Neolithic Revolution (Humans
Try and Control Nature) and
the Rise of River Valley
Civilizations
EPISD World History Team
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Printed: August 28, 2015
AUTHOR
EPISD World History Team
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Chapter 1. Neolithic Revolution (Humans Try and Control Nature) and the Rise of River Valley Civilizations
C HAPTER
1
Neolithic Revolution
(Humans Try and Control Nature) and
the Rise of River Valley Civilizations
Neolithic Revolution[WHS.1A, WHS.2A, WHS.17A, WHS.17B, WHS.24A, WHS.29F, WHS.30A, WHS.30B, WHS.30C,
WHS.30D]
The Neolithic Revolution (Humans Try and Control Nature)
Student Learning Objectives
At the end of this section students will be able to:
• identify major causes and describe the major effects of the following events from 8000 BC to 500 BC: the
development of agriculture.
MEDIA
Click image to the left or use the URL below.
URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/168831
The term Neolithic Revolution was coined in 1923 by V. Gordon Childe to describe the first in a series of agricultural
revolutions in Middle Eastern history. The period is described as a "revolution" to denote its importance, and the
great significance and degree of change affecting the communities in which new agricultural practices were gradually
adopted and refined.
The beginning of this process in different regions has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent and
perhaps 8000 BC in the Kuk Early Agricultural Site of Melanesia to 2500 BC in Subsaharan Africa, with some considering the developments of 9000–7000 BC in the Fertile Crescent to be the most important. This transition
everywhere seems associated with a change from a largely nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life to a more settled,
agrarian-based one, with the inception of the domestication of various plant and animal species—depending on the
species locally available, and probably also influenced by local culture. Recent archaeological research suggests that
in some regions such as the Southeast Asian peninsula, the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist was not
linear, but region-specific.
A civilization (or civilisation in British English) is any complex state society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation
from and domination over the natural environment. Civilizations are intimately associated with and often further
defined by other socio-politico-economic characteristics, including centralization, the domestication of both humans
and other organisms, specialization of labor, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon agriculture, and expansionism. Historically, a civilization was
an "advanced" culture in contrast to more supposedly barbarian, savage, or primitive cultures.In this broad sense,
a civilization contrasts with non-centralized feudal or tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists or hunter-gatherers. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into
a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure.
1
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Civilizations are organized in densely populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with a ruling elite
and subordinate urban and rural populations, which, by the engagement in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale
manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including
over other human beings.
Think fire wasn’t a big deal? Think again. Read this article about how the origin of cooking affected
our brains. Article Link
MEDIA
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URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/157467
(ISN) Interactive Student Notebook Assignment
1. List three examples of the earliest know place for agriculture to develop.
2. List the elements of a civilization?
3. Describe the activities that take place in civilizations?
(ISN) Discussion and Study Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Describe the techniques and methods used to develop farming and herding.
Explain the new challenges which sedentary societies faced that they would not as a nomadic society?
How did daily life change due to the shift from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one?
How did the roles of women and the family change after the Neolithic Revolution?
What groups or institutions were formed to help develop and sustain an agricultural society?
What is "surplus" and how did it lead to the development of civilization?
(ISN) Tech Activities
Vocabulary
Quizlet Flashcard Vocabulary for Neolithlic Revoultion and the Rise of Agriculture
TABLE 1.1:
civilization
culture
domestication
hunter-gatherer
2
complex societies characterized by cities, specialized
workers, complex institutions, record keeping, and advanced technology.
the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits
of a society.
to take animals out of the wild and breed them for food
production.
a member of a culture in which food is obtained by
hunting, fishing, and foraging rather than by agriculture
or the domestication of animals.
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Chapter 1. Neolithic Revolution (Humans Try and Control Nature) and the Rise of River Valley Civilizations
TABLE 1.1: (continued)
Neolithic Revolution
nomads
Paleolithic
the major change in human life caused by the beginnings of farming when people shifted from being
hunters and gatherers to becoming food producers.
people who have no fixed residence but move from
place to place in order to obtain food.
of or relating to the earliest period of the Stone Age,
ending about 15,000 years ago.
Rise 1
3