Neolithic Period

New Stone Age


The Neolithic (Greek: νέος néos 'new', λίθος líthos 'stone') or New Stone Age is the last archaeological period of the Stone Age in Europe, Asia and Africa. The term was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 who associated it above all with the use of polished stone tools. The Neolithic Revolution is a wide-ranging set of developments like farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. In other words, farming equals Neolithic. V. Gordon Childe coined the term Neolithic Revolution in his book Man Makes Himself (1936). It is the first in a series of agricultural revolutions in Middle Eastern history. It has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BCE. However, the Neolithic was a time of many developments, for example, the development of pottery.