History of Neolithic Culture

Neolithic marks a cultural stage where man takes to production economy and evolves special tools to suit this economic behaviour. Along with these tools that he evolves he has to by necessity modify his social behaviour to large extent in order to suit the sedentism required when one has to wait for a harvest. Thus, a proper peasant community emerges by the time man settles down to a full blooded agriculture.

The tools he used were specially ground and polished dyke stones worked into sharp axes and adzes. These are also referred to by the general term celt. It is believed that these transverse edged hacking tools were specially evolved to cut trees and bushes in order to clear land for agricultural use.

There are some ethnographic evidences available where a specially flattened and pointed variety of celt was found used also as a shoe of a plough or hoe. So it is likely that apart from clearing ground these tools were also directly used in ploughing. The other technological innovation he had to go for in order to make his new economy workable is to evolve pottery to store his harvest.

That is, surplus is the key of the economy and the absence of proper storage of the surplus can reduce the entire benefit of this economy to cipher. Most of these ceramics in the initial period was handmade and then crudely fired. “Table wares”, therefore, are not so much a need but a novelty which appear at a later date.

Earlier it was believed that agriculture developed first in the Middle East and then spread over the rest of the Old World and New World. Discovery of early agriculture, in the recent years, at more than one area spread over Middle East, South East Asia and Mexico has changed the problem totally. Some authorities went to the extent of hypothising at least a dozen centres where early agriculture might have been independently evolved.

The story regarding domestication of animals to establish a livestock productive economy is equally hazy. In the following section, therefore, we will look at the main features of transformations at some early sites only, rather than doing a survey like in the earlier sections. Finally, we may hurriedly look into the features of the Indian finds during this stage.

It was generally an accepted view that plant domestication began in such areas where the wild ancestors of the domesticated species are abundant. It was surprising, therefore, to the scientists when they observed that wild wheat and barley grows over thousands of hectares in one specific region in Iran, and could have been easily harvested by a medium sized band without ever feeling the need of domesticating it. At a prehistoric site in Tell Mureybad on Eurphrates in Syria the assumption was proved.

Here a pre- ceramic cultural level with clay walled houses, grinding stones and roasting pits, and with a radio-carbon date of Circa 8000 B.B., large number of charred grains were recovered. None of these grains were found to be domesticated in variety. In other words, such archaeological indicators as grinding stones or the existence of crude, ceramic technology need not always be taken as diagnostic evidence of the existence of productive economy.

It will appear that, Mesopotamian plains and the Zagros Mountains produced a number of contrasting environments within a limited geographic area. Evidence of the earliest prehistoric occupation in the area seem to last until around 10,000-8,000 B.C. Culturally this period shows an adaptation to a seminomadic hunting and gathering economy.

The second period of occupation, which lasted till about 5,500 B.C., marks the beginning of early dry farming along with goat and sheep domestication. Permanent villages with mud plastered houses also appear in this period. It is in the third phase, which lasted till 3000 B.C. that a large variety of domesticates appear.

These include wheat, barley, lentils, grass peas and linseed besides cattle, pigs and dogs in addition to the sheep and goat. It is argued that the gatherers, because of the security of supply at the nucleus zone (where wild crops grow), slowly increased in population.

This, by necessity, required periodic migrations of “daughter” bands from the nucleus zones to marginal areas. In the marginal areas the new arrivals tried to recreate the same crops which they have earlier harvested in the wild. The earliest cultivation as such occurs in areas where wild varieties are unknown.

Since dry farming does not always provide a security because of the possibility of rain failure, these early cultivators also took to a simultaneous occupation of animal raising. That is, plant cultivation and animal herding need not be always two separate subsistence activities.

The later was a “banking” mechanism for the farmers. In years of bumper harvest the surplus is converted into livestock by exchange. In the lean years the same can be reconverted into cereals by exchange with suitable areas. Irrigation as a technology takes away this load of uncertainty.

This form of agriculture is always associated with advanced bureaucracy. Land laws, revenue, distribution and of course a ramification in the professional classes emerges. This stage was once thought to be so closely related to irrigation that many social historians labelled these cultures as Hydraulic societies.

With the relatively recent discovery of Non Nok Tha and other evidences of early cultivation from Thailand a new problem of agricultural origin has now been added. It appears that small groups of wandering populations of Burma and Thailand had already domesticated varieties of bananas, taro, sugarcane and coconut in as early a period as sixth millennium B.C.

Unlike the situation in Mesopotamia tropical rain forests are areas with more than 200 cm. yearly rainfalls and a humidity of over 95 per cent throughout the year. These forests maintain a very high degree of floristic diversity. Man had to only manipulate the environment to be able to domesticate plants.

This is merely a ‘lateral’ change in contrast to the ‘vertical’ change necessary in seed agriculture. Here only branches of plants exploited (non-flowering) need to be planted near the home base and you have a productive economy without any trouble of storing the surplus or distributing it.

This variety of production strategy can survive comfortably within a society adjusted to hunting-gathering. This type of “vegeculture” stage is comparable to the stage of wild seed collection in Mesopotamia. This may have finally led to shifting to seed culture in a later date.

Recently some authorities have challenged the above view of the birth of agriculture. Climate change and/or population increase in isolation, according to this view, does not convincingly demonstrate this shift. It is proposed that resource diversification through time progressively shifted towards small and short maturation species and this has led to true seed agriculture. It is an interesting possibility which may not have been acting in isolation but in combination with the dispersion process from wild seed growing areas.

In Mexico, where a similar early centre of agriculture is recorded, the situation had been almost comparable to the micro-climatic zones in Mesopotamia. The species adopted at this area, however, seem to be quite different.

Neolithic Culture in Europe:

Neolithic culture in Europe is first recorded along the river valleys in Balkans around 7000 B.C. Further east the well-known occupation is Jarmo in Zagros foothills of Jordan where cluster of mud houses and direct evidence of cereal agriculture has been recorded. In the immediate neighbourhood Catal Huyuk in Turkey also yields evidences of a rapidly transforming Neolithic character almost within the same chronological period.

Argissa – Meghula is a village in Greek Thessaly with a carbon 14 date of 7000 B.C. Here evidences of emmer, wheat and barley has been found as cultivated cereal along with domesticated cattle, sheep and pig as livestock. These early Neolithic settlements are in the form of compact villages. The dwellings are one room units built of baked mud plastered on poles and wicker.

The Starcevo site near Belgrade yields this classic succession of the earliest Neolithic settlements in the Balkans. These are usually referred to as Karanovo culture. Here a series of continued occupation shows how livestock economy was successfully combined with agriculture. Ill fired thick pottery or mud plastered baskets were used to store the harvest. These village clusters continue to flourish until about the arrival of metal.

Around 5500 B.C. the Danubian coasts and the loessic zones of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary get occupied by a new farming population. Probably these were the pre-existing Mesolithic folk who were in contact with Balkan Neolithic group. Here they develop distinct cultural features and are commonly referred to as Danubian culture.

The ceramics associated with these sites have characteristic incised decoration and hence the culture is also called Linear band Keramic or linear banded culture. By about 4000 B.C. they expand over numerous other river valleys along the entire mid-latitude of temperate Europe. Their expansion extended from southern Holland in the west to Dniester valley in Ukraine in the east. Naturally in course of time the Danubian culture can be seen to develop some regional features at places.

The Danubians made round based vessels with lines and spirals incised on the clay. These are handmade ill fired pottery mostly in the shape of bowls with slightly converging rim. They cultivated barely, einkorn, emmer wheat and some minor crops like flax. The latter was grown to make garments.

It is believed that they practised shifting agriculture and lived in large rectangular houses with a number of segmented rooms in them. The houses measure 20 to 50 meters in length and 7 to 10 meters in breadth. These were constructed with timber and thatch. Probably even livestock used to also sleep within these structures along with their owners.

Population increase may have caused some fission in these groups who might have shifted to fresh areas. We find around 4000 B.C. a series of farming villages appear on the shores of the Swiss lakes. These were occupied by cattle owning farmers who cultivated barley and wheat as well as many minor crops. The houses were built on damp ground between the lake reed beds and the scrub brush of the valley behind.

The rectangular huts were replaced by two-room structures built on specially erected thick log piles. Apparently ladders must have been provided to get into these houses. It is also possible that floats or boats were used to approach these ladders. Although very inconvenient, these dwellings can provide security from wild animals and also a complete right to fishing in the waters.

There was yet another group found spread all along the Mediterranean coasts as well as the west European Atlantic and British coasts. This culture, usually referred to as the Megalithic group is known from Italy, Spain, France, Brittany, Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland. They are first recorded around 4000 B.C. and continue to survive in some parts up to 2500 B.C.

The Megaliths are characterised by large communal tombs of stone with buried chambers and large stones erected as memorial. Pottery with distinctive scalloped incised decoration referred to as cardium shell impressed pottery characterise this culture.

Growing of cereal crops, grazing of stock, sizeable settlements of rectangular houses and forests cleared with polished axes and/or firing along with the communal tombs distinguish this group. Extensive bartering networks from one end of Mediterranean to the other exchanged sea shells, obsidian, exotic stones and later on copper ore.

Neolithic Culture in Africa:

One of the earliest evidence of farming and livestock raising comes from upper Nile valley, where in all probability microlith using part time farming communities can be traced well within the Pleistocene period. Fishing and hunting continued as an important subsidiary economy during these early settlements. The Fayum region shows the emergence of Merimde culture around 5000 B.C. with reed shelters or crude mat houses.

Wheat and barley was cultivated along with sheep, goat, pigs, dogs and cattle. Baskets or crudely fired pots were used to store the harvest. In a slightly later period (4000 B.C.) the Badarian culture flourished in the upper Nile region. Emmer wheat and barley was cultivated and cattle formed a large percentage of livestock. House structures were transient in nature.

The Badarian pottery appears relatively more progressed than the Merimde forms. The dead were buried with linen shrouds and skin covers. The women wore ivory combs and plaited their hair. By 3100 B.C. a unified state of Egypt emerges and a complex system of economy and trade develops. Gradually metals like copper, bronze and gold start appearing with increasing frequency.

The Sahara region was grassland from early Holocene to 3000 B.C. Cattle, sheep and goat owning nomads are known from sites dating 4600 B.C. It is believed that millets and sorghum was grown by these nomads.

In the sub-Saharan Africa fishing and vegeculture develops as a dominant economy and hence a proper Neolithic village does not develop until about 1000 B.C. when iron appears.

Neolithic Culture in India:

India like Africa also maintains extremely diverse eco-zones. Further, the rivers in the northern latitudes offered large areas of fertile alluvial plains which attracted settling populations from across the borders. While settled communities using intensive gathering of wild cereals are recorded from as early as 5600 B.C. at Mehrgarh (in Baluchistan); rice cultivation along riverine lakes must have established at Koldiwaha (Allahabad) around 5000 B.C.

It is interesting to note that while Mehrgarh develops a village structure even before a full blown farming is adopted as an economy. In contrast to this the evidences known from Koldiwaha although having yielded domesticated cereals does not show a comparable phenomenon although this is a riverine site.

When one compares the latter with other Neolithic sites like Burzahom (2300 B.C.) in Kashmir and Chirand (2000 B.C.) in north Bihar one is left with no doubt that hunting and gathering continues to play a fairly dominant role in all early Neolithic sites. Furthermore this early phase continues till fairly late at some suitable eco- zones. In fact these continue to survive when well-developed urban chalcolithic centers are known from immediate neighbourhood.

In the east Meghalaya has yielded numerous sites with shouldered celts and basket impressed crudely fired pottery. Of these Daojali Hading is one site which was also excavated. Like in the west where population movement from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be denied, these eastern evidences can also be taken to indicate population movement from south China, Thailand and Burma.

In the Malwa regions and regions further south in the peninsular extension Neolith appears in a village like settlement, although probably a couple of centuries later than in the north. Millets gain popularity as one moves south and this is coupled with cattle keeping as a dominant component of economy.

Since all these settlements spread basically during the second millennium B.C. when Indus Valley was not only in its peak but also spread into Rajasthan and Gujarat the effect of it can be seen also in the Central Indian Deccan Neolithic settlements. For instance, pottery in these sites start being prepared on wheels with distinct decorations and occasionally small metal objects, beads and terra-cotta objects start occurring within otherwise purely Neolithic villages. This led Sankalia to call them as Deccan Neolithic or Neo-Chalcolithic of India.