Neolithic Test Reveiw Flashcards
Neolithic age means _____________.
New Stone Age
The Neolithic Age begins and ends at _______________________.
Begins at 8,000 BCE and ends at 4,000 BCE.
Why is this called the “new Stone Age”?
Because of agriculture- and the reason it is called the “New Stone Age” is because they had to use stone tools to create agriculture.
Benefits and Drawbacks from Agriculture
The hunting and gathering lifestyle is rugged and short compared to agriculture. The food is more varied, now longer lives in human history. People don’t have to worry about no break from the time consuming struggle to find food and avoid starving, and little food storage. This way is more effective, efficient, and less work. Since crops can be stored, and it takes less time to grow food in gardens than to find it in the jungle, the idea gave them the time that hunter gathers never had to have diverse jobs.
When switching diets from hunter gather to Agriculture heights dropped because of malnutrition. The drop was 7 inches for men and 5 inches for women. The heights dropped so much that medieval castles were built shorter for a shorter, malnourished population. After a while the average height grew and was eventually taller. Then tooth loss became common, the average tooth loss in an adult went to 1 - 7, diseases increased dramatically, and before corn 5 percent of Indians lived past 50, but after 1 percent did and 1/5 of the population died between ages 1 - 4. The transition was bad for public health because many diseases increased dramatically.
Domestication
To alter and bring under human control for the sake of HUMANS!!!
Pastoralism
Life style based on animals herding animals as nomadic.
Specialization in Labor
Varied Jobs which people specialize in certain jobs like Builders, Potter, or even a Blacksmith.
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals.
Domestication of Plants - __________ are first crop domesticated, followed by __________ - domesticated in the Middle East (Fertile Crescent).
Grains and Légumes
Top 5 first domesticated animals with Dates and Location.
Dog (30,000 BCE and Middle East) Sheep (8,000 BCE and Middle East) Goat (8,000 BCE and Middle East) Pig (8,000 BCE and China) Cat (8,000 BCE and Cyprus)
Conditions (Animals).
- Flexible diet — Creatures that are willing to consume a wide variety of food sources and can live off less cumulative food from the food pyramid are less expensive to keep in captivity. Most carnivores can only be fed meat, which requires the expenditure of many herbivores. It has to adjust to what humans give it.
- Reasonably fast growth rate — Fast maturity rate compared to the human life span allows breeding intervention and make the animal useful within an acceptible duration of caretaking. Large animals such as Elephants require many years before they reach a useful size.
- Ability to be breed in captivity — Creatures that are reluctant to breed when kept in captivity do not produce useful offspring, and instead are limited to capture in their wild state. Creatures such as the Panda and Cheetah are difficult to breed in captivity.
- Pleasant disposition — Large creatures that are aggressive toward humans are dangerous to keep in captivity. The African Buffalo has an unpredictable nature and is highly dangerous to humans.
- Temperament which makes it unlikely to panic — A creature with a nervous disposition is difficult to keep in captivity as they will attempt to flee whenever they are startled. The Gazelle is very flighty and it has a powerful leap that allows it to escape an enclosed pen.
- Modifiable social hierarchy — Social creatures that recognize a heirarchy of dominance can be raised to recognize a human as its pack leader. The Deer does not have a dominance heirarchy and can not be readily herded by humans and they won’t obey and then they might attack.
Advantages of a Paleolithic society.
Some advantages are that they had a wide spread of food but to get it they had to move a lot. They lived farther apart so diseases didn’t spread so much but only hunted in groups of 20-50 people. So the gave it up because with agriculture lots of people could be farmers so there could be more jobs and food. And they didn’t have to move since the crops don’t move and they can constantly grow more.
The first Neolithic communities.
The first Neolithic communities were Jericho and Caral Huyuk.
Be able to explain the characteristics of Neolithic Society.
The characteristics were specialization of labor, people had become sedentary, population growth, much harder work, narrower diet, more epidemics like diseases and famine, gained more things and developed warfare.
The impact that pastoralists had on ancient world.
They had a tense relationship causing much war and raids but they did trade valuables such as crops and animals. Made a big impact when they domesticated the horse because of this the chariot was created which change warfare.
