The Birth of a Concept and the Origins of the Neolithic: A History of Prehistoric Farmers in the Near East

Obviously, in the Near East and elsewhere the Neolithic was a period of very important developments, first and foremost the establishment of agriculture and sedentism. However, many of its defining features, such as village life, cultivation of plants and resource management, were already present in the Palaeolithic. This should make us aware of the potential arbitrariness of current typo-chronological categories such as ‘ the Neolithic’. More fundamentally, we need to be critical of the notion of ‘ progress’ and our inclination to create oppositions (e. g. foragers vs. farmers). The Neolithic was not a revolution, but just one among many other important stages in the history of humanity.