Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from the egalitarian lifestyle of (semi-)nomadic hunter-gatherers to one of agriculture, settlement and increasing social differentiation.

Archaeological data indicate that the food producing domestication of some types of wild animals and plants happened independently in separate locations worldwide, starting in Mesopotamia after the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,700 years ago. It greatly narrowed the variety of high-quality food available, leading to a deterioration in human nutrition compared to what was previously available through hunting and foraging. However, the efficient production of large quantities of calorie-rich crop allowed humans to invest their efforts in other activities and was therefore "ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization" with it's process of industrialization and economic growth up to the limits.

The Neolithic Revolution encompassed much more than just the introduction of various food production techniques. Cultivating large areas of land and erecting monumental structures such as Göbekli Tepe required a level of labour that the small groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers who had hitherto dominated human prehistory could hardly have achieved on their own. Therefore, some modern scientists assume that the era discussed here was also accompanied by the establishment of cross-group organisations. The small communities, which had previously lived autonomously and often in competition with each other decided instead to cooperate, forming first alliances, that began to settle down and build permanent villages near their agricultural land. Over the following millennia, the most successful of these have grown into the city-states, which are mentioned in the oldest written documents of mankind (cf. Shuruppak). These proverbially antediluvian societies radically altered their natural environment through animal breeding, deforestation, cultivation of certain crops and irrigation. Other developments that began to spread are pottery and polished stone tools, and the change from round to rectangular dwellings. In many regions, agriculture enabled the production of food surpluses, which in turn resulted in rapid population growth, a phenomenon known as the Neolithic demographic transition.

These developments are sometimes called the Neolithic package. Including earliest political alliances – whose massive influence on the landscape of Eden and the later myths about creation of mankind in this area may be impressively described in the Atrahasis epic –, they form the backdrop to an increasing division of labour, leading to the emergence of centralised administrations and specialised crafts, in line with hierarchical ideologies, expanding trade and military operations, depersonalised systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), aggregation of property and architecture in densely populated settlements, whose often monumental art primarily proclaim the power of the founders, depicting them as gods.

Among the oldest known large-scale structures in human history are the circular formations of anthropomorphic megalith pillars at Göbekli Tepe in northern Mesopotamia (built around 9,500 BP); the earliest written records originate from the Sumerian civilisation, which also emerged in the Fertile Crescent (c. 6,500 BP) and heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age. The relationship of the aforementioned Neolithic characteristics to the onset of agriculture, their sequence of emergence, and their empirical relation to each other at various Neolithic sites remains the subject of academic debate. It is usually understood to vary from place to place, rather than being the outcome of universal laws of social evolution.

Background

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers had different subsistence requirements and lifestyles from agriculturalists. They lived in relatively small groups that were often very mobile (migratory), built only temporary shelters, and had limited contact with foreign communities. The self-sufficient economy of such groups explains their mutual competition for available resources. Territorial conflicts, as sometimes documented by the actors themselves in rock carvings, were therefore not uncommon in human prehistory, but Aristotle already assumed that Homo sapiens – defined by him as zoon politicon – differed from all other animal species primarily in its ability to form political alliances. His highly evolved reason allowed him to cooperate with foreign groups based on an understanding of the advantages of such measures, and to do so ‘much earlier than previously believed by research’ (Klaus Schmidt).

Agriculture represents another achievement of our reason. It differs strongly in terms of content from the initial formation of cross-group organisations, which is why both may have been introduced independently of each other, even if they mostly merged in the course of further demographic and civilisational development. The diet of hunter-gatherers was and is well-balanced though heavily dependent on what the environment could provide each season. In contrast, because the surplus and plannable supply of food provided by agriculture made it possible to support larger population groups, agriculturalists lived in more permanent dwellings in more densely populated settlements than what could be supported by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The agricultural communities' seasonal need to plan and coordinate resource and manpower encouraged division of labour, which gradually led to specialization of labourers and complex societies. The subsequent development of trading networks to exchange surplus commodities and services brought agriculturalists into contact with outside groups, which promoted cultural exchanges that led to the rise of civilizations and technological evolutions.^{[full citation needed]}

However, higher population and food abundance did not necessarily correlate with improved health. Reliance on a very limited variety of staple crops can adversely affect health even while making it possible to feed more people. As an example from the Americas, maize is deficient in certain essential amino acids (lysine and tryptophan) and is a poor source of iron. The phytic acid it contains may inhibit nutrient absorption. Other factors that likely affected the health of early agriculturalists and their domesticated livestock would have been increased numbers of parasites and disease-bearing pests associated with human waste and contaminated food and water supplies. Fertilizers and irrigation may have increased crop yields but also would have promoted proliferation of insects and bacteria in the local environment while grain storage attracted additional insects and rodents.

Agricultural transition

The term 'neolithic revolution' was invented by V. Gordon Childe in his book Man Makes Himself (1936). Childe introduced it as the first in a series of agricultural revolutions in Middle Eastern history, calling it a "revolution" to denote its significance, the degree of change to communities adopting and refining agricultural practices.

The beginning of this process in different regions has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, and perhaps 8000 BCE in the Kuk Early Agricultural Site of Papua New Guinea in Melanesia. Everywhere, this transition is associated with a change from a largely nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life to a more settled, agrarian one, with the domestication of various plant and animal species – depending on the species locally available, and influenced by local culture. Archaeological research in 2003 suggests that in some regions, such as the Southeast Asian peninsula, the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist was not linear, but region-specific.

• Modern distribution of the haplotypes of PPNB farmers
• Genetic distance between PPNB farmers and modern populations

South Asia

Expansion to South Asia

Early Neolithic sites in the Near East and South Asia 10,000–3,800 BP

Neolithic dispersal from the Near East to South Asia suggested by the time of establishment of Neolithic sites as a function of distance from Gesher, Israel. The dispersal rate amounts to about 0.6 km per year