 The
New Stone Age
 A prehistoric period beginning about
10,000 years ago in which peoples
possessed stone-based technologies and
depended on domesticated crops and/or
animals.
 The
Middle Stone Age that began about
12,000 years ago.
 At the end of the glacial period, human
habitats changed physically.
 Sea levels rose, vegetation changed, and
herd animals disappeared from many
areas.
 This period marked a shift to hunting
smaller game and gathering a broad
spectrum of plants and aquatic resources.
 It was a more sedentary period with
increased reliance on seafood and plants.
 Ground
stone tools, including axes and
adzes, were needed for new technologies
in the post-glacial world.
 Many tools were made with microliths:
small, hard, sharp blades of flint that
could be mass produced and attached
with others to produce implements like
sickles.
A
Mesolithic culture living in what are now
Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between
about 12,500 and 10,200 years ago.
 They buried their dead in communal
cemeteries.
 Basin-shaped depressions in the rocks
found outside homes and plastered storage
pits indicate they were the earliest
Mesolithic people known to store plant
foods.
 The
Neolithic derives its name from
polished stone tools characteristic of this
period.
 This period saw a transition from a
foraging economy to one based on food
production.
 Source of all cultural change is either
primary or secondary innovation.
 An
evolutionary process whereby
humans modify the genetic makeup of
plants or animals, frequently to the extent
that members of the population are
unable to survive and/or reproduce
without human assistance.


Teosinte (A), compared
to 5,500-year-old maize
(B) and modern maize
(C).
Domestication
transformed Teosinte
into something highly
desirable.
 The
shift to rely on domesticated
plants and animals took several
thousand years.
 Plants were selected for increased size,
loss of delayed seed germination, and
reduction or loss of protective devices.
 In general, animals were selected for
smaller horns and smaller overall
body size.
General observations:
1. Contemporary food foragers have
detailed knowledge of plant growth
and uses.
2. A switch from food foraging to food
production does not free people from
hard work.
3. Food production is not necessarily a
more secure means of subsistence
than food foraging.
 Proposed
by V. Gordon Childe
 Environmental determinism
• When glaciers retreated north, the area of the
Fertile Crescent became drier and forced
people to congregate at water holes.
• Increased population and food scarcity pushed
people to cultivate food in order to meet caloric
needs.
 Evidence
indicates that the earliest plant
domestication took place gradually in the
Fertile Crescent.
 Archaeological data suggest the
domestication of rye as early as 13,000
years ago by people living at a site (Abu
Hureyra) east of Aleppo, Syria.
 By 10,300 years ago, others in the region
were also growing crops.
 Between
12,000 and 6,000 years ago, the
region experienced dry summers
significantly longer and hotter than today.
 The Natufians modified their subsistence
practices:
• They burned the landscape to promote browsing
by deer and grazing by gazelles.
• They emphasized the collection of wild seeds
from the annual plants that could be effectively
stored to see people through the dry season.
 Root
crop farming
 Typically involves the growing of many
different species together in a single
field.
 Tends to be more stable than seed crop
cultivation because it approximates the
complexity of the natural vegetation.
 Cultivation
of crops carried out with
simple hand tools such as digging sticks
or hoes.
 Small community of gardeners working
with simple hand tools and using neither
irrigation nor the plow.
 Increased
dependence on farming and
increased fertility seem to go hand in
hand.
 Explanations
• Soft foods decrease breastfeeding
• Children as assets on farms
• High infant mortality
• Cultural practices
 Domestication
increases productivity and
increases stability.
 There was still a decline in the quality
and length of human life.
 The
spread of certain ideas, customs, or
practices from one culture to another.
 Once farming emerged, it was more or
less guaranteed that it would spread to
neighboring regions through migration
and diffusion.
 An
early farming community in the
Jordan River Valley of Palestine.
 A sizable farming community inhabited
as early as 10,300 years ago.
 Crops could be grown almost
continuously, due to the presence of a
bounteous spring and the rich soils of an
Ice Age lake that dried up 3,000 years
earlier.
 To
protect their settlement against floods
and mudflows they built stone walls (6
1/2 feet wide and 12 feet high) and a
ditch (27 feet wide and 9 feet deep).
 A village cemetery reflects a sedentary
life.
 Evidence of trade includes obsidian and
turquoise from Sinai as well as marine
shells from the coast.
 Stone
that was too hard to be chipped was
ground and polished for tools.
 People developed scythes, forks, hoes, and
plows to replace digging sticks.
 There was extensive manufacture and use of
pottery which requires knowledge of clay
and techniques of firing and baking.
 Other technological developments included
building of permanent houses and the
weaving of textiles.
 Skeletons
from Neolithic villages show
evidence of severe and chronic
nutritional stress as well as pathologies
related to infectious and deficiency
diseases.
 High starch diets led to increased dental
decay.
 Domestication encourages a sedentary
lifestyle with the potential for
overpopulation relative to the resource
base.
 Harris
Lines

Enamel hypoplasias
 Competition
among settlements for
resources led to increased mortality due
to warfare.
 Sedentary life brought sanitation
problems as garbage and human waste
accumulated.
 The close association between humans
and domestic animals allowed the
transmission of some animal diseases to
humans.
 Horticulture
• Cultivation of crops carried out with simple
hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.
 Agriculture
• Intensive crop cultivation, employing plows,
fertilizers, and/or irrigation.
 Pastoralism
• Breeding and managing migratory herds of
domesticated grazing animals.