Knowra Neolithic Revolution Neolithic Revolution The prehistoric transition from foraging to farming and settled life, beginning independently in several regions after the last Ice Age. It reshaped food production, settlement, and social organization.
Plant domestication : The process by which humans alter wild plants through cultivation and selective breeding. Repeated sowing and selection transformed wild grasses and other plants into dependable crops.
Fertile Crescent : A crescent-shaped region of Southwest Asia where early farming and settled communities developed. Some of the earliest known cultivation and domestication occurred in this region.
Younger Dryas : A cold interval from about 12,900 to 11,700 years ago near the end of the last Ice Age. Its abrupt climate change shaped conditions around early Southwest Asian cultivation.
Social stratification : The organization of society into unequal groups with different access to resources, status, or power. Control of land and stored harvests could create durable differences in wealth and authority.
Hunter-gatherer : A person or society that obtains food primarily by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild resources. Foraging remained a viable way of life and did not disappear when farming began.
Animal domestication : The process by which human populations breed and manage animals for food, labor, or other uses. Managed herds supplied meat, milk, labor, and materials alongside cultivated crops.
Neolithic China : The prehistoric development of farming communities in China, including rice cultivation in the south and millet in the north. China’s independent farming traditions centered on crops unlike those of Southwest Asia.
Natufian culture : A late Epipaleolithic culture of the Levant known for semi-sedentary communities and intensive use of wild resources. Natufian communities show that settled life could precede full dependence on farming.
Specialization of labor : The division of work among people who focus on different tasks or occupations. Food production could support artisans and other specialists beyond subsistence farming.
Agricultural revolution : A major transformation in farming practices that sharply increases agricultural productivity. This later, mechanized transformation is distinct from prehistory’s first shift to cultivation.
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