Concept
Neolithic Revolution
Related concepts (43)
Domestication of animals
The domestication of animals is the mutual relationship between non-human animals and the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction. Charles Darwin recognized a small number of traits that made domesticated species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding (i.e. artificial selection) in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits.
Linear Pottery culture
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing 5500–4500 BC. Derived from the German Linearbandkeramik, it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, falling within the Danubian I culture of V. Gordon Childe. Most cultural evidence has been found on the middle Danube, the upper and middle Elbe, and the upper and middle Rhine. It represents a major event in the initial spread of agriculture in Europe.
Proto-city
A proto-city is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of planning and centralized rule. While the precise classification of many sites considered proto-cities is ambiguous and subject to considerable debate, common examples include Jericho, Çatalhöyük and the mega-sites of the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture. Sites of the Ubaid period in Mesopotamia have also been classed as proto-cities.
Demic diffusion
Demic diffusion, as opposed to trans-cultural diffusion, is a demographic term referring to a migratory model, developed by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, of population diffusion into and across an area that had been previously uninhabited by that group and possibly but not necessarily displacing, replacing, or intermixing with an existing population (such as has been suggested for the spread of agriculture across Neolithic Europe and several other Landnahme events).
Agrarian society
An agrarian society, or agricultural society, is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation's total production is in agriculture. In an agrarian society, cultivating the land is the primary source of wealth. Such a society may acknowledge other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming.
Jarmo
Jarmo (Qal'at Jarmo) (Çermo) is a prehistoric archeological site located in modern Iraq on the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. It lies at an altitude of 800 m above sea-level in a belt of oak and pistachio woodlands in the Adhaim River watershed. Excavations revealed that Jarmo was an agricultural community dating back to 7090 BC. It was broadly contemporary with such other important Neolithic sites such as Jericho in the Southern Levant and Çatalhöyük in Anatolia.
Urban revolution
In anthropology and archaeology, the urban revolution is the process by which small, kin-based, illiterate agricultural villages were transformed into large, socially complex, urban societies. Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe introduced the term "urban revolution" in the 1930s. Childe also coined the term "Neolithic Revolution" to describe the earlier process by which hunter-gatherer societies domesticated crops and animals and began a farming lifestyle.
Complex society
A complex society is a concept that is shared by a range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, history and sociology to describe a stage of social formation. The concept was formulated by scholars attempting to understand how modern states emerged, specifically the transition from small kin-based societies to large hierarchically structured societies. A complex society is characterized by features such as: State with a large population wherein its economy is structured according to specialization and a division of labor.
Levantine corridor
The Levantine corridor is the relatively narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea to the northwest and deserts to the southeast, which connects Africa to Eurasia. This corridor is a land route of migrations of animals between Eurasia and Africa. In particular, it is believed that early hominins spread from Africa to Eurasia via the Levantine corridor and Horn of Africa. The corridor is named after the Levant. The Levantine Corridor is the western part of the Fertile Crescent, the eastern part being Mesopotamia.
Secondary products revolution
Andrew Sherratt's model of a secondary products revolution involved a widespread and broadly contemporaneous set of innovations in Old World farming. The use of domestic animals for primary carcass products (meat) was broadened from the 4th–3rd millennia BCE (c. Middle Chalcolithic) to include exploitation for renewable 'secondary' products: milk, wool, traction (the use of animals to drag ploughs in agriculture), riding and pack transport.