GET “RICH” IN THE
NEOLITHIC PERIOD!
Game of scarcity, standard of
living, and making the mud-brick
house of your dreams
Neolithic Period
• From the Stone Age to Bronze Age
• 8,700 to 3,500 BCE
People started to
plant grain, breed
and herd animals, and
use agricultural tools
in the Middle East
Scarcity: Human wants are greater than the
capacity of available resources to satisfy
those wants.
Goods and Services…?
•Goods: things that you need and want
(food, clothing, shelter, cool clothing,
tools, really awesome tools, etc…)
•Services: actions that get things done to
supply you with food, clothing, shelter,
better goods, etc…, like farming, building
a house, weaving clothing, teaching a skill
or knowledge…
Standard of Living
How well off people are, measured by
the quantity and quality of goods and
services that they have.
How does your standard of living
compare with that of people who
lived in the U.S. 100 years ago?
Consumer Goods: Goods
that give you direct
satisfaction.
Capital Goods: Human-made goods that are
used to produce other goods and services
and that do not get used up in the
production process.
Investment: The purchase of
capital goods that are used to
produce goods and services.
Your Goal in the Simulation/Game
•Raise your standard of living by acquiring
consumer goods (what are consumer goods?)
You want to have:
~ 20 units of wheat
~ 10 woolen garments
~ 1 mud-brick house of your dreams
•Note: You do not win the game by capital
goods. However, capital goods can help you
produce wheat in less time, which will give you
the time you need to make woolen garments
and build a mud-brick house of your dreams.
Village Clerk
Read the
instructions for
Year One aloud
Note: no family may
own more than 9
hoes, 9 sickles, and 1
irrigation canal
during the
simulation.
Get Ready…Families!
•Greet your family members
•Decide on a Family Representative who will
exchange wheat for other goods
•Decide on a Family Scribe to track progress
on the Family Record Sheet
•Decide on a Family Banker to track goods
•Come up with a Family chant, song,
motivating cheer
Get Set…Instructions & Wheat!
•Read Part II: Information for the
Simulation
•Clerk passes out 30 units of wheat to
each family
How much does everything cost?
• Your family must have 20 units of wheat each year to survive.
• 1 woolen garment costs 2 units of wheat (you want 10
woolen garments)
• 1 mud-brick house of your dreams costs 20 units of wheat
(you want 1 mud-brick house of your dreams)
• 1 hoe costs 3 units of wheat. Each hoe you own increases
wheat production by 8 units per year.
• 1 sickle costs 2 units of wheat. Each sickle you own increases
wheat production by 5 units per year.
• 1 irrigation canal costs 20 units of wheat. It costs only 15
units per family if two families produce it together. A canal
system increases wheat production by 20 units per year.
Go! …Year One! Hooray!
•Good weather! 30 units of wheat per
family!
•What will you do with your extra 10 units
of wheat?
Year Two and Following Years
• At the beginning of the year, Teacher announces how much
wheat your family produced that year
• Family Rep collects 20 units of wheat (in a normal year) plus any
additional units for each capital good—hoe, sickle, and irrigation
canal
• Family decides what to do with any extra wheat over 20 units
• At the end of the year, Family Rep turns in 20 units of wheat to
Village Clerk for wheat consumed, and exchange any other units
of wheat for capital goods or consumer goods.
• When a family has 20 units of wheat, 10 woolen garments, and 1
mud-brick house of their dreams, the entire group should stand.
• Note: a drought may occur in any year, and your family will only
produce 10 units of wheat, even though you’ll still need 20 units to
survive.
Debrief
~ How could Neolithic farmers
increase the overall production
of consumer goods (wheat,
clothing, house)?
~ How did producing capital
goods lead to an increased
standard of living?
Labor Productivity
•…is the amount of goods and services
produced per worker in a given time period.
•Did your family size change?
•By the end, could your family produce more
wheat in a year?
•Did wheat produced per person increase?
•Why did productivity increase in the game?
Economic Growth…
•…is an increase in the output of goods and
services per person.
•How did using capital goods affect economic
growth?
•How does economic growth affect the
standard of living?