The Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic site Bondarikha ІІ was explored 70 years ago by D. Ya. Telegin. The materials of the site were not processed utilizing modern methods. The authors of the paper re-examined and analyzed the site’s materials using current methodologies. The Bondarikha II site is set along a natural boundary on what is now the south-eastern outskirts of the modern city of Izium, Kharkiv region. The location of the site is a section of an over-flooded terrace that stretches along the left bank of the River Siversky Donets, and a section of an older river bed named the Willow Pit. In the north, sections of the terrace were crossed by an unnamed stream, and its southern boundary defined by floodplains. The lowlands nearest the terrace are primarily comprised of wetlands. It is quite clear that the Willow Pit was once an active river and seasonally may have transformed into a lake during times of flooding. The site is located approximately 7 m above the current floodplain. The general site po...

"Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of modern times, pushing back the origins of monumentality beyond the emergence of agriculture. We are pleased to present a summary of work in progress by the excavators of this remarkable site and their latest thoughts
about its role and meaning. At the dawn of the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers congregating at Göbekli Tepe created social and ideological cohesion through the carving of decorated pillars, dancing, feasting—and, almost certainly, the drinking of beer made from fermented wild crops."

The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into an agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent humanhistory.Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesises the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and north Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This book is mainly based on detailed consideration of two lines of evidences: the plant remains found at archaeological sites, and the knowledge that has accumulated about the present-day wildrelatives of domesticated plants. This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculturewithin the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps.

Ok, Children of the Corn was true classic from the days when Stephen King was the King of horror. However its true glory lies in marking an era where the Green Revolution has shown its true face as the unlikely Terminator. High-yield strains were developed and seeded everywhere around the world, supplanting most of the old gene pools and agrarian biodiversity since Neolithic Revolution to kingdom come. Especially so in the third or the second world, the Communist East being very much into the same ‘let’s have mutant, pest-resistant, gigantic, super-sweet corn’ wave. In fact, we could argue that much of the Eastern ‘collectivization’ was a more or less a camouflaged fertility cult celebrating chthonian energies, renewal and miraculous hybrids.

The Çatalhöyük and Sha'ar Hagolan communities faced a new situation in human evolution, namely, the agglomeration of a very large population at one site. Each community developed different strategies to cope with the scalar stress it faced. This analysis concentrates on six different cultural phenomena and discusses the meaning of these differences. Ultimately, they reflect different social structures: the site of Çatalhöyük presents a fascinating large community that struggled with population pressure on the nuclear-family level, while at Sha'ar Hagolan the community was organized on the extended family level.

The discussion on the mutual relations of various elements within the Funnel Beaker culture has been on for almost half a century now. It currently involves the third generation of researchers, and it is quite likely that the next generations will still have something more to add to this exchange of views (K. Jażdżewski 1970a, p. 49). Half a century has passed since that publication and now we can only assent to the Professor and risk the statement that in the next 50 years this problem will continue to be valid. This paper is intended as an attempt to sketch answer the fundamental question defined by Jażdżewski (1970a, p. 49): The essential question is whether the northern, western and southern elements balance within the Funnel Beaker culture, or whether one of
them is dominant, prime and decisive for further development. In other words, I intend to predominantly focus on the geo-cultural significance of the communities of the Funnel Beaker culture. In parallel with the essential part of the analysis, I will make an attempt to illustrate the threads of the contemporary discourse which directly relate to Jażdżewski’s thoughts.

Chapter 5 from: Terberger, Th./Gronenborn, D., Vom Jäger und Sammler zum Bauern: Die Neolithische Revolution. Archäologie in Deutschland Sonderheft 05/2014. Theis/WBG (Darmstadt 2014).

Low resolution version! Some images are available in higher resolution from "teaching documents" section on this platform

This article re-examines the ‘neolithic revolution’—Gordon Childe’s great contribution to prehistoric archaeology. Childe first articulated his model of three revolutions in history—neolithic, urban and industrial—in 1936. Many authors have sought to understand it in the light of subsequent archaeological theory; here I proceed differently. A broader appreciation of the context in which Childe operated, in Britain and the rest of Europe, is necessary if we are to grasp fully the content of his model and the theoretical strands that influenced it. This article aims to elucidate the Neolithic as a historical construct and Childe’s archaeology as a continuation of his politics. The facts are viewed from four perspectives: (a) personal, with biographical information about the young Gordon Childe; (b) institutional, through a description of the 1920s research landscape in London; (c) ideological, through an attempt to retrace the European Weltanschauung; and (d) conceptual, with a discussion of the ‘neolithic revolution’. Childe’s love-hate relationship with Germany and Austria heavily influenced his model, which is essentially a grand synthesis between the Kulturkreislehre (of Gräbner) and the Dreistufenlehre (probably of Karl Bücher, through its critique by the Functionalists in London). The model’s revolutionary structure comes from dialectical materialism. All three main building blocks of the ‘neolithic revolution’—diffusionist, evolutionist and Marxist—ultimately derive from the great nineteenth century German historical tradition. An anti-fascist his entire life, Childe tried to rescue German ideas in face of the impending catastrophe—Hitler’s arrival to power, and the destruction of Central European intellectual traditions.

Yaklaşık 10 bin sene önce insanlık ani bir sıçrama geçirmiştir. Bilindik somut kanıtlar bunu kuşkuya yer bırakmayacak ölçüde doğrular. Beş bin sene önce yazının icadıyla (yani “tarih”in başlangıcıyla) bu somut kanıtlar iyice çarpıcı hale gelir. On bin sene önce Bereketli Hilal’de tarımın icat edilmesi sonucunda insan davranışlarının şimdiki şeklini aldığı düşünülür.
Sırasıyla: Tarımın başlaması, dolayısıyla toprağa bağlı yerleşik hayata adım atılması, bunun üzerine boş zamanın artmasıyla birlikte soyutlama becerilerinin gelişmesi, dinin ortaya çıkışı ve böylece hem materyal hem de ideolojik şartların oluşması sonucu şehirlerin doğuşu. Bu silsileye kimsenin pek bir itirazı olduğunu sanmam. Ama benim var!
Şimdi size anlatacağım hikaye, akademik çalışmalar ve yeni bulgulara dayanan bir bilimkurgu. Yani bilimde her zaman olduğu gibi tam anlamıyla kesin değil ama oldukça yeni, bugün için geçerli olan son bilgilerimizin genel bir tanıtımı ve yorumu buradan sonrası.

Der Übergang von der aneignenden zur produzierenden Wirtschaft, oder vielleicht deutlicher vom Sammeln und Jagen zum Bodenbau, ist weltweit eine der bedeutendsten Umbruchsperioden in der Menschheitsgeschichte. Es ist ein wirtschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Quantensprung: in den meisten Fällen ist mit dem Anbau von Nahrungspflanzen und der Zucht von Haustieren auch Sesshaftigkeit verbunden. Dies, wie auch die nun stetiger und verlässlicher vorhandenen Nahrungsgrundlagen, führen oftmals zu rascher Bevölkerungszunahme. Jene macht wiederum neue politische Organisationsformen und soziale Strukturen notwendig, Hierarchien und Eliten bilden sich heraus: Die Gesellschaften teilen sich auf in mächtige und wohlhabende und eben weniger erfolgreiche Individuen bzw. Gruppen. [...]

Lange Version des Katalogartikels zum Neolithikum mit Literaturverzeichnis:

Katalogartikel für das Museum der Westlausitz, Kamenz (Sachsen) zur aktuellen Sonderausstellung "Das Ende der Steinzeit-die ersten Bauern in der Lausitz" 08.02.2020−10.01.2021.
Da ich nicht über die Rechte zu den damals von mir eingeplanten Abbildungen verfüge, sind diese hier entfernt worden. Die Verweise auf die Abbildungen befinden sich aber im Abbildungsverzeichnis.

Hierbei handelt es sich um eine detaillierte Version zum publizierten Katalogbeitrag , welcher um ca. fünf Seiten gekürzt ist. Ferner verfügt dieser Artikel über das dazugehörige Literaturverzeichnis.
Der Artikel liefert eine komprimierte Zusammenfassung zum europäischen Neolithikum, dessen Ausbreitung und Folgen für Mensch und Umwelt. Dabei werden diverse Forschungsmeinungen erwähnt und kritisiert.

Gekürzter Katalogbeitrag:

D. Richardt, Das Neolithikum – Am Beginn der Zivilisation. In: F. Koch-Heinrichs (Hrsg.), Das Ende
der Steinzeit. Die Ersten Bauern in der Lausitz. Begleitband zur Ausstellung „Das Ende der Steinzeit –
Die ersten Bauern in der Lausitz“ vom 08.02.2020−10.01.2021 (Kamenz 2020) 10−19.

James Mellaart was a pioneering archaeologist who made some of the greatest discoveries about Turkey’s prehistoric past, changing our understanding of the late stone age forever. His excavation of the huge Neolithic mound site of Çatalhöyük, now a World Heritage Site, brought revolutionary evidence of a complex prehistoric town, revealing previously undreamt of art and culture, and making him famous. However, there was far more to the man than his archaeology – his troubled childhood, fierce identity, love for Turkish culture, as well as the controversies by which he was dogged, meant that his life was filled with adventure and exoticism.

This book delves into the life of James Mellaart and his wife Arlette, their family histories and historical Istanbul, the romantic backdrop to Mellaart’s ground-breaking work. His son Alan explores in detail how the lives of his parents and their respective families unfolded, set against the social whirl of a summer palace on the Bosphorus. Mellaart’s archaeological discoveries and the excitement of excavation are vividly explained in first-hand accounts by those who were there at the time. Historical reports, eyewitness accounts from those who knew him and assessments of the impact of both Mellaart’s work and character by leading academics show the undoubted importance of his contribution to the archaeology of Turkey and the wider Near East. Richly illustrated in colour throughout, here for the first time the reader encounters previously unseen archive materials, including Mellaart’s personal notebooks and accounts, giving new perspective on one of the greatest and most controversial characters in the history of archaeology.   

By Alan Mellaart and contributors, edited by Emma L. Baysal
476 pages, 239 illustrations (149 colour, 90 black and white), cloth hb, limited edition.

summary – neolithic and eneolithic of caput adriae – the eastern adriatic coast and the caput adriae lie along one of the main routes of the spread of farming into europe. the area in this study covers dalmatia, istria, Karst and friuli which present varied environmental and geomorphological features. recent research has disclosed a complex archaeological picture of neolithic communities well adapted to different local environments. this area is also significant for the understanding of contacts and interactions between the mediterranean world and the continental regions during the development of the neolithic period and in the subsequent prehistoric phases. nevertheless, only dalmatia offers long relatively detailed pottery sequences suitable for building a reliable cultural and chronological framework of the neolithic in several phases between 6000 and ca. 4000 bc. full neolithic evidence is attested to only occasionally in the istria and Karst regions, while it is widespread in the western margin of friulian plain. eneolithic evidence instead is not yet fully attested; its recognition rests almost entirely on certain stylistic traits of pottery and the first appearance of copper objects as isolated artefacts. the paper presents an outline of the emergence of neolithic communities and their economic and social transformations between the sixth and third millennium bc.
riassunto – neolitico ed eneolitico del caput adriae – la costa orientale dell’adriatico e il Caput Adriae sono situati lungo una delle vie principali seguite dal processo di neolitizzazione in europa. l’area esaminata comprende la dalmazia, l’istria, il carso e il friuli che presentano caratteristiche ambientali e geomorfologiche differenti. le ricerche effettuate negli ultimi anni hanno svelato un quadro archeologico complesso costituito da numerose communità neolitiche con sistemi di sussistenza diversificati ben adattati ai differenti ambienti locali. l’area considerata è inoltre di grande interesse per la comprensione dei contatti e delle interazioni intercorse tra il mondo mediterraneo e le regioni più interne nel corso del neolitico e nelle successive fasi preistoriche; tuttavia, solo la dalmazia ha delle sequenze ceramiche relativamente dettagliate che forniscono un quadro cronologico e culturale affidabile delle diverse fasi neolitiche tra il 6000 e il 4000 circa a.c. le evidenze del pieno neolitico sono occasionalmente attestate in istria e nel carso, mentre sono meglio note nelle zone più occidentali del friuli. l’eneolitico non è ancora ben definito ed è conosciuto solo da alcune evidenze ceramiche e dalla comparsa occasionale dei primi manufatti di rame. l’articolo delinea lo sviluppo delle comunità agricole nel corso del neolitico e le loro trasformazioni economiche e sociali tra il vi e il iii millennio a.c.

Zuraina Majid, Ang Bee Huat and Jaffrie Ignatius (1998). Late Pleistocene-Holocene Sites in Pahang: Excavations of Gua Sagu and Gua Tenggek:IN (Editor: Zuraina Majid) Archaeological Research and Museums In Malaysia. Malaysia Museums Journal, Volume 34: Pages 65 - 115.

This chapter tackles one of the most enduring questions posed by prehistoric archaeology worldwide attracting the interest of prehistorians, anthropologists, economists, geographers and natural scientists alike: how and why did late Palaeolithic societies abandon long-lived and highly successful foraging and hunting economies in order to adopt farming? The chapter provides a critical overview of how this transformation unfolded in Southwest Asia, the place of origin for some of the economically most important contemporary plant and animal food staples, at the very end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene some 12,000 years ago. It focuses in particular on the nature of plant management practices during this period and how they were intertwined with changes in climate and vegetation, seasonality patterns, local micro-ecological variability, people’s historical experiences and perceptions of the landscape, mobility strategies, community interactions, and associated symbolic and ritual behaviours. Some of the currently accepted notions about the nature, ecology and economic returns of predomestication cultivation, the causes and evolution of the morphological domestication syndrome in crop progenitor species, and the predicted impacts of climate and environmental change on economic decision-making are critically reviewed and revisited. The chapter concludes by discussing some of the implications of the Southwest Asian case study for understanding the nature and evolution of prehistoric human economic behaviours, and the central role that resource ecologies play in determining the directionality and pace of macroeconomic change.

(Chapter published in M. Benz, H.G.K. Gebel and T. Watkins (eds.), Neolithic Corporate Identities. Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence and Environment 20 (2017) pp. 21-53. Berlin, ex oriente. This edited volume is available for ordering at http://www.exoriente.org/bookshop/detail.php?b=61).

Recent fieldwork in the main excavation area at Göbekli Tepe has focused on the excavation of deep soundingsto reach the natural bedrock in preparation for the construction of a shelter, urgently required for the protection of the exposed Neolithic architecture. Eleven deep soundings have been excavated to the bedrock. At several locations, considerable amounts of  carbonized botanical material were discovered, so far unique for excavations at Göbekli. A series of more than 150 samples has been produced either on site or by flotation of the relevant soil units. To test the quality of the material for radiocarbon dating, five samples from the area of the large enclosures from Layer III were submitted for AMS-radiocarbon dating. These new data, together with a further age made on collagen from an animal tooth, are presented and discussed in context with previously available absolute chronological evidence.

Recent research indicates that cultivation may have begun in as many as five regions of India before the introduction of exogenous crops and cultivation systems: South India, Orissa, the Middle Ganges, Saurashtra, and the Himalayan foothills of the Punjab region. These potential centers of crop origin have been triangulated from data on the biogeography of wild progenitors and a growing archaeobotanical database. Nevertheless, none of these centers provide unambiguous evidence for local domestication or evidence that domestication occurred entirely in the absence of introduced crops and food-production systems. One of the major lacunae is archaeobotanical evidence from hunter-gatherer sites or evidence of the transition to initial cultivation. In addition, documentation of the morphological changes accompanying domestication is available for only a few species. This paper reviews the arguments for local domestication in each of these five regions, paying particular attention to data that might document domestication processes. But an alternative hypothesis for several regions also can be considered in which agriculture arose as a result of secondary domestications of local species after an initial introduction of farming from outside. On the basis of these alternative working hypotheses, research priorities are identified for resolving these issues

For thousands of years, men have struggled to establish their supremacy. At first, they used spirits to secure for themselves a function in a natural world that seemed to have taken sides with the feminine. Eventually, they created an all-mighty divinity, and established their status as second to none other than that highest of all authority.

Sailing through history, we show that the way procreation was perceived has determined how men and women positioned themselves in the universe. It has wielded consequences that have deeply affected our evolution, from the primal vision of an all-encompassing natural world in which Mother Nature represented the source of all life, to the subjection of nature and woman, with God the Father sitting at the summit of the creation.

This emphasis on gender and nature brings into perspective the current social and economic resurgence of women and the new attitude towards environment that needs to be protected from our own deeds. These intricate leitmotifs make us witness a turning point in our history.

H. Meller, Im Schweiße seines Angesichts macht er sich die Erde untertan – Neolithisierung und Neolithikum in Mitteleuropa. In: H. Meller (Hrsg.), 3300 BC. Mysteriöse Steinzeittote und ihre Welt. Sonderausstellung vom 14.11.2013 bis 18.05.2014 im Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Halle [Saale] 2013) 24–29.

Статья посвящена некоторым вопросам происхождения абхазо-адыгов в
свете новейших данных ряда наук. Осуществляется пересмотр предшествующих гипотез, в
частности, теории миграции предков абхазо-адыгов (народа каска) из Малой Азии во II-I тыс.
до н.э., а также и теории о близком родстве касков с хаттами. Выдвинута версия, согласно
которой предки абхазо-адыгов являются реликтом неолитической Европы и появились на За-
падном Кавказе не позже V тыс. до н.э. Ее суть сводится к тому, что путь миграций пролегал
не непосредственно из Малой Азии через Южный Кавказ, а был более сложным и длительным: из
Западной Анатолии в ходе миграций, связанных с «неолитизацией» 9-10 тыс. лет назад, через
Балканы, Карпатский регион и Северное Причерноморье.
The article is devoted to some issues of the origin of Abkhaz-Adyghs, in the light of latest
data of a number of sciences. It is proposed to revise the earlier hypotheses, particularly the ones on the
migration of the ancestors of Abkhaz-Adyghs (‘kaska’ people) from Asia Minor in the II-I millennium
BC and their close relationship with the Hattians. A version has been put forward that the ancestors
of Abkhaz-Adyghs are a relic of Neolithic Europe and that they appeared in the Western Caucasus no
later than the V millennium BC. The point is that the migration route did not run directly from Asia
Minor through the South Caucasus, but was more complicated and longer: from Western Anatolia during
migrations connected with the «neolithization» of 9-10 thousand years ago, through the Balkans, the
Carpathian region and Northern Black Sea Coast.

SUMMARY: Lecture-2 examines the Neolithic period in Anatolia, including trends, beginning with Gobelki Tepe and Nevali Cori, but with a major focus on Chatal Huyuk (in PART-1), including the history of investigations at Chatal Huyuk, its setting, social organization, housing and shrines, subsistence (with a discussion of seasonality), and technology (i.e., many aspects of the material culture) at this site (the lecture on Chatal Huyuk continues in PART-2). This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources (revised and re-formatted, Sept.,Oct. 2020). SPRING 2024

We review and evaluate human adaptations during the last glacial-interglacial climatic transition in southwest Asia. Stable isotope data imply that climatic change was synchronous across the region within the limits of dating uncertainty. Changes in vegetation, as indicated from pollen and charcoal, mirror step-wise shifts between cold-dry and warm-wet climatic conditions, but with lag effects for woody vegetation in some upland and interior areas. Palaeoenvironmental data can be set against regional archaeological evidence for human occupancy and economy from the later Epipalaeolithic to the aceramic Neolithic. Demographic change is evaluated from summed radiocarbon date probability distributions , which indicating contrasting and in some cases opposite-population trajectories in different regions. Abrupt warming transitions at ~14.5 and 11.7 ka BP may have acted as pacemakers for rapid cultural change in some areas, notably at the start of the Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures. However temporal synchroneity does not mean that climatic changes had the same environmental or societal consequences in different regions. During cold-dry time intervals, regions such as the Levant acted as refugia for plant and animal resources and human population. In areas where socio-ecological continuity was maintained through periods of adverse climate (e.g. Younger Dryas) human communities were able to respond rapidly to subsequent climatic improvement. By contrast, in areas where there was a break in settlement at these times (e.g. central Anatolia), populations were slower to react to the new opportunities provided by the interglacial world.

Ce mémoire reconstitue l’histoire des théories, modèles et hypothèses qui ont été formulés, principalement en archéologie, afin d’expliquer la naissance de l’agriculture qui correspond, du point de vue chronologique, à la transition (ou révolution) néolithique. Ces schèmes explicatifs sont décrits chronologiquement depuis la naissance de l’archéologie préhistorique, dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, jusqu’à maintenant. Ils sont classifiés en fonction des principales écoles qui ont joué un rôle prédominant en archéologie préhistorique depuis son origine, soit : l’évolutionnisme multilinéaire, l’école culturelle-historique, le processualisme, le néodarwinisme et le postprocessualisme. Les théories spécifiques (dites de « niveau mitoyen » ou « régionales ») qui ont été avancées par ces écoles sont présentées dans leur ordre chronologique, soit (principalement) : les théories de la dessiccation ou de l’oasis, des flancs de colline, de la périphérie, du stress démographique, du festin compétitif, de la révolution des symboles, etc. Ce mémoire pose enfin les jalons d’une théorie multifactorielle qui intègre ou synthétise les principaux facteurs qui ont pu influer sur la naissance de l’agriculture et sur la transition néolithique.

This dissertation reconstructs the history of theories, models and hypotheses which have been proposed in order to explain the birth of agriculture, that is the neolithic transition or revolution. These explanatory schemes are described chronologically from the birth of prehistoric archaeology, in the first half of the 19th century, until today. They are classified according to the main schools which have played a leading role in prehistoric archaeology since its birth: multilinear evolutionism, the culture-historical school, processualism, neodarwinism and postprocessualism. The specific theories (also called “middle-range” or “regional”) which have been proposed by these schools are presented the chronological order: the theories of desiccation, oases, hilly flanks, periphery, population stress, competitive feasting, revolution of symbols, etc. Finally, this dissertation lays the ground for a multifactorial theory integrating or synthesizing the main factors which may have influenced the birth of agriculture and the neolithic transition.