The Neolithic is the period in which a way of life based on settled villages and domesticated plants and animals became irreversible and was adopted, first in the “Fertile Crescent”, then throughout much of the Middle East. The word “Neo”-lithic indicates transition within this development in which stone tools and ground stone implements and hunting activity remained very important through the initial period while gradually giving way to farming as the dominant subsistence base.
1. At one time we thought, after Gordon Childe, that the Neolithic
Revolution involved abrupt change in most areas of life and caused the rapid
and complete adoption of settled village life and farming, the invention of
ground stone implements (grain use) and
pottery (for storage and cooking).
2. In the light of recent
research the story now appears more complex.
Now we see much more continuity with the Epi-palaeolithic in which, in
the Levant, villages preceded significant farming and pottery emerged later in
most places. Not so much a Revolution as the culmination of the
Epi-palaeolithic shift toward sedentary settlement and specialized exploitation
of all available food resources.
3. Moreover, the Neolithic transition did not occur everywhere at same time but extended over 2-3,000 years from its beginning in the Levant until finally adopted in Egypt around 5000 BC.
1. By definition domestication refers to long-term modification in the behavior and physical forms of wild plants and animals as a result of their interaction with humans. This results in mutual dependence between the domesticated and human populations so that neither can easily revert to their original states.
Examples:
Grain.
1. In wild grains the
morphology of the ear of grain, which contains the kernel used for food, is
such that the part that joins it to the stalk breaks easily, allowing the plant
to self-seed itself, while the surrounding husk is also very hard making it
hard to separate it from the grain.
This is clearly unsatisfactory for farmers as they will loose much of
the food-bearing part of the plant during harvesting and have to devise
laborious techniques of separating out the husks of the remaining grain.
2. During the process of
domestication plants with a tougher
stem and more easily removable husk were developed though a process of
long-term selective seeding by man.
Because most of the wild grain that survived the trip to the village did
have a tougher stem it was naturally plants with these characteristics that
were most easily seeded, accidentally or, later, purposefully. This selected for the same qualities in the
stands of grain around villages and raised their proportion even in persisting
wild grains, thus causing an increasingly irreversible trend.
Sheep.
Wild sheep have two layers of
hair - thick wool close to the body and the long, coarse coat that is more
visible. In a minority of wild animals
the proportions are reversed. Over extensive periods manipulation of wild herds
to favor the breeding of animals with this minority feature would have led to
their proportional growth and ultimately their preponderance in the
domesticated herd.
Mutual Dependence.
1. Another important feature
of domestication is the mutual dependence of humans and domesticates. In humans this results in progressive
rejection of other life ways and total dependence on agriculture with irreversible
consequences for fully agricultural peoples.
2. In the case of plants,
their artificial seeding in areas in which the soils were artificially prepared
or in areas in which they could not grow without irrigation made them dependent
on humans for survival. Likewise,
domesticated plants are often at a competitive disadvantage against weeds and
wild forms and need protection from them to survive.
3. Domesticated animals
likewise are often less hardy, more susceptible to disease than wild animals
and unable to compete with them for fodder.
They thus need humans for survival.
1.
Chief animals and plants that produced the early domesticates and their natural
habitats:
-Barley: Whole Fertile Crescent
-Einkorn:
(ancestor of wheat): Taurus-Zagros Arc
-Emmer
Wheat: Levant
-Peas/Nuts:
Whole Fertile Crescent (oak, pistachio,almond)
-Sheep:
Taurus-Zagros Arc
-Goat:
Entire Fertile Crescent
-Pig "
-Cattle "
Early Neolithic Sites
1. The earliest sites that significantly used domesticates were located in the Levant and collectively termed the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Culture (PPNA: 8500-7300 BC.). This culture incorporated numerous permanent villages that extended throughout the region from Sinai to Upper Euphrates.
2. The PPNA period marks the irreversible breakthrough to Neolithic way of life in the Middle East. A drying period at the end of the Natufian marked the final crossroads. Some groups of the so-called Harifian culture reverted to a hunting-gathering way of life while others further intensified the Kabaran-Natufian trend and became the settled farmers of the PPNA.
3. Important sites of the PPNA are Jericho (Israel), Mureybit (Syria), Cuyonu (Turkey), Ain Gazal (Amman, Jordan) and Beidha (Jordan). They all share common features that demonstrated their move to Neolithic way of life but also show regional differences indicating that people in different areas were adopting the Neolithic in ways that suited their specific circumstances.
4. Contemporary settlement from the Zagros region include Ganj Dereh and somewhat later Ali Kosh and Jarmo - these are sometimes considered with the PPNA sites but usually distinguished as Zagros equivalents to the Levantine PPNA pattern.
1.
A basic shared shift from an early incipient agricultural phase to the adoption
of domesticated plants and animals. Thus in their earliest phases permanent
settlements like Jericho, and Mureybit, show no sign of domesticates but later
these are introduced.
2. Erection of substantial houses, usually round in the PPNA but changing to rectangular multiple rooms of mud brick and stone later as at Jericho and Jarmo, containing hearths, storage areas,
3. Tool technology that emphasizes small blades, mortars and pestles and ground stone implements and usually includes obsidian.
4. Participation in long-distance distribution networks for obsidian (from Lake Van) and shell (Mediterranean and Red Sea). This was probably in the form of down-the-line movement rather than direct procurement.
5. Emergence of a belief system that emphasized ancestor/ kinship reverence and accompanied emergence of complex settled villages. Seen by the common custom of treating the head (skull) in special ways, usually involving burial in the houses below floors. Also the emergence of a pattern usually considered to do with fertility and represented by widespread female and animal figurines.
It is important to realize that while shared cultural features existed at this early time, there is abundant evidence that contact and the sharing of ideas was counterbalanced by distinctive local development that can be ascribed to a combination of environmental and social factors:
1. The environment of the Taurus and Zagros is one of broken ranges that effectively form barriers to easy travel. Thus, villages were often located at great distances from each other.
2. Also, different areas offered distinct natural resources that shaped the development of the Early Neolithic
- Large foraging zones in the Zagros versus smaller-micro-environmental complexes in the Levant.
- Location of settlements like Mureybit on the very periphery of the wild range of cereals necessitated their transportation away from the area where the full range of domesticates were located.
- The differential access to natural resources - the Zagros and Taurus sites have much more obsidian than those of the Levant and southern Zagros, Levant has more shell.
3. Social Factors. It is feasible to assume that peoples scattered across the Middle East and separated by great distance evolved their own cultures even if they shared general economic behavior and religious beliefs. Thus we see variation in burial customs, settlement configuration and art.
Economic
There was a differential
adoption of domesticates across the Fertile Crescent. The Levantine sites domesticated sheep early on as well as the
full range of cereals. Ganj Dereh in
the Zagros specialized in domesticated animals not cereals. Ali Kosh (Southern Zagros) and Cuyonu
(Taurus) emphasized cereals and peas, not animals.
Material Technology
1. Ceramics at Ganj Dereh before 8000 BC, nowhere else. Later in the 7th millennium painted pottery
emerges in the Zagros sites like Jarmo and Ali Kosh, but have distinctive
designs, again indicating cultural distinctions between their makers.
2. Metal (Copper pins) at Shanidar before 8000 BC. Cayonu by 7000 BC, later elsewhere - no common date - used entirely for ornament.
Social
1.
Different forms of secondary burials across the region.
2. Single burials at Jericho,
multiple burials at Cuyonu.
3. Different types of
figurines in different areas.
4. PPNA Jericho (10 acres) appears to have developed the ability to mobilize a large labor force to build a large stone and mud brick tower as part of a wider wall. It is not known if this wall was used for defense or for flood control? In any case it shows that at Jericho some of the features of complex society - large population, administrative authority, intensive social and economic organization - was present to a degree not seen elsewhere.
5. Ain Gazal (Amman, Jordan) a large settlement of more than 20 acres - again indicates growing complexity of social organization in this area of the Southern Levant.
6. Elsewhere settlements are
smaller without internal variations that would indicate social complexity.
Thus in the Earliest Neolithic we see a general pattern of the gradual adoption of a settled way of life based on the domestication of selected plants and animals in the context of distinct experimentation and local developments.