The changes that came with the Neolithic Revolution beginning about twelve thousand years ago dramatically transformed human life. The adoption of agriculture and the domestication of animals allowed for larger populations, surpluses of food, and labor specialization, even as they reduced leisure time and restructured formerly egalitarian societies into hierarchical tiers. From the remains of Neolithic settlements we can get a sense of life at this important moment in our species’ history. The remains of Çatalhöyük feature rooms decorated with art and a settlement designed for protection. The art and architecture from there and from other places like Göbekli Tepe demonstrate both skill and high degrees of cooperation. They also show modern humans in a transitional period between the hunter-gatherer world and the fully agricultural one. Over time, hunter-gatherer lifestyles were abandoned in most places as agricultural settlements grew.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/2-3-the-neolithic-revolution Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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