chapter 2 neolithic period

[2]The New Stone Age Brings Change

Neolithic Period 

• Period of prehistory that began about 10,000 years ago

• still made tools of stone, they learned to shape and polish them more carefully

• Neolithic Age, or New Stone Age. (Neo- means "new.")

Neolithic Discoveries and developments

• Developed farming, tamed animals, established villages 

• They also learned to make pottery, weave cloth, and work with metals.

• made first by people in the Near East, the area from Egypt to Mesopotamia( where wheat and barley grew wild as grasses, and wild sheep and goats roamed the hills.) 

Farming and herding begin in the Near East. 

• cultivation of food-producing plants and the domestication of animals gave people more dependable sources of food.

• Some farming societies men continued to hunt animals for meat, while women and children tended the crops.

• Herders sometimes kill/ source food within their own animals

• Domesticated animals provided milk and cheese as well as meat and hides for both farmers and herders

Farmers settle in villages

• To be near their growing crops and to store the extra food they grew, farming peoples began to build permanent settlements or villages.

• They spent part or all of a year in areas where food was abundant - near a river or lake well-stocked with fish or in a valley with plenty of wild wheat and barley and herds of gazelles or goats.

• Near East, where farming began, villages were common by 8,000 years ago. 

• Earliest known town was the walled city of Jericho, built about 7000в.c  near the eastern end of the Mediterranean. 

• And Catal Hüyük in Asia Minor 8000в.c was built about a thousand years later

Villagers develop special skills.

• Villages allowed people to develop non farming skills- Some people had time to make tools and weapons; some made shelters or clothing from animal skins.

  • weave reeds into baskets;

  •  some made pottery containers for cooking and for storing food and water.  

• Artisans; people with skills in specialized crafts.

  • Toolmaker might trade with a farmer, exchanging a stone hoe and ax for grain or a sheep. 

  • Potter : might trade clay pots . for animal skins to make boots or clothing. 

• BARTER; trade, in which one good is exchanged for another, 

  • Increased trade and village living allowed people to acquire more possessions.

  • People began to be concerned about protecting what they owned from stealing or raid  

Catal Hüyük provides information about Neolithic life.

• unearthed several Neolithic settlements.

• Catal Hüyük, which had between 3,000 and 6,000 in- habitants. 

• HOUSES: built rectangular, flat-roofed houses made of oak and bricks of dried mud. Only entrance was the roof and down a ladder.

  • provide protection and make construction easier, they built the walls of the houses against each other. 

• decorated their buildings.Benches and pillars were decorated with cattle horns; wals were painted with colorful flowers, geometric designs, playful leopards, dancers, and hunting scenes.

• Archaeologist concluded that the art had religious significance 

• Some buildings probably were shrines, decorated with plaster carv- ings and statues of clay, marble, or limestone.

• The main deity was a mother goddess who was believed to control the harvest and therefore the life of the village.

• Examining skeletal remains, anthropologists estimate that the average person in Catal Hüyük lived about thirty years. 

  • The dead were buried in their homes and food was put into the graves. This suggests that people believed in some kind of life after death. Graves also contained tools, jewelry, mirrors, and weapons.

• Catal Hüyuk was a farming village whose people grew crops of wheat and barley and raised herds of sheep and cattle. 

  • Catal Hüyuk were skilled artisans who made finely woven clothing of wool and linen. Traders from other regions brought alabaster and marble to exchange for obsidian, a volcanic rock resembling glass. Artisans used obsidian for making jewelry, mirrors, and knives.

Neolithic New Technology 

• Neolithic people specialized in certain crafts, they developed new technology. That is, they learned to use new methods and materials and to create new tools for their work

  • bake clay pottery and bricks to make them more long-lasting. By turning clay on a flat disk, or potter's wheel, they could shape plates or bowls quickly and precisely.

  •  Sharpened stone tools by grinding them on rocks rather than chipping off flakes. Their finely polished tools were sharper and more durable than earlier ones.

  • plow, which was pulled by oxen. This invention enabled Neolithic farmers to bring more land under cultivation. 

  • spin wool into thread and make looms for weaving thread into cloth.

  • wheel and the sail, both of which improved transportation and encouraged trade.

BRONZE AGE

• Artisans learn to work with metals. In late Neolithic times artisans in the Near East learned to work with metal to make tools and weapons [metalworking] 

  •  Copper was probably the first metal used, for it is easily worked and easy to extract from the rock where it is found. 

  • Copper tools and weapons could be sharpened more easily than those made of stone, and they could be recast and reshaped if broken. 

  • to make bronze- combine copper with a small amount of tin. Bronze was harder and more durable than copper. It made weapons and tools with a sharper cutting edge.( higher demand for copper and tin led to a great increase in trade.) 

• Bronze Age is used to describe the period when bronze replaced copper and stone as the main material used in tools and weapons. This period began in different parts of Asia and Europe. Knowledge of Bronze- working was discovered first in southwestern Asia about 5,000 years ago.