LEFT: Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) 'flake tools'.
RIGHT: Neolithic (New Stone Age) polished tools.
The New Stone Age got that name because the stone tools were polished and smooth, unlike the earlier flaked tools of the Paleolithic. But for about 150 years no one understood why they were polished. Although there were thousands of them, no one tested them out until recently.
Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition (1885-1890).
In this article, I want to show that the Neolithic era, the New Stone Age, was the beginning of our modern way of living and thinking and the beginning of civilization, rather than the end of the Stone Age. However, this has not been understood due to a number of mistaken assumptions and misconceptions that have persisted for more than a hundred years.
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MY DEFINITION OF THE NEOLITHIC ERA:
The first stage of modern human behavior and modern societies which was the beginning of civilization. Large numbers of people lived in permanent houses and villages and developed agriculture instead of living in small tribes as nomadic hunter-gatherers which Homo sapiens had done for hundreds of thousands of years.
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Middle to Late Neolithic = Civilization 1.0
Egypt and Mesopotamia = Civilization 2.0
INTRODUCTION
While the standard view of the Neolithic era acknowledges its critical importance to the new way that humans lived and worked, there is still a lack of understanding about how radical this change was.
Here is a recent comment on Quora that expresses that standard view.
Why is the Neolithic age regarded as a revolution and an important step towards human civilization?
QUORA REPLY
"The idea of the Neolithic Revolution never really had much to do with civilization. It's about the shift from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to a sedentary one based on agriculture. Civilization was a long way down the line from that." Nov 15, 2021
But I believe this opinion is incorrect.
The Neolithic era existed for thousands of years as it developed a very different way of living from the small tribes of nomadic hunter-gatherers, a lifestyle their ancestors had followed for millions of years. By the end of the Neolithic era, these societies had created sophisticated technologies and scientific methods in many different areas, all of which were necessary for civilization to take hold. So the revolution was much more than just agriculture, as important as it was, and sedentary living.
A BASIC INCORRECT ASSUMPTION
For more than 150 years it has been assumed that civilization began in Egypt and Mesopotamia about 6000 years ago. I was told this, for example, in my required Western Civilization history course in college. While the preceding era, the Neolithic Era (the New Stone Age), was acknowledged to be important, it was, after all, considered Stone Age. While it was innovative, it was still primitive, crude, and unsophisticated compared to the technological advances of the following Bronze Age that came about with the rise of the great civilizations.
TOP: A central ziggurat in Babylon.
In the distance can be seen two other ziggurats as well.
Entitled "Babylon and its three towers."
BOTTOM: A fanciful depiction of early civilized life in the Assyrian city of Nimrud ca. 1350 BCE.
From Myths and Legends of Babylonia & Assyria by Lewis Spence, 1910.
However, the Neolithic contribution to the rise of civilization has not been well understood. Labeled 'The New Stone Age' it is usually considered the end of the Stone Age rather than the beginning of an entirely new way of thinking, living, and surviving. But because the Neolithic era was stuck with this "stone age" label many researchers assumed that it was basically a continuation of the Paleolithic Old Stone Age.
Archived in the National Library of Ireland, this drawing of the passage tomb at Newgrange Ireland was published ca. 1791-1794. While it was good that the importance of Newgrange was recognized back then, it took more than another 150 years to realize its precise alignment with the winter solstice sunrise and its remarkable construction.
Yet I will argue that the New Stone Age was highly skilled, very creative, and at times quite scientific and precise.
“In the case of Neolithic astronomy, we are dealing not with the prehistory of science, but with science in prehistory.”
(Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction, Edition 2.)
But even more importantly, it was a clear radical break with the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic); it had much more in common with the great civilizations that came later. After about 6000 years (approx. 10,000 BCE - 4000 BCE) the Neolithic era in the Levant had put together a complex set of beliefs, ideas, technology, and a way of life that formed the foundation for the great civilizations that followed. Without the Neolithic models and its advanced technology, these civilizations could not have emerged and risen to great heights.
MISTAKEN ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
THE STONE AGE AND THE BRONZE AGE
The next stage after the Neolithic was called the Bronze Age because metallurgy had been invented and making bronze was now possible. With the invention of bronze, many historians assumed that this metal quickly replaced stone technology. However, this assumption was not based on facts and was incorrect.
I think this belief may have occurred because in our modern day, a new technology often replaces an older one quite quickly such as the change from vinyl records to CDs or film photography to digital photography. However, this was not the case with Neolithic technology and the Bronze Age.
When I researched these time periods, a very different story emerged. Neolithic stone technology was precise, advanced, durable, and a huge step above the stone implements of the Paleolithic. The stone tools of the Neolithic were well-designed, efficient, inexpensive, and could be made from available local stone. They might be thought of as hi-tech stone implements.
They were so well designed, they continued to be used for thousands of years all through the Bronze Age until the Iron Age. However, this fact has not been noticed by historians.
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Incorrect History Regarding The Bronze Age Has Prevented A True Understanding Of Neolithic Tools And Implements
Here is a contemporary description (downloaded 4/15/2024) by the History.com site about the arrival of the Bronze Age and its relation to the New Stone Age. THIS DESCRIPTION IS WRONG in many respects according to the following information from the Metropolitan Museum, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the SDF Historical Archives and SAME Museum.
From History.Com
"Archaeological evidence suggests the transition ...to bronze took place around 3300 B.C. The invention of bronze brought an end to the Stone Age, the prehistoric period dominated by the use of stone tools and weaponry.
"Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced earlier stone versions."
(Bronze Age, By: History.Com Editors)
The above History.com description of the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age has often been assumed although it is not based on facts and is one of the principal misconceptions about the Neolithic era. It is a clear example of modern-day assumptions which have no basis in fact.
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This Assumption Is Contradicted
By The Next Three Reliable Sources
--- About The Continued Use Of Stone Tools During the Bronze Age ---
The use of stone tools continued for thousands of years and was not quickly replaced by metal tools.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
"Stone tools maintained themselves during the Metal Age, yielding only slowly to the new material, which was expensive and the product of special skills. The copper and bronze tools and weapons... that constitute impressive displays in museums were rare luxuries. "
(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)
--- About Stone Age Sickles used for thousands of years during the Bronze Age ---
Neolithic sickle. Museum Quintana, Künzing, Germany.
Flint was held in place with bitumen (similar to asphalt) that occurred naturally.
From the Metropolitan Museum in NYC:
"FLINT...WAS THE PRIMARY MATERIAL USED TO MAKE SICKLES IN EGYPT UNTIL THE FIRST MILLENNIUM B.C. WHEN IRON BECAME MORE WIDELY AVAILABLE. The reason for using flint was probably multifaceted and included considerations such as its abundance, its ease of manufacture compared to casting metal tools, flint’s proficiency at cutting grain.."
Ancient model of a Man Plowing with a Neolithic Wooden Plow.
Model made during the Middle Kingdom ca. 1981–1885 B.C.,
well into the Bronze Age.
Ancient Egyptian plows were made of wood and had the shape of a hook.
Metropolitan Museum, NYC.
--- About Neolithic Ploughs used for thousands of years during the Bronze Age ---
From the SDF Historical Archives and SAME Museum:
"Ploughing is an ancient practice. Ploughs were then entirely made of wood, comprising a wooden hook with a shorter side that entered the ground and a longer side that served as a handlebar.
"Ploughs then underwent thousands of years of evolution. However, ...bronze [was[, too inelastic for agricultural use.
"Iron technology was discovered in the Caucasus in the 15th century BC, spreading to the Middle East, Egypt, and Greece in the 12th century BCE.
"The ploughs themselves soon came equipped with iron ploughshares that increased their effectiveness."
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Neolithic Sickles And Ploughs Were Essential For The First Civilizations To Become Established
So Neolithic sickles and ploughs were used for several thousand years during the time period when the great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were becoming established. Experts agree that these civilizations could not have emerged without a well-developed agricultural system. But this system could not have succeeded without these two basic stone age tools, the sickle and the plow. So the success of these civilizations was due in large part to Neolithic technology.
"Agriculture is believed to be a pre-requisite for cities..."
Urbanization and the Development of Cities
NEOLITHIC PRECISION HAS NOT BEEN RECOGNIZED
I realize that to the modern eye, Neolithic stone structures look crude and unsophisticated but this is not the case. Neolithic monuments, for example, were often quite precise. The huge Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland has kept its exact alignment with the light from the winter solstice sunrise for five thousand years.
When a modern person looks at Neolithic passage tombs, they often seem to be just a pile of rocks. There are no clean-cut right angles like the pyramids and the buildings in Babylon.
LEFT: "Passage leading to the chamber of Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."
RIGHT: "The corbelled vault of the Newgrange passage tomb chamber with a central capstone six metres." A corbelled vault is "a structure having the form of a vault but constructed on the principle of a corbel arch."
DEFINITION: Dictionary.com
Nevertheless, this is deceiving. I believe Neolithic architects could work with stone as they found it and as they shaped it to craft buildings that were stable, exact, and long-lasting.
There is a simple way that I can prove my point.
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Direct Evidence Of Neolithic Advanced Skills And Precise Engineering
We think of the magnificent Ziggurat temples with their surrounding buildings in Mesopotamia and Babylon as being more advanced than Neolithic structures. Their buildings had straight lines and they almost looked modern.
In a marvel of engineering Sumerians built huge tall ziggurats as temples and centers of their cities. These towering buildings were clear symbols of their advanced culture and its power. Yet although these ziggurats were well made with fired brick covered in bitumen, they nevertheless have now decayed and only ruins are left.
LEFT: Recreated lower part of a Ziggurat constructed with bricks
as the original ziggurats were built.
RIGHT: Ruins of the Ziggurat and temple of Nabu at Borsippa, Babel Governorate, Iraq
However, Newgrange in Ireland, which was about the same age, was a monument that was made with natural rocks that had been placed together to make a building and it was done entirely without mortar. To our modern eyes, these structures look primitive and crude.
Yet, the Neolithic engineers and designers understood how to build with rocks as they found them, and to shape rocks as needed. With these natural stones, they were able to make stable, strong, durable structures. I doubt there are many modern engineers, if any, who could build a building in the same manner as the Newgrange passage tomb that would last thousands of years.
While the Ziggurats were impressive, all of them have decayed into ruins, with the possible exception of the Ziggurat of Ur. However, we now know it has lasted longer than other such brick ziggurats because it was restored in antiquity.
"The last Neo-Babylonian king, Nabodinus, apparently replaced the two upper terraces of the structure in the 6th century B.C.E."
So here is my proof. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. The Neolithic construction and engineering of Newgrange was more durable than the brick constructions in Mesopotamia. It has lasted longer and retained its integrity.
Now work did need to be done to restore Newgrange to its present state, but it never lost its alignment and the roof did not leak. The building has retained its integrity for 5000 years.
Today at least 230 passage tombs are known across Ireland, many of which are well preserved and most are over 5000 years old.
Passage tombs were constructed worldwide and most were constructed during the Neolithic period. There are still many well-preserved large tombs today.
LEFT: La Hougue Bie entrance and chapel, Jersey
RIGHT: Detail of entrance and wall
"La Hougue Bie is a Neolithic ritual site which was in use around 4000-3500 BC. [Older than the pyramids at Giza in Egypt.] In Western Europe, it is one of the largest and best-preserved passage graves."
Newgrange is just one example, but Newgrange clearly shows how skilled the people in these cultures could be.
My point is that even though Newgrange looks crude, it is not; it is exact and carefully designed. Once this is acknowledged it means that Neolithic cultures need to be thought of as much more advanced than has been previously thought.
As modern people, we need to discard our biases and see Neolithic engineering for what it was, i.e., the ability to make precise and exact constructions.
Once this idea is accepted it opens the door to looking at many other Neolithic structures and artifacts in a different way. The island of Malta, for example, has a well-preserved complex of Neolithic stone buildings and even a yearly 'sun angle' device that indicates the time of the year.
A yearly Neolithic solar clock on the island of Malta.
"Schematic Angles in the Mnajdra Solar Temple in Malta."
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Skills & Precision
As I have argued in this article, Neolithic people were very good engineers and their structures have passed the test of time.
It is interesting to note that only one of the famous 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, has remained, the famous pyramids of Egypt. Newgrange, of course, was never noticed when this list was put together. But Newgrange is older than the pyramids and is in pretty good shape after all these years. As I have said, Newgrange has kept its exact alignment after 5000 years.
But, in addition to their engineering is their exactness and precision, just how precise was/is the Newgrange alignment with the winter solstice? How good was their science?
Here Is NASA's Assessment
"Today the first light enters about four minutes after sunrise, but calculations based on the precession of the Earth show that 5,000 years ago, first light would have entered exactly at sunrise."
Neolithic basketry from the Cave of the Bats.
Once people accept that Neolithic technology was precise, even something as simple and mundane as basketry needs to be looked at in a different way. Neolithic baskets, for example, were carefully crafted and durable.
STONE TOOLS
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A Misunderstanding About Stone Tools In The Neolithic Era
As I have pointed out in several of my articles, one of the greatest barriers to our understanding has been our own assumptions. Neolithic stone axes, for example, could have been tested at any time in the last 100 years. However, the assumption was that Stone Age technology was primitive and not worth exploring. However, when these New Stone Age tools were tested, researchers were astonished.
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Neolithic (New Stone Age) Tools Were A Major Advance Over Old Stone Age Tools
When I was in college I asked my history professor, who taught our required Western Civilization course, the reason for polished stone tools in the Neolithic era, the technology that defined the era and gave it its name, the New Stone Age. He did not have an answer. I asked another knowledgeable person several years ago and they did not know either.
Those people who did have an opinion said they were polished for aesthetic reasons. But it was obvious to me that a culture would not do this much work unless there was a practical benefit.
Clearly, these tools have not been understood until recently when some archaeologists used actual ancient Neolithic axes to cut down some trees, axes that had not been sharpened in 4,000 years. It turned out that these axes were not just slightly advanced, they were a major advance. However, they worked differently from modern axes. In addition, they also worked well when it came to carving and shaping wood to make a variety of items.
LEFT: Paleolithic 'flake tools'.
RICHT: Neolithic polished tools.
Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition (1885-1890).
"The Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age, the age of the ground tool, is defined by the advent around 7000 BCE of ground and polished celts (ax and adz heads) as well as similarly treated chisels and gouges...A ground tool is one that was chipped to rough shape in the old manner and then rubbed on or with a coarse abrasive rock to remove the chip scars...Polishing was a last step, a final grinding with fine abrasive. That such a tool is pleasing to the eye is incidental; THE REAL WORTH OF THE SMOOTHING LAY IN THE EVEN CUTTING EDGE, SUPERIOR STRENGTH, AND BETTER HANDLING. [ED: My emphasis.] The new ax would sink deeper for a given blow while delivering a clean and broad cut; its smooth bit, more shock resistant than the former flaked edge, had less tendency to wedge in a cut."
(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)
This ax looks crude but it was state of the art for thousands of years. It not only could quickly clear a forested site, it and similar stone tools could cut and shape wood better than any tools before it. It led to a new 'wood' technology that had not been possible before in Europe.
"A Neolithic stone ax with a wooden handle. Found at Ehenside Tarn, now in the British Museum."
"The polished Neolithic ax, a heavy implement, was in sharp contrast to the delicate small-rock work of the last stages of the Paleolithic period.
"In a revealing experiment, 4,000-year-old polished rock axes, furnished by the Danish National Museum and carrying the sharpness left after their last use 4,000 years ago, were fitted with ash handles modeled after that of a Neolithic hafted ax preserved in a bog, giving the ax an overall length of nearly 63 cm (25 inches). (A modern steel felling ax has a 91-cm [36-inch] handle.) When these were used in a Danish forest, it was soon found that the violent action of the modern technique of swinging a steel ax and putting shoulder and weight behind the blade to give long and powerful blows was disastrous, either ruining the edge or breaking the blade. Proper handling meant short quick strokes that chipped at the tree...
"After getting into form, the men found it possible to fell an oak tree more than 0.3 metre (1 foot) in diameter in half an hour or a pine 61 cm (2 feet) in diameter in less than 20 minutes. One-eighth acre (600 square yards, or 0.05 hectare) of silver birch forest were cleared by three men in four hours. One axhead cut down more than 100 trees on its original (old) sharpening."
(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)
THE UNRECOGNIZED LARGE REED INDUSTRY
AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY
Wild high-quality reeds were abundant in Mesopotamia.
Marsh Arabs in a mashoof or mashuf, a long and narrow canoe traditionally used on the Mesopotamian Marshes
High-quality reeds grew wild in the marshes of Mesopotamia and provided a virtually endless supply. Many of the Ubaid Neolithic towns that preceded the rise of the cities in Mesopotamia were located around these marshes. It is now clear that these Neolithic societies developed a highly advanced 'reed' technology that was passed on to the later cities of Mesopotamia.
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Virtually No Recognition Of A Critical Technology in Mesopotamia, Woven-Fiber 'Reed' Technology
I need to make two points about this topic. The first point is that the reed industry was critical to the economies and way of life in the Mesopotamian cities. The second point is that this technology was developed and in some way perfected by the Ubaid Neolithic cultures that preceded the rise of the Mesopotamian civilizations. While we often do not have a lot of direct evidence because things made of reeds decay quickly, we can infer the Neolithic reed technology from its presence in the later cities of Mesopotamia.
-----------------
The Importance Of The 'Reed' Woven-Fiber Technology To The Rise Of The Cities In Mesopotamia
A virtually unlimited supply of high-quality wild reeds grew in the marshes. Reed basketry and woven reed items were so important they were mentioned prominently in Mesopotamian mythology.
Reed items (for lack of a better word) were essential to Mesopotamian cities. They were used to make houses, boats, levees, irrigation baskets, baskets to carry bricks and crops with pack animals, heavy-duty baskets for dredging canals and hauling clay along with everyday baskets for household use. Reeds were also used to make rope and mats that had dozens of uses.
In an earlier article, I made the point that the reed industry was possibly the largest industry in Mesopotamia after agriculture. The similar papyrus industry was also quite large in Egypt. In both cases, the technology almost certainly had been developed by earlier Neolithic societies. However, the importance of these fiber industries has not been recognized by most historians.
See my articles about this:
This woven bowl is an example of the fine workmanship
that had been achieved in the Neolithic era.
LEFT: Bowl
RIGHT: Detail of bowl
Baskets, basket bowls, sandals, textiles, and mats from
the Neolithic Era (5200-4600 BCE or 7200-6600 BP)
were found in Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, Province Of Granada, Andalusia, Spain.
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About The Craft Of Basket Weaving
The word for basket maker in Mesopotamia was an older word indicating that basket weaving had reached a high point of development earlier in the Neolithic era before the rise of Mesopotamian civilizations.
The Sumerian expert, Samuel Kramer, wrote that the word for basketmaker is a pre-Sumerian word as were some others, such as the words for farmer, weaver, and leatherworker. Benno Landsberger of the University of Ankara a specialist in cuneiform research, concluded that these words "must therefore belong to the language spoken by...pre-Sumerian people. It therefore follows that the basic agricultural techniques and industrial skills were first introduced in Sumer not by the Sumerians but by their nameless predecessors. Landsberger called this people Proto-Euphrateans...which is...useful from the linguistic point of view."
"In archeology, the Proto-Euphrateans are known as the Ubaid people." [I.E. NEOLITHIC]
(Kramer, The Sumerians, p. 41)
While the term 'basket weaver' was used in the Sumerian language, it referred to a variety of weaving skills. Specifically, a basket weaver was defined as "a reed craftman, basket and mat weaver" (Foxvog, Elementary Sumerian Glossary)
An online lexicon of Mesopotamian words listed over 100 words relating to the craft of working with reeds. As anthropologists know, words and phrases, especially ones that repeat, are an indication of their importance.
(Foxvog, Daniel A. Elementary Sumerian Glossary.)
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About The Versatility Of Basket Weaving
In the following quote the Encyclopedia Britannica explains that the term 'basketry' covers a lot of items, uses, skills, techniques, and materials. When taken even further it can include small children's toy baskets on the one hand to large sea-going ships or huge community buildings on the other hand plus everything in between.
"Though it would appear that basketry might best be defined as the art or craft of making baskets, the fact is that the name is one of those the limits of which seem increasingly imprecise the more one tries to grasp it. The category basket may include receptacles made of interwoven, rather rigid material, but it may also include pliant sacks made of a mesh indistinguishable from netting—or garments or pieces of furniture made of the same materials and using the same processes as classical basket-making. In fact, neither function nor appearance nor material nor mode of construction are of themselves sufficient to delimit the field of what common sense nevertheless recognizes as basketry."
The reed industry was flexible, scalable, and durable and the material, reeds, were available and inexpensive. However, reeds decay and do not leave much evidence. This is a major reason that the reed industry was not recognized.
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There Is Now Ample Direct Evidence For Reed Boats In The Neolithic Period In Mesopotamia, Including Large Sea-Going Ships
"Navigation in the Gulf during the Neolithic and Ubaid periods
"The question of whether boats were used during the Neolithic period has been answered positively. The vessels were made of reed bundles, lashed together, and then coated with a bitumen amalgam – a technology that prefigures the techniques used to build trading vessels during the Bronze Age, some 3000 years later."
(Carter, Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf)
Reed technology was scalable. From a small reed boat (top) to a recreated sea-going ship, the Tigris, (bottom) made by Thor Heyerdahl, 'reed' or woven-fiber technology was quite versatile and advanced.
(Bottom) Named the Tigris, this is a model of the Mesopotamian reed boat built by Thor Heyerdahl of Kon-Tiki fame. He believed that a boat similar to this had been used in the early days of the Sumerian/Babylonian civilizations. The Tigris was almost 60 feet long, had a crew of eleven, and sailed more than 4,000 miles without any serious problems.
These findings suggest that smaller reed boats were also used extensively and later became an important part of Mesopotamian commerce. Small reed boats are still being made today and they are widely used.
"Southern Mesopotamia was a land dominated not only by the Euphrates and its branches but by a substantial number of artificial canals as well, many of which were navigable. Not surprisingly, therefore, a great deal of travel, transport, and communication was waterborne, and indeed some scholars consider the facilitation of trade and transport by Mesopotamia's canals (whether so intended or not) to have been as important a role as irrigation."
(Potts, Mesopotamian Civilization, p. 122)
"With wide rivers, narrow canals, and access to the Persian Gulf, a variety of reed boats of all types and sizes was essential and a major reason that civilization managed to gain a foothold."
"Reed boats are well suited for local use on rivers and are still used in Iraq.
(Makela, Ships and Shipbuilding in Mesopotamia (Ca. 3000-2000 B.C.), p. 38-40)
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About Reed and Basket Boats
Very different kinds of boats were based on basket weaving and woven-fiber technology. The largest were sea-going reed boats that were capable of carrying tons of cargo.
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The Neolithic Origins Of Seafaring And Trade In The Arabian Gulf
Writing about his reconstructed large Mesopotamian reed sea-going ship, the Tigris, Thor Heyerdahl spoke about the advantages of such a vessel. "With its double hull and extraordinary buoyancy a reed ship could sail right up into the shallows .. . where no keeled vessel could get in, and remain standing dry on the bottom without capsizing when the tide went out, ready for loading and departure with the next high tide."
(Potts, Mesopotamian Civilization, p. 122)
There were also much smaller reed boats that looked like small versions of the sea-going crafts. There were also round coracle boats, also known as basket boats because their structure was based on a basket design. Coracles were generally used on the rivers. Many historians believe that coracles were invented early and may have existed in the Neolithic era.
A coracle: the 'basket' structure is clearly visible.
According to Brighthubengineering.com, "The Coracle is known as one of the world’s oldest boats...The Coracle may have predated the written word. Some believe that anglers used these watercraft during Prehistoric Times. [ED: as they were excellent fishing vessels] ("The Coracle History," Roundabout Watercrafts)
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Reed Houses And Buildings
Based on the evidence for reed boats, reed houses, and buildings were almost certainly developed by Neolithic societies and then widely built in the later cities of Mesopotamia. I can say this because the craft of making large reed buildings has never been lost and these buildings are still being made today.
Sophisticated reed housing probably began in the Neolithic as well. Very large buildings like this and small modest homes were made with this basic design.
Mudhif Reception Hall
Long before the rise of civilization in Sumer, reed houses were probably being built in the Neolithic era.
"Reed buildings were constructed from as early as the preceding Ubaid Period." [ED: Neolithic Period]
(Perkins, The Comparative Archaeology of Early Mesopotamia, p. 88)
Later with the rise of the great city-states in Mesopotamia reed houses were often built in the outlying farm villages and probably near the outside the walls of the city.
"Reed houses undoubtedly formed a more important part of the urban and rural landscape than has generally been recognized by scholars, who have tended to assume that all of the population in Mesopotamia lived in mudbrick dwellings."
(Potts, Mesopotamian Civilization, p. 117)
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There Is Almost No Mention Of Reed Housing In Mesopotamia By Past Historians
Modern researchers have assumed that once bricks and brick houses became widely available they almost completely replaced earlier housing made of reeds, known as grass houses or rabas, and large community buildings known as mudhifs. This is the same error historians made when they considered the transition from stone tools to bronze tools as I wrote about earlier in this article. Stone tools were used for thousands of years all through the Bronze Age. Homes and large buildings made of reeds were probably widely used in Mesopotamia.
However, most historians agree early housing was based on reed structures.
"The predominance of reeds, reed bundles, and reed structures points to their significance to early Sumerian economies."
(Pournelle, The Sumerian World Edition, pp. 28-29)
"The creative genius of these people emerged early - about 4500 B.C. - as they adapted to their harsh marshy environment. In a land barren of trees and without any stone quarries, they built astounding shelters of the only material available: fragile marsh reeds - bundling the reeds together with bulrush fiber, constructing frameworks of reed columns, roofing the structure with reed matting..."
(Bilkadi, "Bitumen - A History")
But later when brick had become common, inexpensive reed houses were still built for a large number of the population so the general assumption by scholars that everyone lived in brick buildings was incorrect.
"These 'grass houses', made entirely from reeds, continued to be built right up to today where they are still being constructed in Iraq."
(Ochsenschlager, "Life on the Edge of the Marshes")
AGRICULTURE
And last, but not least, the sophistication of Neolithic agriculture has not been fully recognized. However, the great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia could not have risen without this technology that was developed in the Neolithic era. This technology created the surpluses which made these civilizations possible.
I think that modern people do not understand the work, thought, planning, creativity, experimenting, and technology that was required to invent agriculture. The Neolithic societies developed agriculture from scratch. There was no guidebook and it took about six thousand years.
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF NEOLITHIC AGRICULTURE
The Neolithic farmers selected a limited number of wild plants, often cereals, to cultivate. These are known as founder crops many of which are still eaten and/or used today. Once harvested the plants could be stored for months or years. Just as importantly, the Neolithic societies created clever methods for storage. Agriculture only had value if the harvest could be stored for long periods of time. Then in the late Neolithic era, farmers invented a form of intensive farming using irrigation that produced surpluses. It was these surpluses that led to the rise of the great civilizations.
Some of the Neolithic founder crops were the principal plants grown by the early great civilizations. For example, barley was the main crop that Mesopotamian civilizations were based on and barely was a key Neolithic founder crop.
A FULL DESCRIPTION OF AGRICULTURE
THAT WAS INVENTED BY NEOLITHIC SOCIETIES
----------------------
Founder Crops And The Origins Of Agriculture
Many core crops of the Neolithic are still important today.
NOTE: While einkorn wheat and emmer wheat are not grown as much today as they have been, they were major crops until recently. But five of the following list of founder crops are still widely consumed today.
In recent years many other plants, beside the basic founder plants listed next, were discovered that various Neolithic villages concentrated on. Nevertheless, most did choose a limited number of crops that they grew year after year.
"The Eight Founder Crops, according to long-standing archaeological theory, are eight plants that form the basis of origins of agriculture on our planet. All eight arose in the Fertile Crescent region (what is today southern Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, and the Zagros foothills in Iran) during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period some 11,000–10,000 years ago. The eight include three cereals (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, and barley); four legumes (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch); and one oil and fiber crop (flax or linseed).
"These crops could all be classed as grains, and they share common characteristics: they are all annual, self-pollinating, native to the Fertile Crescent, and inter-fertile within each crop and between the crops and their wild forms."
(Hirst, The Eight Founder Crops)
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Plant Domestication
Smart Neolithic farmers "domesticated" their plants so that over time the plants produced much greater yields. Also, when possible, they chose aberrant strains of grains that kept their seeds on the stem rather than the normal natural way in which seeds fell off the stem and were blown with the wind. This made the harvesting and processing of grains much easier.
These last two techniques show that Neolithic people had a different mindset than earlier nomadic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic farmers felt that they could 'engineer' nature with their skills, rather than accepting only what nature offered, as they had done when they lived in the wild. I will write a full article about this but for now, this is a perfect example of the new way that Neolithic people were thinking.
"Plant domestication: Cereals such as emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were among the first crops domesticated by Neolithic farming communities in the Fertile Crescent. These early farmers also domesticated lentils, chickpeas, peas, and flax.
"Domestication is the process by which farmers select for desirable traits by breeding successive generations of a plant or animal. Over time, a domestic species becomes different from its wild relative.
"Neolithic farmers selected for crops that harvested easily. Wild wheat, for instance, falls to the ground and shatters when it is ripe. Early humans bred for wheat that stayed on the stem for easier harvesting."
But deciding on which plants to cultivate was just the beginning. These plants had to be planted, harvested and processed, and then carefully stored using almost hi-tech methods so that the seeds would not mold or spoil or be eaten by rodents. Also, seeds from crops had to be saved for the next year's harvest. All of this required long-term thinking and planning which was very different from the immediacy of nomadic hunter-gatherers.
But there's more. In the following quote, the author points out that growing plants was only one part of a system that was necessary to ensure that there would be enough food year after year.
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Controversies About The Neolithic Revolution
"Reconstruction of a Neolithic sickle. Blade-shaped stones are held in place with natural bitumen. Vienna Museum of Natural History."
"The domestication of plants and animals is a necessary BUT NOT A SUFFICIENT CONDITION [ED: my emphasis] for the transition from foraging to an economy fully-based on agriculture to occur. Indeed, domestication can be seen as an innovation but many other innovations are required for the whole human population to be fed from agropastoralism activities.
"These additional innovations are respectively related to the production of food resources, their processing, storage and consumption. Even if we consider agriculture in its first stage, specific tools and techniques are required, for instance, a digging stick to sow grains, an irrigation system, even if it is very basic or a sickle to harvest cereals. Once they have been harvested, domestic cereals require human activity, in the form of threshing and winnowing, to separate and disperse seeds. Once the seeds were obtained, they had to be stored in order to reduce the seasonal food risks. This requires some storage systems.
"Even though the innovations listed above seem us to be very basic they were all necessary for a complete transition to agriculture."
(Svizzero, "Persistent Controversies About The Neolithic Revolution")
I suggest that many of the supporting tools and implements for the agricultural cycle came from their highly developed 'reed' or woven-fiber technology. This technology was so versatile it could have been used to create a wide variety of devices for planting, harvesting, processing, and storing grain.
Baskets were critical tools for Egyptian agriculture.
BOTTOM:
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What Was Used Before Pack Animals? Burden Baskets?
Pack animals, like the donkey, were domesticated in the last third of the Neolithic era. So for thousands of years before the domestication of pack animals, how was a harvest brought from the fields and then processed?
This is one example of how 'reed' and woven-fiber technology might have been used to create an important harvesting tool.
Back baskets in Slovenia ca. 1963.
I suggest that early Neolithic people employed 'burden baskets'. These are often huge baskets, carried on the back, that are capable of carrying a substantial amount of harvested plants. Farmers in some parts of Europe still use these today.
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Domestication of Pack Animals
Donkey with panniers, i.e., baskets carried in pairs, made of reeds.
This picture shows two Neolithic innovations:
the domesticated donkey and the rugged reed baskets.
Definition Pack Animal:
Any domesticated animal that is used to carry freight, goods, or supplies. The ass or donkey is the oldest-known pack animal, having been in use possibly as early as 3500 BCE
And, I might add, the donkey is still widely used today in many countries.
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Storage
Neolithic societies spent considerable thought and effort on creating storage systems so that they would have food for the long term. The following describes examples of storage designs.
"The granaries represent a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods...The transition from economic systems based on collecting and foraging of wild food resources before this point to cultivation...[of] managed resources in the PPNA (Pre-Pottery Neolithic) illustrates a major intensification of human-plant relationships.
"People in the PPNA were the first in the world to develop systematic large-scale food storage.
"All of the granaries [ED: found in this study] were circular structures ˜3 × 3 m on the outside and were built with suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents and insects." (Kuijt & Finlayson, Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago...)
"In the... Neolithic periods, hermetic storage was used in the form of underground pits. Found in the Middle East as well as in Europe, these pits were used to store dried food.
"Simply put, hermetic storage has a gas-tight and moisture-tight environment that kills off insects and inhibits mold growth." (GrainPro, A Brief History Of Hermetic Storage)
THE IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE
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For The Last Approx. 10,000 Years Agriculture Has Been The Largest Industry World Wide And Still Is
Now that the Industrial Revolution is about 300 years old, it can be hard for modern people to understand the critical importance of agriculture that started in the Neolithic era.
Until about 100 years ago farming was by far the largest industry in the United States, for example, and this only changed when the Industrial Revolution took over. Agriculture is still the largest industry in the world, although it is not the largest industry in highly industrialized countries.
"In 1900, just under 40 percent of the total US population lived on farms, and 60 percent lived in rural areas."
"Agriculture is the world's largest industry. It employs more than one billion people and generates over $1.3 trillion dollars worth of food annually. Pasture and cropland occupy around 50 percent of the Earth's habitable land and provide habitat and food for a multitude of species."
CONCLUSION
THE NEOLITHIC ERA -- A NEW UNDERSTANDING
The critical use of stone age sickles and plows all through the Bronze Age, the efficiency of Neolithic stone tools, the extensive development of agriculture, the use of reed technology for a wide range of items large and small, and the ability to produce a surplus of grain all point to a new understanding about the Neolithic era.
The Neolithic era was, perhaps, one of the most creative periods in human history because the culture that was created was invented by these societies and its legacy not only led to the emergence of the great civilization, it's legacy is still with us today. I believe it marks the start of civilization.
This painting of a reed ship in Mesopotamia illustrates the sophistication of the reed industry. This painting depicts a large ship made of reeds in early Mesopotamia. The existence of similar large reed boats has been well documented.
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FOOTNOTES
And the Neolithic Era in Europe
Carter, R.A. "Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf." Archaeology International, 2912. pp 44-47. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0613 Accessed 4/14/2021.
Makela, Tommi Tapani. Ships and Shipbuilding in Mesopotamia (Ca. 3000-2000 B.C.). Thesis Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University. May 2002.
Perkins, A.L. The comparative archaeology of early Mesopotamia. SAOC 25. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1949.
Potts, D.T. Mesopotamian Civilization, The Material Foundations. London: The Athlone Press. 1997.
Pournelle, Jennifer. "Physical Geography of the Sumerian World." The Sumerian World Edition. Editor: Crawford, Harriet. Routledge, 2013. CHAPTER01_jrpmarkup.pdf
Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction, Edition 2.
McClellan, James E. III, Dorn, Harold. JHU Press, June 2006, page 23.
Svizzero S. "Persistent controversies about the neolithic revolution." J His Arch & Anthropol Sci. 2017;1(2):53-61 DOI: 10.15406/jhaas.2017.01.00013
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