Neolithic – Universal History

The Neolithic is the last stage of Prehistory, between 9000 and 6000 BC, when human beings went from limiting themselves to 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 probable cause of the emergence 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

Currently, the existence of five independent centers of Neolithic appearance is 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 the year 9000 BC, the domestication of animals and plants began.
• In the extreme east of Asia, two centers of domestication have been identified, one located in the fertile plains of North China, and the other in a large tropical or subtropical area between southern China and Burma, where at the beginning of the sixth millennium BC, began with rice.
• In America, domestication also occurred from the 6th millennium BC, in two independent regions: the first and oldest is located in central Mexico, basically supported by 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 or potato cultivation and animal husbandry were practiced, among which the llama and the alpaca stand out.

Changes in way of life

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 led to 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 attending to the grazing of cattle. This resulted in the emergence of the first cultivator villages that were scattered around the centers of agricultural development.
Secondly, due to better nutrition and the security that a sedentary life represented, there was a greater growth of the human population and new forms of social organization arose. The distribution of work was expanded and various activities such as basketry and ceramics arose, while the manufacture of stone tools continued.
Over time, the production of food and handicrafts grew in such a way that it exceeded the needs of their 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 at different periods, first appeared in southern 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 which, 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.