Neolitic
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Neoliticul (sau epoca pietrei lustruite) este o perioadă din istoria omenirii. Termen a fost inventat în 1865 de istoricul John Lubbock. Neoliticul este ultima epocă a preistoriei şi cea mai scurtă, ea a urmat după mezolitic şi a precedat epoca metalelor, caracterizată prin folosirea uneltelor de piatră lustruită şi de bronz, prin apariţia agriculturii primitive, a creşterii vitelor şi a olăriei.
Epoca neolitică urmeză pleistocenul final epipaleoliticul şi holocenul timpuriu, mezoliticul. Neoliticul începe o dată cu practicarea agriculturii şi se încheie o dată cu apariţia metalurgiei cuprului în epoca cuprului sau eneolitic. Termenul de neolitic nu se referă la o perioadă cronologică strictă însă include o serie de manifestări economice comune cum ar fi uneltele din piatră lustruită, practicarea agriculturi şi domesticirea animalelor. Unii specialişti au înlocuit termenul de neolitic cu termenul mai descriptiv de comunităţi săteşti timpurii (în engleză: Early Village Communities) însă termenul nu a fost acceptat pe un spaţiu larg.
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[modifică] Origine şi evoluţie locală
În Orientul Apropiat culturile definite ca neolitice au apărut în mileniul X î.Hr. Cele mai timpuri manifestări au loc în Levant (Neolitic aceramic A şi Neolitic aceramic B) iar de aici se răspândesc spre est şi vest. Culturi neolitice fiind atestate în sud-estul Anatoliei şi nordul Mesopotamiei la aproximativ 8000 î.Hr.
Printre siturile neolitice din Asia de Sud se numără Mehrgarh în regiunea Balochistan datat aproximativ 7000 î.Hr. şi Lahuradewa aproximativ 6200 î.Hr. valea fluviului Gange în India. Unele descoperiri facute pe valea Gangelui indică aşezări neolitice datate aproximativ 8000 î.Hr. şi polen de cereale datat 13000 î.Hr. Aceste descoperiri pot indica o apariţie mai timpurie a modului de viaţă neolitic în această regiune.
În Asia de Est cele mai timpurii situri includ cultura Peiligang datată aproximativ între 7000 î.Hr. până în 5000 î.Hr..
În sud-estul Europei societăţile neolitice apar prin 7000 î.Hr. iar în Europa Centrală aproximativ 5500 î.Hr. Printre cele mai timpurii complexe culturale din acestă regiune se numără cultura Starčevo-Criş şi cultura ceramicii liniare sau „Linearbandkeramic”. Printr-o combinaţie de difuziune culturală şi migraţie, tradiţiile neolitice s-au răspândit în întreaga Europă până în aproximativ 4500 î.Hr.
În America societăţile umane ating acest stadiu de evoluţie (agricultură şi mod de viaţă sedentar) aproximativ 4500 î.Hr. Se foloseşte termenul de 'Formative' în arheologia americană.
Agricultura neolitică timpurie se rezumă la un număr limitat de plante iar domesticirea animalelor se rezumnă doar la oi si capre. Începând cu 7000 î.Hr. începe domesticirea vacilor şi porcilor, stabilirea unor aşezări permanente şi producerea ceramicii. Nu toate aceste caracteristici ale neoliticului au apărut în aceiaşi ordine peste tot în lume. De exeplu societăţile neolitice din Orientul Apropiat nu utilizau ceramica la începutul neoliticului. Socităţile omeneşti din Japonia utilizau ceramica înca din mezolitic.
[modifică] Organizare socială
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There is little scientific evidence for developed hierarchies in the Neolithic; hierarchies are more closely associated with the later Bronze Age. Families and households were still largely economically independent. Excavations in Central Europe have also revealed that early Neolithic Linear Ceramic cultures were building large arrangements of circular ditches between 4800 BC and 4600 BC. These structures (and their later Neolithic equivalents such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds, and henges) required considerable time and labour to construct, which suggests that some influential individuals were able to organise and direct human labour. There is also good evidence for fortified settlement at Linearbandkeramic sites along the Rhine, as well as evidence for inter-group conflict from Neolithic sites in Britain. Control of labour and inter-group conflict is characteristic of corporate-level or 'tribal' groups, headed by a charismatic individual (e.g., a 'big man', or proto-chief) such as a lineage group head. These sociopolitical entities later developed into the chiefdoms of the European Early Bronze Age. The Iroquois, Pueblo people, Maya civilization and the Māori are examples of stone-tool-dependent cultures with complex social and political systems.
[modifică] Agricultură
A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in those areas where crop farming and cultivation were first developed, then gradually improved. In these areas, the previous reliance upon a more nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the yield produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labour in tending crop fields required more localised dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to towns, and later cities and states whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands.
The profound differences in human interactions and subsistence methods associated with the early onset of agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the Neolithic Revolution, a term first coined by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.
One potential benefit of the increasing sophistication and development of farming technology was an ability (if conditions allowed) to produce a crop yield which would be surplus to the immediate needs of the community. When such surpluses were produced they could be preserved and sequestered for later use during times of seasonal shortfalls, traded with other communities (giving rise to a nascent non-subsistence economy), and in general allowed larger populations to be sustained.
However, it should be noted that early farmers were also adversely affected in times of crop failures, such as may be caused by drought or pestilence. In instances where agriculture had become the predominant way of life the sensitivity to these shortages could be particularly acute, affecting agrarian populations to a sometimes dramatic extent which otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by former hunter-gatherer communities. Nevertheless, despite what must have been periodic setbacks in general agrarian communities proved successful, and their growth and the expansion of territory under cultivation continued.
Another significant change undergone by many of these newly-agrarian communities was one of diet. Whereas hunter-gatherer communities typically have diets with a larger proportion of animal protein, those farmers whose opportunities and motivation for hunting had lessened might have their food intake derived in large part just from the proceeds of their plant cultivation. The relative nutritional benefits and disadvantages of these dietary changes, and their overall impact on early societal development is still the subject of some debate.
[modifică] Domesticirea animalelor
The domestication of animals, either as working animal or as a food source (livestock), was another innovation which altered the societal characteristics of those Neolithic communities which adopted it. Animal by-product of dung could be used as a fertilizer, as fuel or even as a building material. Apart from providing a ready source of protein and dairy-based products, livestock animals could also be used for barter and trade. For those communities where pastoralism of grazing animals was developed, this often implied a more nomadic existence than is the case for purely crop-based farming, as the animals were herded or migrated to seasonal pastures (a practice known as transhumance).
[modifică] Tehnologie
Neolithic peoples were skilled farmers, manufacturing a range of tools necessary for the tending, harvesting and processing of crops (such as sickle blades and grinding stones) and food production (e.g. pottery, bone implements). They were also skilled manufacturers of a range of other types of stone tool and ornaments, including projectile points, beads, and statuettes. Neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia were also accomplished builders, utilising mud-brick to construct houses and villages. At Çatalhöyük, houses were plastered and painted with elaborate scenes of humans and animals. In Europe, long houses built from wattle and daub were constructed. Elaborate tombs for the dead were also built. These tombs are particularly numerous in Ireland, where there are many thousand still in existence. Neolithic people in the British Isles built long barrows and chamber tombs for their dead and causewayed camps, henges flint mines and cursus monuments. It was also important to figure out ways of preserving food for future months, such as fashioning relatively airtight containers, and using substances like salt as preservatives.
With very small exceptions (a few copper hatchets and spear heads in the Great Lakes region), the peoples of the Americas and the Pacific remained at the Neolithic level of technology up until the time of European contact.
[modifică] Situri celebre
O listă cu situri neolitice celebre include:
- Göbekli Tepe în Turcia, aprox. 9000 î.Hr.
- Jericho în Levant,aprox. 8350 î.Hr.
- Nevali Cori in Turcia, aprox. 8000 î.Hr.
- Çatalhöyük în Turcia, 7500 BC
- Dispilio in Grecia, aprox. 7500 î.Hr.
- Jiahu în China,7000 până 5800 î.Hr.
- Mehrgarh în Pakistan, 7000 î.Hr.
- Cnossos in Grecia, aprox. 7000 î.Hr.
- Lahuradewa în India, 6200 î.Hr
- Knap of Howar şi Skara Brae, în Insulele Orkney din Scoţia, aprox. 3500 î.Hr.
- Brú na Bóinne în Irlanda, aprox. 3500 î.Hr.
[modifică] Vezi şi
- Epoca pietrei
- Revoluţia neolitică
[modifică] Bibliografie
- Bellwood, Peter. (2004). First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0631205667
- V. G. Childe (1953), New Light on the Most Ancient East
- E. Comsa (1987), Neoliticul pe teritoriul României
- G. Clark, S. Piggott (1965), Prehistoric Societies
- A. Whittle (1989), Problems in Neolithic Archaeology