The Neolithic Revolution + Culture

What is Culture?

When a group has shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behaviour - Similar values, beliefs, and assumptions

What is cultural identity?

Recognizing yourself and your cultural traditions as being distinct from other people and traditions

Define society

A territorially defined population, most of whose members speak the same language and share a sense of common identity

Define values

Beliefs about the goals or way of life that is desirable

What are norms (social norms)

Shared ideals (rules) about how people should act in certain situations, or how particular people should act toward particular other people

Or shared social beliefs that aren’t actually rules

What is Enculturation

The process by which infants and children socially learn the culture of those around them

Define world view

The way people interpret reality and events, including images of themselves and how they relate to the world around them (ontology)

Classification of Reality

How natural and human environments are divided up

What are symbols and why are they important?

An object or behaviour that represents something else but seems to be “common knowledge” - Not always one meaning to the word

Such as gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words—help people understand the world or cultures

What separates us from other species?

Imagination - especially how we can imagine stuff collectively, like common myths or ways of life.

What are the earliest known examples of art

From Indonesia, called “Pig” - c.45,500 ya - not confirmed as art because the term didn’t exist yet

Early art (art definition exists) From Germany, called “Lion Man” - c.35,000 BCE in Stadel Cave

What are some characteristics of a Venus Figurines?

About 10 cm high - c.25,000 BCE - people were rarely buried with them - it could have been a fertility symbol, mother goddess, or primitive porn, but we don’t really know - made of ivory, stone or fired clay and was usually painted in red ochre - Found in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe and Asia

What would daily life look like around that time?

Lived in bands of 5-10 families that were related by blood or marriage - nomadic / semi-nomadic - Women would gather the food (80% of diet) - fruit, berries, honey, shellfish - Men would hunt (using tactics like driving animals into natural enclosures or over cliffs, into marshes, or tar pits) - mammoths, bison, reindeer wild cattle - By 20,000 BCE use of bow and arrow

What were the factors that tipped the competitive advantage away from hunting and gathering and toward food production?

Declined the availability of wild foods - Increased the availability of domesticated wild plants - climate changes expanded the area of habitats with wild cereals: wheat, barley - large mammal species became extinct in North and South America, Eurasia, and Africa due to climate change and the rise in skill hunters

What were the developments of technologies for collecting, processing, and storing wild foods?

Sickle and flint blades (harvesting grain) - Baskets (for carrying home grain) - mortar and pestle or grinding slabs (remove husks) - roasting grains to store them with sprouting (save food, helps in winter) - Denser population of food produces enabled them to displace or kill hunter-gathers by their sheer numbers

What did the discovery of agriculture cause?

Population increased by a lot - then caused the Neolithic revolution

People realized they could domesticate animals, sheeps, pigs… - Plants: population growth, higher rates of survival, storage in winter

more sedentary lifestyles: With specialization in jobs and rules in the community, started government and law, gave them a sense of security and numbers as well as soldiers

What are the two big neolithic cities (c.10,000 BCE)

Jericho and Catalhoyuk

Describe Catalhoyuk and it’s significance

About 1000 buildings of clay brick surrounded by a city wall - square houses and were build attached to each other - get into the house from the roof - had defined ownership of goods properties - had a center for trade - had shrines to “mother goddess” - 3 levels of society (1. Government officials, priests, and soldiers - 2. merchants, farmers, and craftsmen - 3. slaves)

Provided important evidence of the transition from settles villages to urban agglomeration

Describe Jericho and its significance

It is older than Catalhoyuk - It also had the oldest known protective wall in the world - Located in what we know today to be Palestine - Had a water supply - was most likely similar to Catalhoyuk

What were the plastered skulls of Jericho?

After death they would cut off the head of the person and bury the rest of the body under your house. The head would be covered in plster,, painted red and black and then kept in the house on display. It’s like they reconstructed it - could’ve been an ancestor cult - c.8-7000 BCE

What is Gobekli Tepe, Turkey?

The worlds first temple - The pillars were decorated with stone tools (scorpion, lions, vultures draw on - many things revolve around animals and food) - Believed that the temples are built first, then the village, the the domestication of wheat (could’ve been because they wanted to keep their temple going)

How can the Neolithic Revolution be seen as the Dawn of Civilization? (TEST)

Many of the innovations found during this era helped lead to the increase in population. The ice age ended which allowed the discovery of farming/growing/storing food was very progressive that way it was more sustainable for more people rather than hunting. Herding animals in abundance helped as well. Many forms of art were also being introduced which allows people to gain a more sophisticated and imaginative mind. Cities and towns were established and humans had more time for leisure activities.

What are myths?

Stories concerned with Gods and their relations to mortals (ex. creation)

Lascaux cave

A cave discovered in 1940 and containing exceptionally fine Paleolithic wall paintings and engravings

Chauvet cave

The earliest known painted cave, dated to between 38,000 and 33,000 years ago. It is located in France.

World View

A person's view of the world, consisting of the set of beliefs on which he bases his life.

Enculturation

The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across generations

Venus of Willendorf

This Old Stone Age statuette exhibits exaggerated female features. fertility figurine

Iconography

the study of a group of representative pictures or symbols

Pictogram

the earliest forms of writing in which pictures represent words or ideas