Art of The Western World Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic period

Roughly beginning after the last Ice Age and commonly dated between about 11,500-5,000 years ago in different regions.

Neolithic Revolution

The transition from mobile hunter-gatherer lifeways to sedentary farming and herding economies.

Environmental triggers

End of the Pleistocene increased the availability of wild cereals and other resources.

Demographic triggers

Local population growth and sedentary use of rich patches likely encouraged intentional cultivation.

Technological innovations

Development of tools for planting, harvesting, and processing, such as sickles, grinding stones, and hoes.

Pottery

Develops for storage and cooking because people live in one place, exemplified by the Bushel with ibex motifs from Susa, dated 4200-3500 B.C.E.

Domestication

Requires selective breeding and management techniques for plants and animals.

Sedentism

People build stronger, longer-lasting homes and store surplus food in grain stores and pottery vessels.

Social reorganization

Food surpluses allow population increase and occupational specialization, leading to social hierarchies and centralized leadership.

Monumental architecture

Stable populations and authority structures enable communities to plan and complete large projects, such as Stonehenge.

Stonehenge

An example of large-scale planning, ability to mobilize labor, long-distance transport of stone, and a ritual/ceremonial landscape.

Ritual forms

New ancestral practices appear, such as decorated skulls with shell eyes and painted features, possibly for ancestor veneration or mourning.

Art evolution

Art becomes larger and more complex because portability is no longer required.

Fertile Crescent

One of the regions where the shift to a settled Neolithic life occurred independently.

China

One of the regions where the shift to a settled Neolithic life occurred independently.

New Guinea

One of the regions where the shift to a settled Neolithic life occurred independently.

Mesoamerica

One of the regions where the shift to a settled Neolithic life occurred independently.

Sub-Saharan Africa

One of the regions where the shift to a settled Neolithic life occurred independently.

Population increase

Allowed by food surpluses, leading to occupational specialization such as potters and builders.

Centralized leadership

Emerges to mobilize labor for large projects like monumental architecture.

Labor mobilization

Communities can plan and complete large projects due to stable populations and authority structures.

Burials under floors

Houses often become places for both domestic living and ritual/ancestral practices.

Plastered skulls

Decorated skulls found in Jericho, possibly related to ancestor veneration or mourning.

Bushel with ibex motifs

Pottery used for storage and decorated with symbolic imagery—shows the spread and function of ceramics.

Mobility (Paleolithic)

Highly mobile, seasonal camps.

Mobility (Neolithic)

Sedentary or semi sedentary villages.

Shelter (Paleolithic)

Temporary shelters (lean tos, caves).

Shelter (Neolithic)

Durable houses, multi season occupation.

Food economy (Paleolithic)

Hunting, gathering, fishing.

Food economy (Neolithic)

Farming (crops) and animal husbandry.

Material culture (Paleolithic)

Portable small artworks, flaked stone tools.

Material culture (Neolithic)

Pottery, ground stone tools, larger sculpture.

Social organization (Paleolithic)

Small kin groups, relatively egalitarian.

Social organization (Neolithic)

Larger communities, specialization, emerging hierarchy.

Population density (Paleolithic)

Low.

Population density (Neolithic)

Higher, nucleated settlements.

Ritual/Monumentality (Paleolithic)

Small ritual caches.

Ritual/Monumentality (Neolithic)

Plaster skulls, large monuments (e.g., Stonehenge).

Pros of sedentism

Food surpluses enabled population growth and occupational specialization.

Cons of sedentism

Increased disease transmission (denser populations, proximity to animals).

Social inequality

Surplus control often concentrated by elites, creating class differences.

Environmental degradation

Soil depletion, deforestation, irrigation salinization later on.

Inter-group conflict

Greater potential for conflict over land and resources.

Causal chain of Neolithic change

Environmental change → experimentation with plants/animals → technology for production/storage → sedentism → social complexity.