The Origin
To understand current research on the subject of the Ancient Near East I think it is necessary to delve into its historiography or the history of research in the recent past; the terminology ? stratigraphy, typology etc.
Overview: The generation of scholars who laid the foundations for pre-historic research in the Near East introduced their European chronology.
The three-age system
The three-age system divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The modern periodization of the Stone Age stretches from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in the following scheme, crossing an epoch boundary on the geologic time scale:
Pleistocene epoch (highly glaciated climate)
Paleolithic age
Holocene epoch (modern climate)
Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic age, Neolithic age, Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age
Historical period (written record begins)
The Pliocene epoch, spelled Pleiocene in some older texts, is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 1.806 million years before present. The Pliocene is the second epoch of the Neogene period in the Cenozoic era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene epoch.
The name Pleistocene is derived from the Greek pleistos, most, and kainos, new. The Pleistocene is divided into the Early Pleistocene, Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene, and numerous faunal stages. The Pleistocene is the third epoch of the Neogene period or 6th epoch of the Cenozoic Era.[1] The Pleistocene epoch follows the Pliocene epoch and is followed by the Holocene epoch. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology.
Scientific evidence[9] indicates that humans evolved into their present form during the Pleistocene.[10] In the beginning of the Pleistocene Paranthropus -species are still present, as well as early human ancestors, but during the lower Palaeolithic they disappeared, and the only hominin species found in fossilic records is Homo erectus for much of the Pleistocene. This species migrated through much of the old world, giving rise to many variations of humans. The Middle and late Palaeolithic saw the appearance of new types of humans, as well as the development of more elaborate tools than found in previous eras. According to mitochondrial timing techniques, modern humans migrated from Africa after the Riss glaciation in the middle palaeolithic during the Eemian interglacial, spreading all over the ice-free world during the late Pleistocene.[11][12][13]
While the ultimate African Origin view of hominid evolution has not been challenged, some researchers have posited that the last great expansion did not eliminate pre-existing populations of hominids so much as assimilate them upon contact with Homo sapiens sapiens. While this would suggest that modifications in modern man may have been extensive and regionally based, the theory remains controversial. [14]
The term Paleolithic or Old Stone Age, from Greek palaios, old, and lithos, stone, meaning old age of the stone, is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools, which covers the greatest portion of humanity's time, roughly 99 % of human history[1], on Earth, extending from 2.5[2] or 2.6[3][1] million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene, the epoch, covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations, from 1,808,000 to 11,550 years BP. The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, in Western Europe, and in areas not effected by the Ice Age with the Epipaleolithic, such as Africa.[6]
Traditionally, the Paleolithic is divided into three, somewhat overlapping, periods: the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and the Upper Paleolithic. The three ages mark technological and cultural advances in different human communities.
During the Paleolithic humans were grouped together in small scale societies such as bands and gained their subsistence from gathering plants and hunting or scavenging wild animals.[7] The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, given their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree. Surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as Paleoliths.
Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools, into fully behaviorally and anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, during the Paleolithic era.[8] During the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle and or Upper Paleolithic, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual.[9][10][11][7]The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.
Traditionally, the Paleolithic is divided into three somewhat overlapping periods: the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and the Upper Paleolithic. The three ages mark technological and cultural advances in different human communities.
The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 100,000 years ago when important evolutionary and technological changes (behavioral modernity) ushered in the Middle Paleolithic.
The earliest hominids, known as australopithecines (personified by the famous find of Lucy in Ethiopia) were not advanced stone tool users and were likely to have been common prey for larger animals. Sometime before 3 million years ago the first fossils that may be called Homo appear in the archaeological record. They may have evolved from the australopithecines or come from another phylogenetic branch of the primates.
Homo habilis remains, such as those from Olduvai Gorge, are much more recognisable as humans. Stone-tool use was developed by these people around 2.5 million years ago before they were replaced by Homo erectus about 1.5 million years ago. Members of Homo habilis used Olduwan tools and had learned to control fire to support the hunter-gatherer method of subsistence.
The Oldowan tool making culture moved into Europe from Africa, where it had originated. In the north the Olduwan tradition (known in Europe as Abbevillian) split into two parallel traditions, the Clactonian, a flake tradition, and the Acheulean, a hand-axe tradition. The Levallois technique for knapping flint developed during this time.
The carrier species from Africa to Europe undoubtedly was Homo erectus. This type of human is more clearly linked to the flake tradition, which spread across southern Europe through the Balkans to appear relatively densely in southeast Asia. Many Mousterian finds in the Middle Paleolithic have been knapped using a Levallois technique, suggesting that Neanderthals evolved from Homo erectus.
Also in Europe appeared a type of human intermediate between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, typified by such fossils as those found at Swanscombe, Steinheim, Tautavel, and Vertesszollos (Homo palaeohungaricus). Although it is unwise, given the current state of knowledge, to assume an exclusive association of any type of human with any specific type of tool, the intermediates seem responsible for the hand-axe tradition. Such an association does not imply that they necessarily evolved in Europe.
Flakes and axes coexisted in Europe, sometimes at the same site. The axe tradition, however, spread to a different range in the east. It appears in Arabia and India, but more importantly, it does not appear in southeast Asia.
At the site of Monte Poggiolo, near Forlì, thousands of stone handaxes have been found that date from 800,000 years ago.
The Holocene is a geological epoch, which began approximately 11,550 calendar years BP (about 9600 BC). According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present. However, recently there have been papers that propose that the Holocene ended about 300 BP (1700 AD) with the start of the Anthropocene [1]. The Holocene is part of the Neogene and Quaternary periods. Its name comes from the Greek words, holos, whole or entire, and kainos, new, meaning entirely recent. It has been identified with MIS 1 and can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age.
Human civilization dates entirely within the Holocene. If subdivision is necessary, periods of human technological development such as the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age are usually used. However, the time periods referenced by these terms varies with the emergence of those technologies in different parts of the world.
Climatically, the Holocene may be divided evenly into the Hypsithermal and Neoglacial periods; the boundary coincides with the start of the Bronze Age in western civilisation. According to some scholars, a third division, the Anthropocene, began in the 18th Century [2]. It is debatable whether this is an age within, or follows, the Holocene epoch.
The beginning of the Holocene corresponds with the beginning of the Mesolithic age in most of Europe; but in regions such as the Middle East and Anatolia with a very early neolithisation, Epipaleolithic is preferred in place of Mesolithic. Cultures in this period include: Hamburgian, Federmesser, and the Natufian culture. Both are followed by the aceramic Neolithic, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, and the pottery Neolithic.
Within the Holocene numerous meteorite events have been recently discovered in Europe, as well as in seas such as the Indian Ocean and near remote Siberia. It has been speculated that an impact effect such as that represented today by the Burckle crater[3] or the Chiemgau Impact crater[4] could have dramatically affected human culture in its early history by the creation of megatsunamis, perhaps inspiring deluge or inundation stories such as that of Noah's Flood. A washout effect from such waves may have breached land bridges with sudden massive erosion, along with violent weather changes. Competing reasons for the various basin floods also include climate change and earthquake fault lines weakening the barriers to ocean encroachment.
Lower Paleolithic (c. 2.6 or 2.5 million years ago to 100,000 years ago)[12][1]
Olduwan culture (2.6 - 1.8 Ma) earliest stone tools
Acheulean culture (1.7 - 0.1 Ma) Controlled fire, earliest large game hunting
Clactonian culture (0.3 - 0.2 Ma)
Middle Paleolithic (c. 300,000 to 30,000 years ago)[13]
(Neanderthal, H. sapiens) earliest evidence of behavioral modernity (art and intentional burials) earliest undisputed evidence of cooking food migration beyond Africa).
Mousterian culture (300 - 30 ka)
Aterian culture (82 ka)
Upper Paleolithic (c. 45,000 or 40,000 to 10,000 years ago).[13]
(behavioral modernity: abundant artwork, fully developed language)
Baradostian culture (36 ka)
Châtelperronian culture (35 - 29 ka)
Aurignacian culture (32 - 26 ka)
Gravettian culture (28 - 22 ka)
Solutrean culture (21 - 17 ka)
Magdalenian culture (18 - 10 ka)
Hamburg culture (14 ka)
Ahrensberg culture (13 ka)
Swiderianculture (10 ka)
The Mesolithic period or Middle Stone Age[1] was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The word Mesolithic is derived from the Greek words mesos, meaning middle, and lithos, meaning stone.
The term Mesolithic is in competition with another term, Epipaleolithic, which means the peripheral Old Stone Age.[3] In the archaeology of northern Europe - for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia - the term Mesolithic is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term Epipaleolithic may be preferred by most authors, or there may be divergences between authors over which term to use or what meaning to assign to each.
Some authors use the term Epipaleolithic for those cultures that are late developments of hunter-gatherer traditions but not in transition toward agriculture, reserving the term Mesolithic for those cultures, like the Natufian culture, that are transitional between hunter-gatherer and agricultural practices.
Other authors use the term Mesolithic for a variety of Late Paleolithic cultures subsequent to the end of the last glacial period whether they are transitional towards agriculture or not.
A Spanish scholar, Alfonso Moure, says in this regard: In the terminology of prehistoric archeology, the most widespread trend is to use the term Epipaleolithic for the industrial complexes of post-glacial hunter-gatherer groups. Conversely, those that are in course of transition toward artificial food production are assigned to the Mesolithic.[4]
Some authors prefer the opposite convention, using the term Epipaleolithic for cultures that are in transition toward agriculture and Mesolithic for those that are not. This is not really as confusing as it seems. The important thing is to take note of how each author uses the term.
British archaeologist Steven Mithen, in his award-winning book After the Ice, identifies the term Mesolithic with a subset of European hunter-gatherer cultures that were directly descended from the European Paleolithic. He rejects the Mesolithic label for the Levant and Anatolia, where the contemporary cultures were Neolithic and had evolved directly out of the Paleolithic cultures of West Asia.[5] The earliest known battle occurred during the Mesolithic period at a site in Egypt known as Cemetery 117.
Mesolithic cultures, as designated in this way, are distinct from Paleolithic cultures in their tendency toward more partially sedentary settlements, their emphasis on fishing, reliance on bow-hunting over spear-hunting, and far more advanced social and ritual structure. They are distinct from Neolithic cultures in their absence of farming and pastoralism.[6]
It began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch around 11,000 BC and ended with the introduction of farming, the date of which varied in each geographical region. In some areas, such as the Near East, farming was already in use by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term Epipaleolithic is sometimes preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last glacial period ended have a much more apparent Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In northern Europe, for example, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands created by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviors which are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. Such conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 5000 BC in northern Europe.
As what Mithen terms the Neolithic package, including farming, herding, polished stone axes, timber longhouses and pottery, spread into Europe by routes that remain controversial among scholars, the Mesolithic way of life was marginalized and eventually disappeared. Some late Mesolithic groups, such as Denmark's Ertebølle culture, did make some pottery and did engage in significant trade with Neolithic groups directly to their south.[7]
Mithen notes that Mesolithic cultures were a historical dead end, unlike the somewhat earlier cultures of the late Paleolithic period in West Asia, which were evolving steadily toward the Neolithic. At the same time, genetic studies strongly suggest that modern Europeans' ancestry, especially their matrilineal mitochondrial DNA, is descended directly from these Mesolithic peoples, who must have eventually adopted the Neolithic way of life that had come to them from West Asia.[8]
There are two designated periods: Mesolithic 1 (Kebara culture; 20-18,000 BC to 12,150 BC) followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries. Microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this culture period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts. This period is more properly called Epipaleolithic.
By 20,000 to 18,000 BC the climate and environment had changed, starting a period of transition. The Levant became more arid and the forest vegetation retreated, to be replaced by steppe. The cool and dry period ended at the beginning of Mesolithic 1. The hunter-gatherers of the Aurignacian would have had to modify their way of living and their pattern of settlement to adapt to the changing conditions. The crystallization of these new patterns resulted in Mesolithic 1. New types of settlements and new stone industries developed.
The inhabitants of a small Mesolithic 1 site in the Levant left little more than their chipped stone tools behind. The industry was of small tools made of bladelets struck off single-platform cores. Besides bladelets, burins and end-scrapers were found. A few bone tools and some ground stone have also been found.
These so-called Mesolithic sites of Asia are far less numerous than those of the Neolithic and the archeological remains are very poor.
Mesolithic 1 started somewhere around 18,000 BC in Israel. The change from Mesolithic 1 to Mesolithic 2 can be dated more closely. The latest date from a Mesolithic 1 site in the Levant is 12,150 BC. The earliest date from a Mesolithic 2 site is 11,140 BC. The 10th millennium BC seems to correspond with three other sites at Kebara (9200 BC), Mugharet el Wad (9970 and 9525 BC), and Jericho (9216 BC). However, other sites suggest an even later start via dates of 8930 and 8540 BC. It would thus appear that Mesolithic 2, the Natufian, culture emerges around 11,000?9000 BC in Israel and Lebanon. Mesolithic 2 is characterized by the beginnings of agriculture, which would emerge fully in the Neolithic period.
The Epipaleolithic or peripheral old stone age is a term used for the hunter-gatherer cultures that existed after the end of the last Ice Age, before the Neolithic.
The term is sometimes confused with Mesolithic, and the two are sometimes used as synonyms. Yet, when a distinction is made, Epipaleolithic is used for those cultures that were not much affected by the ending of the Ice Age, like the Natufian culture of Western Asia[1], and the term Mesolithic is reserved for Western Europe where the extinction of the Megafauna had a great impact of the paleolithic populations at the end of the Ice Age, like European post-glacial cultures: Azilian, Sauveterrian, Tardenoisian, Maglemosian, etc.
The term is some times used in the opposite meaning, Alfonso Moure says in this respect: In the language of Prehistorical Archaeology, the most extended trend is to use the term Epipaleolithic for the industrial complexes of the post-glacial hunter-gatherer groups. Inversely, those that are in transitional ways towards artificial production of food are inscribed in the Mesolithic.[2]
Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers made relatively advanced tools made from small flint or obsidian blades, known as microliths that were hafted in wooden implements. They were generally nomadic.
The Neolithic, from Greek neolithikos, from neos, new, + lithos, stone, or New Stone Age [1], was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic periods, beginning with the rise of farming, which produced the Neolithic Revolution and ending when metal tools became widespread in the Copper Age, chalcolithic, or Bronze Age or developing directly into the Iron Age, depending on geographical region.
Neolithic culture appeared in the Levant, Jericho, modern-day West Bank, about 8500 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered wild cereal use, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufians can thus be called proto-Neolithic (11,000?8500 BC). As 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 forced people to develop farming. By 8500?8000 BC farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Anatolia, North Africa and North Mesopotamia.
Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of crops, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt and the keeping of dogs, sheep and goats. By about 7000 BC it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery.[2] Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery, and, in Britain, it remains unclear to what extent plants were domesticated in the earliest Neolithic, or even whether permanently settled communities existed. 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 independent of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies used pottery before developing agriculture.[3][4][5]
Unlike the Palaeolithic, where more than one human species existed, only one human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, reached the neolithic.
In Southwest Asia, i.e., the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing soon after 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 ca. 8000 BC.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), around 9000 BC, represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic as the domestication of plants and animals was in its beginnings and triggered by the Younger Dryas.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho in the Palestinian Territories. During this time, pottery was yet unknown. They precede the ceramic Neolithic Yarmukian.
10,200-9,200 BP (uncalibrated) in the climatic phase Dryas II (arid climate).
There is evidence for the use of wheat, barley and legumes from carbonized seeds, but whether these seeds were collected, planted or even brought into the settlements as part of animal dung used for fuel remains the subject of debate. Sickle-blades and grinding stones certainly indicate the use of cereals. Some scholars speak of an 'agriculture prédomestique'.
The settlements consist of round semi-subterranean houses with stone foundations and terrazzo-floors. The superstructures were constructed of unbaked mudbricks with plano-convex cross-sections. The hearths were small and covered with cobbles. Heated rocks were used in cooking, which led to an accumulation of fire-cracked rock in the buildings. Almost every settlement contains storage bins made either stones or mud-brick. The sites are much larger than in the preceding Natufian and contain traces of communal structures, like the famous tower of Jericho, possibly built against floods. There is no relation to the biblical wall of Jericho that came tumblin down.
Around 8,000 BCE during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) the world's first town Jericho appeared in the Levant and was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of 2000-3000 people and a massive stone tower. There is much debate over the function of the wall, for there is no evidence of any serious warfare at this time. No battles were fought at Jericho. One possibility is the wall was built to protect the salt resources of Jericho. [1].
The lithic industry is based on blades struck from regular cores. Sickle-blades and arrowheads continue traditions from the late Natufian culture, transverse-blow axes and polished adzes appear for the first time.
With more sites becoming known, the archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants: Sultanien in theJordan River valley and southern Levant with the type site of Jerich. Other sites include Netiv Hagdud, El-Khiam, Hatoula and Nahal Oren. Mureybetian in the Northern Levant. Defined by the finds from Mureybet IIIA, IIIB, typical: Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch. Other sites include Sheyk Hasan and Jerf el-Ahmar. Aswadien in the Damascus Basin. Defined by finds from Tell Aswad IA. Typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades, Aswad-points. Sites in Upper Mesopotamia include Çayönü and Göbekli Tepe.
The Neolithic 1 (PPNA) began in the Levant, in places like Jericho, Palestine and Jbeil, Byblos, Lebanon, around 8500 to 8000 BC. The actual date is not established with certainty due to different results in carbon dating by scientists in the British Museum and Philadelphia laboratories.
Around 9,000 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the fertile crescent. Around 8,000 BC during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) the world's first town Jericho appeared in the Levant and was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of 2000-3000 people and a massive stone tower.[7]. Around (5,500 BC) the Halafian culture appeared in the Levant, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, Northern Mesopotamia and subsisted on dryland agriculture.
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 was ground into flour. Emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated, animal husbandry and animal breeding.
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 mudbricks. The husband had one house, while each of his wives lived with their children in surrounding houses. The settlement had a surrounding stone wall and perhaps a stone tower like Jericho. The wall served as protection from nearby groups, as protection from floods, or to keep animals penned. There are also some enclosures that suggest grain and meat storage.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is a division of the Neolithic developed by Dame Kathleen Kenyon during her archaeological excavations at Jericho in the southern Levant region.
The culture of this period differs from that of the earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period in that people living during this period began to depend more heavily upon domesticated animals to supplement their earlier mixed agrarian and hunter-gatherer diet. In addition the flint tool kit of the period is new and quite disparate from that of the earlier period. One of its major elements is the naviform core. This is the first period in which architectural styles of the southern Levant became primarily rectilinear; earlier typical dwellings were circular, elliptical and occasionally even octagonal. Pyrotechnology was highly developed in this period. During this period, one of the main features of houses is evidenced by a thick layer of white clay plaster floors highly polished and made of lime produced from limestone. It is believed that the use of clay plaster for floor and wall coverings during PPNB led to the discovery of pottery.[1] Sites from this period found in the Levant utilizing rectangular floor plans and plastered floor techniques were found at Ain Ghazal, Yiftahel, western Galilee, and Abu Hureyra, Upper Euphrates.[2] The period is dated to between ca. 9600 and ca. 8000 BP or 7500 - 6000 BCE.
Like the earlier PPNA people, the PPNB culture developed from the Earlier Natufian but shows evidence of a northerly origin, possibly indicating an influx from the region of north eastern Anatolia. The culture disappeared during the 8.2 kiloyear event, a term that climatologists have adopted for a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8200 years before the present, or c. 6200 BCE, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries. In the following Munhatta and Yamukian post-pottery Neolithic cultures that succeeded it, rapid cultural development continues, although PPNB culture continued in the Amuq valley, where it influenced the later development of Ghassulian culture.
The Neolithic 2 (PPNB) began around 7500 to 7000 BC in the Levant in places like Jericho, Palestine. Like the PPNA dates there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above. But this terminological structure is not agreeable for SouthEast Anatolia and Middle Anatolia Basin settlements.
In southeast Europe agrarian societies first appeared by ca. 7000 BC,[8] and in Central Europe by ca. 5500 BC. Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are included the Starčevo-Körös (Cris), Linearbandkeramic, and Vinča. The Vinča culture may have created the earliest system of writing the Vinča signs though it is almost universally accepted amongst archeologists that the Sumerian cuneiform script was the earliest true form of writing and the Vinča signs most likely represented pictograms and ideograms rather than a truly developed form of writing.
The oldest Neolithic site in South Asia is Mehrgarh from 7000 BC on the Kachi plain of Baluchistan, Pakistan It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming, wheat and barley, and herding, cattle, sheep and goats, in South Asia.[9] One of the earliest Neolithic sites in India is Lahuradewa, at Middle Ganges region, C14 dated around 7th millennium BC.[10]. Recently another site near the confluence of Ganges and Yamuna rivers called Jhusi yielded a C14 dating of 7100 BC for its Neolithic levels.[11] In East Asia the earliest sites include Pengtoushan culture around 7500 BC to 6100 BC, Peiligang culture around 7000 BC to 5000 BC.
Settlements have rectangular mudbrick houses where the family lived together in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult where people preserved skulls from the dead which were plastered with mud to make facial features. The rest of the corpse may 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 which lasted between 8200 and 7900 BP. Juris Zarins has proposed that a Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6,200BCE, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon animal domesticates, and a fusion with Harifian hunter gatherers in Southern Palestine, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into Southern Iraq. [3]
The prehistoric Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, China, contains relics of a culture contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 7,000-8,000 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 meters and the collection of neolithic findings at the site consists of two phases.[6]
The Neolithic 3 (PN) began around 6000 to 5500 BC in the Fertile Crescent. Alluvial plains, Sumer/Elam. By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian i Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia, and Ubaid in Southern Mesopotamia, from 5500 BC. Little rainfall, makes irrigation systems necessary. 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.
In South India the Neolithic began by 3000 BC and lasted until around 1400 BC when the Megalithic transition period began. South Indian Neolithic is characterized by Ashmounds since 2500 BC in Karnataka region, expanded later to Tamil.
Comparative excavations carried out in Adichanallur in Tuticorin District of Southern India, now part of Tamilnadu state, have provided evidence of a southward migration of the Megalithic culture [12] The earliest clear evidence of the presence of the megalithic urn burials are those dating from around 1000 BC, which have been discovered at various places in Tamil Nadu, notably at Adichanallur, 24 km from Tirunelveli, where archaeologists from the Archaeological Survey of India unearthed 12 urns with Tamil Brahmi script on them containing human skulls, skeletons and bones, plus husks, grains of rice, charred rice and Neolithic celts, giving evidence confirming it of the Neolithic period 2800 years ago. This proved that Tirunelveli area has been the abode for human habituation since the Neolithic period about 3,000 years ago. Adhichanallur has been announced as an archaeological site for further excavation and studies.[13], [14]
In Mesoamerica a similar set of events, i.e., crop domestication and sedentary lifestyles, occurred by around 4500 BC, but possibly as early as 11,000?10,000 BC, although here the term Pre-Classic, or Formative, is used instead of mid-late Neolithic, Archaic Era for the Early Neolithic, and Paleo-Indian for the preceding period though these cultures are usually not referred to as belonging to the Neolithic.
Neolithic settlements include:
Tabon Cave Complex in Quezon, Palawan, Philippines 5,000 - 2,000 BC
Spirit Cave in Thailand, 9000-5500 BC
Franchthi Cave in Greece, epipalaeolithic, ca. 10,000 BC, settlement, reoccupied between 7500?6000 BC
Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ca. 9000 BC
Jericho in Israel, Neolithic from around 8350 BC, arising from the earlier Epipaleolithic Natufian culture
Nevali Cori in Turkey, ca. 8000 BC
Çatalhöyük in Turkey, 7500 BC
Pengtoushan culture in China, 7500?6100 BC
'Ain Ghazal in Jordan, 7250?5000 BC
Sesklo in Greece, 6850 BC, with a +/- 660 year margin of error
Dispilio in Greece, ca. 5500 BC
Jiahu in China, 7000 to 5800 BC
Lahuradewa in India, 6400 BC
Porodin in Republic of Macedonia, 6500 BC [29]
Vrshnik (Anzabegovo) in Republic of Macedonia, 6500 BC [29]
Pizzo di Bodi (Varese) - Lombardy in Italy, ca 6320 +/- 80 BC
Sammardenchia in Friuli, Italy , ca 6050 +- 90 PC,
Hemudu culture in China, 5000?4500 BC, large scale rice plantation
around 2000 settlements of Trypillian culture, 5400 BC ? 2800 BC
Knap of Howar and Skara Brae, Orkney, Scotland, from 3500 BC
Brú na Bóinne in Ireland, ca. 3500 BC
Lough Gur in Ireland from around 3000 BC
Pottery Neolithic:
The Chalcolithic period, from Greek khalkos + lithos, copper stone, period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic, is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. The Chalcolithic period began about 4500 BC, then the Bronze Age began about 3500 BC, replacing the Neolithic cultures.
The period is a transitional one outside of the traditional three-age system, and occurs between the Neolithic and Bronze Age. It appears that copper was not widely exploited at first and that efforts in alloying it with tin and other metals began quite soon, making distinguishing the distinct Chalcolithic cultures and periods difficult.
The emergence of metallurgy was occurred first in the Fertile Crescent, where it gave rise to the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BC. There was an independent and limited invention of metallurgy in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica form about the 7th century CE, which however didn't go past the Chalcolithic stage.
The literature of European archaeology generally avoids the use of chalcolithic they prefer the term Copper Age, while Middle-Eastern archaeologists regularly use it. The Copper Age in the Middle East and the Caucasus begins in the late 5th millennium BC and lasts for about a millennium before it gives rise to the Early Bronze Age. Transition from the European Copper Age to Bronze Age Europe occurs about a millennium later, between the late 4th and the late 3rd millennia BC.
According to Parpola (2005), pp. 2, 3), ceramic similarities between the Indus Civilization, southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran during 4300?3200 BC of the Chalcolithic period or Copper Age suggest considerable mobility and trade.
Following the Baden culture, another wave of Indo-European people came to the banks of the Danube. One of the major places they occupied is present-day Vučedol, also known as Wolf's Valley, named after Vučedol, a location six kilometers downstream from the center of the town of Vukovar, Croatia.
The Vučedol culture was a culture that flourished between 3000 and 2200 BC, the Eneolithic period, centered in eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Danube river, but possibly spreading throughout the Pannonian plain. Sometimes also called the Vučedol civilization, it was contemporary with the Sumer period in Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt and the early Troy, Troy I and II.
Among the most famous pieces is what has been alleged to be the oldest Indo-European calendar[1], based on Orion cycle, shown by precise sequel of constellations on a vessel found in eneolithic tel in the very center of contemporary Croatian town of Vinkovci in the hearthland of the Vucedol culture.
Some archeologists, researchers of vucedol culture claimed that there was establisheed trade connection between territorial position of vucedol culture and Mycenian civilisation on the south so that some cultural elements found in B2 phase in vucedol culture due it s existence to first period for middle Bronze Age of Helada.
Ötzi the Iceman, found in the Ötztaler Alps and whose remains have been dated to about 3300 BC, carried a copper axe and flint knife. The high concentrations of copper found in his hair have lead to speculation that he was a metalworker, who may have died while prospecting for ore in the mountains.
Knowledge of the use of copper was far wider spread than the metal itself. The European Battle Axe culture used stone axes modelled on copper axes, with imitation mold marks carved in the stone.
The European Beaker people are often considered Chalcolithic as were the cultures which first adopted urbanisation in south west Asia. Many megaliths in Europe were erected during this period and it has been suggested that Proto-Indo-European linguistic unity dates to around the same time.
Less commonly, the term is also applied to American civilizations which already used copper and copper alloys at the time of European conquest. The Old Copper Complex, located in present day Michigan and Wisconsin utilized copper for tools, weapons and other implements. Artefacts from these sites have been dated from 4000 to 1000 BC, making them some of the oldest sites in the world. [1]
Chalcolithic settlements include: