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The Neolithic RevolutionThe Neolithic Revolution was a change in the way prehistoric people obtained food and organized themselves. This change occurred during the period of time that archaeologists call the Neolithic Era, or New Stone Age, which lasted from about 8000 to 3000 BCE. This was the last phase of the larger time period known as the Stone Age.During the Neolithic Revolution, instead of obtaining food by hunting and gathering, people began developing agriculture, which involves growing crops and domesticating animals. They started producing more and more food and stored the surplus, the part they did not eat or need to use as barter and obtain things they wanted. They also learned to shape and sharpen tools to make them more useful. These new skills and technology allowed people to settle in one place all year and form villages, rather than being nomads by moving from place to place to follow animals or look for new plants to eat. Tool making advanced more quickly in places with large populations and where farming was advanced enough to provide adequate amount of food supply. The technology was made of stone, bones, wood and antlers. By having sharper and stronger tools, such as axes, people were able to cut down trees and use wood as a building material. This allowed them to build larger, more permanent structures. As people began leading more settled lives, they developed crafts such as pottery and weaving. These changes led to increased population and the beginning of villages and towns. People started having specialized jobs to make sure the farming and building went smoothly. The cultures slowly became civilizations.A civilization is an advanced form of culture. Usually civilizations have certain characteristics. These characteristics include living in cities, growing a surplus of food so that some people in society can specialize in jobs other than farming, and having complex institutions, such as government or religion. In civilizations some of the people in society are usually able to keep records or write, and some people have access to more advanced tools.The worlds oldest civilization developed in Mesopotamia, a region in the Middle East between the Tigris River and Euphrates River. In this region people used irrigation to farm, believed in gods and goddesses, and built large religious structures called ziggurats. They lived in city-states, and their society was divided into different social classes.Like Mesopotamia most early civilizations developed near water and began as farming societies. Over time these early civilizations took on the characteristics of complex civilizations. Important early civilizations developed along the Nile River in North Africa, along the Chang Jiang and Huang He Rivers in China, near the Indus River in India, and in Central America. ................
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