The Neolithic is the last stage of Prehistory, between 9000 and 6000 BC, when human beings went from simply collecting the products of nature, to modifying it to artificially produce new types of resources. At that time, human groups, in different places and times and without any relation to each other, began to practice agriculture and livestock.
Population growth has been raised as a likely cause of the rise of agriculture; it is believed that the human population increased to such an extent that resources were insufficient to meet food needs; therefore, prehistoric societies were forced to interact with nature to increase the production of plants and animals.
Population centers in the Neolithic
The existence of five independent centers of Neolithic occurrence is now generally accepted.
- The oldest place is the so-called Fertile Crescent, that is, the mountainous and semi-arid region that surrounds the Arabian Peninsula, between Mesopotamia and Egypt. Around 9000 BC, the domestication of animals and plants began.
- Two centers of domestication have been identified in far eastern Asia, one located in the fertile plains of northern China, and the other in a large tropical or subtropical zone between southern China and Burma, where early from the 6th millennium BC, it began with rice.
- In America, domestication also occurred from the 6th millennium BC, in two regions independently:the first and oldest is located in central Mexico, basically based on corn, a cereal native to that region. The second American center is located in the south where, in addition to the species from central Mexico, potato cultivation and animal husbandry were practiced, among which the llama and alpaca stand out.
Changes in lifestyle
As a result of the domestication of plants and animals, very important changes occurred in the lives of human beings and in the environment around them.
In the first place, the new activities favored a sedentary lifestyle, that is, the abandonment of nomadic life to remain in the same place with the purpose of caring for the development of crops and tending to the grazing of livestock. This resulted in the emergence of the first farming villages that were scattered around the centers of agricultural development.
Second, due to better nutrition and the security that sedentary life represented, there was a greater growth of the human population and new forms of social organization emerged. The distribution of work was expanded and various activities emerged, such as basketry and ceramics, while the manufacture of stone instruments continued.
With the passage of time, the production of food and handicrafts grew in such a way that it exceeded the needs of its manufacturers; this gave rise to exchange with other peoples, that is, to the emergence of the first forms of trade.
Chalcolithic
In the last phase of the Neolithic, metallurgy arose, that is, the transformation of minerals into metals. This industry, which, like agriculture, was invented independently in different parts of the world and in different periods, appeared for the first time in the south of Asia Minor in the seventh millennium BC, and the first mineral used was copper, which gave name to this period:Chalcolithic.
In this period the first cities arose in Asia Minor as a result of the increase in population, and the growth and specialization of activities. The beginning of urban societies gave way to civilization that, like the manufacture of bronze and iron among many other things, brought with it the invention of writing, a fundamental event that marks the end of Prehistory and the beginning of history.