around

1911-540: 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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2002-1024: 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

2093-621: 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

2184-800: The Canary Islands . In Ancient Egypt , the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period , c. 3150 BCE. The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt , known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt , immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BCE. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BCE, or

2275-631: 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

2366-605: The Levant ”. Ehret specified that these studies revealed cranial and dental affinities with "closest parallels" to other longtime populations in the surrounding areas of Northeastern Africa “such as Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa ”. He further commented that the Naqada and Badarian populations did not migrate “from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia”. Ehret also cited existing, archaeological , linguistic and genetic data which he argued supported

2457-559: 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

2548-662: The Maghreb that persisted between 8000 BCE and 2700 BCE. The engraved Central Saharan rock art of the Bubaline Period was created between 10,000 BP and 7500 BP. The engraved Central Saharan rock art of the Kel Essuf Period was created prior to 9800 BP. The painted Central Saharan rock art of the Round Head Period was created between 9800 BP and 7500 BP. Laboratory examination of

2639-649: The Mesolithic stage to the Neolithic stage between the 6th millennium BCE and 5th millennium BCE, then entered an intermediary period between Neolithic, Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age probably in the 2nd millennium BCE, although they never truly transferred into either the Chalcolithic Age or the Bronze Age, remaining in between them and the Neolithic Age. The Iron Age in Egypt corresponds to

2730-463: 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

2821-516: 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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2912-854: The Nile Valley . This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates , forcing them to adapt , possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation . The earliest inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind significant remains: early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa , for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, in Setif (c. 200,000 BCE); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology, which has been dated between 2,000,000 BCE and 1,470,000 BCE. Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been present at Jebel Irhoud , in what

3003-699: The North African Tuareg , and European agriculturalists , who are descendants of these Neolithic agriculturalists, share the lactase persistence variant –13910*T. While shared by Fulani and Tuareg herders, compared to the Tuareg variant, the Fulani variant of –13910*T has undergone a longer period of haplotype differentiation. The Fulani lactase persistence variant –13910*T may have spread, along with cattle pastoralism , between 9686 BP and 7534 BP, possibly around 8500 BP; corroborating this timeframe for

3094-664: The Northeast African origins of the Egyptian civilisation derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the 5th millennium BCE. According to American historian and linguist, Christopher Ehret , the physical anthropological findings from the “major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to

3185-655: 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

3276-539: 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

3367-494: The Third Intermediate Period of Egypt . Iron metal is singularly scarce in collections of Egyptian antiquities. Bronze remained the primary material there until the conquest by Neo-Assyrian Empire in 671 BCE. The explanation of this would seem to be that the relics are in most cases the paraphernalia of tombs, the funeral vessels and vases, and iron being considered an impure metal by the ancient Egyptians it

3458-818: The Uan Muhuggiag child mummy and Tin Hanakaten child, concludes that the Central Saharan peoples from the Epipaleolithic , Mesolithic , and Pastoral periods possessed dark skin complexions. Neolithic agriculturalists , who may have resided in Northeast Africa and the Near East , may have been the source population for lactase persistence variants, including –13910*T, and may have been subsequently supplanted by later migrations of peoples. The Sub-Saharan West African Fulani,

3549-470: The ancient Near East . Human habitation in North Africa has been greatly influenced by the climate of the Sahara (currently the world's largest warm desert), which has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years. This is due to a 41,000-year Axial tilt cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°. At present (2000 AD), we are in

3640-730: 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

3731-472: 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 ,

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3822-727: The Caballine Period was created between 2800 BP and 1000 BP. The engraved and painted Central Saharan rock art of the Cameline Period was created from 2000 BP onward. As of about 5000 BC, the populations of North Africa were descended primarily from the Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures, with a more recent intrusion being associated with the Neolithic Revolution . The proto- Berber tribes evolved from these prehistoric communities during

3913-679: The Fulani, by at least 7500 BP, there is evidence of herders engaging in the act of milking in the Central Sahara . The engraved and painted Central Saharan rock art of the Pastoral Period was created between 7500 BP and 2800 BP. One of the earliest Libyco-Berber inscriptions in Africa are found in Wadi Mertoutek , near or within a petroglyph , which may be the depiction of a bovid , and may be associated with

4004-496: 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

4095-443: 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

4186-651: 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

4277-480: 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

4368-400: 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

4459-626: 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

4550-414: 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

4641-558: 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

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4732-499: 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

4823-436: 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,

4914-409: The beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of

5005-423: 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

5096-399: 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

5187-403: The demographic history. Dotted wavy line pottery and fishing cultures have also been located in the Lake Turkana region in poorly dated contexts. By 3000 BCE, it does not appear that the Turkana Basin was populated with harpoon and dotted wavy line pottery users, but fishing remained an important part of peoples' diets into the late Holocene. The engraved Central Saharan rock art of

5278-542: 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

5369-408: 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

5460-432: The early Holocene , c. 11,000 cal BP. Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene and from the 5th millennium BCE onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation. The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic and Neolithic culture of

5551-446: 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

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5642-520: 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

5733-437: 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

5824-403: 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

5915-444: 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. Prehistoric North Africa The prehistory of North Africa spans

6006-401: The late Bronze- and early Iron ages. The late-Neolithic Kehf el Baroud inhabitants were modelled as being of about 50% local North African ancestry and 50% Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry. It was suggested that EEF ancestry had entered North Africa through Cardial Ware colonists from Iberia sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC. They were found to be closely related to the Guanches of

6097-660: The middens — antelope, which require large expanses of seed-bearing grasses. These people probably lived mainly on fish, however, and Arkell concluded, based on the totality of the evidence, that rainfall at the time was at least three times that of today. The physical characteristics derived from skeletal remains suggested that these people were related to modern Nilotic peoples, such as the Nuer and Dinka . Subsequent radiocarbon dating firmly established Arkell's site to between 7000 BCE and 5000 BCE. Based on common patterns at his site and at French-excavated sites already reported from Chad , Mali and Niger (e.g., bone harpoons and

6188-436: 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

6279-440: 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

6370-400: The north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon , which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is presently as dry as it

6461-422: The period of earliest human presence in the region to gradual onset of historicity in the Maghreb during classical antiquity . Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been present at Jebel Irhoud , in what is now Morocco , approximately 300,000 years ago. The Nile Valley region, via ancient Egypt , contributed to the Neolithic , Bronze Age and Iron Age periods of the Old World , along with

6552-700: 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

6643-536: 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

6734-454: 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

6825-417: 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

6916-496: 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

7007-497: The region is abundant in the form of bone and wooden spades, as well as pottery. The rice grains at Pengtoushan are larger than naturally occurring wild rice . Large amounts of rice grains have also been found at Bashidang. 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

7098-422: 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)

7189-537: The riparian lifestyle of this period comes from investigations in Sudan during World War II by British archeologist Anthony Arkell . Arkell's report described a Late Stone Age settlement on a sandbank of the Blue Nile which was then about 12 feet (3.7 m) higher than its present flood stage. The countryside was clearly savanna, not the present-day desert, as evidenced by the bones of the most common species found in

7280-692: 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

7371-685: 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

7462-771: 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:

7553-505: 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

7644-578: The time of Europe 's Würm glaciation event, Aterian hunter-gatherers may have migrated into areas of tropical Africa and coastal Africa . More specifically, amid aridification in MIS 5 and regional change of climate in MIS 4 , in the Sahara and the Sahel , Aterians may have migrated southward into West Africa (e.g., Baie du Levrier , Mauritania ; Tiemassas, Senegal ; Lower Senegal River Valley). Affad 23

7735-466: The time. The Old Kingdom of the regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BCE when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom ). The Maghreb transferred from

7826-532: Was about 13,000 years ago. These conditions are responsible for what has been called the Sahara pump theory . During periods of a wet or " Green Sahara ", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains , southwards into West Africa , or eastwards into

7917-869: 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

8008-409: 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

8099-455: 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

8190-479: Was never used in their manufacture of these or for any religious purposes. It was attributed to Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa. In the Black Pyramid of Abusir , dating before 2000 BCE, Gaston Maspero found some pieces of iron. In the funeral text of Pepi I , the metal is mentioned. A sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah as well as

8281-402: 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

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