Neolithic Europe

Neolithic Europe is the period and region of European prehistory in which farming, animal domestication, and settled communities spread and developed. Its timing and cultural forms varied across the continent.

Neolithic Revolution: The transition in human societies from foraging toward food production and more settled life. This broad transition frames Europe's uneven shift to farming.
Agriculture: The cultivation of plants and raising of animals to produce food and other useful products. Crop cultivation underpins the economic change defining Neolithic Europe.
Neolithic demic diffusion: The spread of farming partly through the migration and growth of farming populations. This model explains how early farmers expanded from southeastern Europe into the continent.
Çatalhöyük: A large Neolithic settlement in central Anatolia, occupied from the seventh millennium BCE. Its dense settlement offers a comparison for communities near Europe's farming origins.
European hunter-gatherers: The diverse foraging populations who inhabited Europe before and during the spread of farming. Their persistence and interaction complicate any simple replacement story.
Fertile Crescent: A region of Southwest Asia where early agriculture and animal domestication developed. Many crops and domestic animals that entered Europe originated here.
Animal domestication: The process by which humans shape animal populations through breeding and management. Managed herds supplied food, materials, and labor to European farming communities.
Cultural diffusion: The spread of practices and ideas between groups without requiring large-scale population replacement. It contrasts with migration-centered explanations of Europe's farming transition.
Skara Brae: A well-preserved Neolithic village on Orkney, Scotland, built of stone and occupied in the fourth and third millennia BCE. Its homes and furnishings document settled life at Europe's northwestern edge.
Forest clearance: The removal of trees and woodland, often to create fields, pasture, or settlements. Farming communities opened land for crops and animals, changing local ecosystems.

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