Read the history behind the neolithic revolution and discover the causes of it. Learn about neolithic farmers. See the neolithic diet and the food items consumed.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Neolithic Revolution| Farmers, Food Items & Diet
Table of Contents
- What Was the Neolithic Revolution?
- Neolithic Farmers
- Neolithic Food Items
- Neolithic Diet
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
What food did people of the Neolithic Age eat?
People in the neolithic period ate a wide variety of foods depending on where they were in the world and what they had access to. Early agricultural societies tended to eat a lot of grain and had less access to meat than their paleolithic ancestors.
How did Neolithic humans get their food?
Some neolithic groups were hunter-gatherers, while others practiced agriculture. Even those who practiced agriculture still supplemented their diets with hunted and foraged foods to add variety and nutrition.
What is the Neolithic Revolution and why is it important?
The neolithic revolution was the period of human history when people first developed agriculture. Agriculture changed human societies more than almost any other discovery or invention, allowing for trade, complex societies, and much more.
Table of Contents
- What Was the Neolithic Revolution?
- Neolithic Farmers
- Neolithic Food Items
- Neolithic Diet
- Lesson Summary
The neolithic revolution was one of the most drastic periods of change in human history: the time when human beings first developed agriculture. Neolithic farmers figuratively and literally broke new ground as they domesticated plants and created the basis for the first ever non-nomadic human lifestyles. Different parts of the world experienced the neolithic revolution at different times, but some of the earliest societies to develop agriculture were in China, India, and West Asia. These places started to practice agriculture around twelve thousand years ago, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age. Early attempts at agriculture were limited, but societies that adopted agricultural practices soon became more adept at cultivating plants.
It is challenging, at first glance, to fully understand the scope and impact that the neolithic revolution had on humanity, but it is possible that no time in history has been as transformative for humans as a species. The development of agriculture led to the first permanent dwellings. People had the ability to build bigger ovens and pots, which changed their culinary cultures. The foods available to people had previously been dictated by their location and the seasons; with the advent of agriculture, food availability changed drastically. Cultures experienced their first food surpluses, which may have been a major factor in creating the first wealth inequality. Early cities were often cramped and tended to have poor living conditions and high rates of disease. However, agriculture also allowed for greater labor specialization and an increase in trade. Most of the technological advancements that have been so important in human history have developed as a direct or indirect result of the neolithic revolution.
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Neolithic farmers were individuals who took an innovative and revolutionary approach to food production. Although the domestication of some animals began before the neolithic revolution, plant domestication had not yet become widespread. There are several theories about exactly how and why the neolithic revolution started, and a lack of written and archaeological records means that it is unlikely that researchers will ever know for certain everything that happened. Prior to the neolithic revolution, there were no farmers. Animal domestication was largely limited to dogs, though herd animals became more widespread around the same time as agriculture. Before the neolithic revolution, all human societies relied on hunting and gathering in order to survive. A hunter-gatherer lifestyle had its advantages and disadvantages and it was not necessarily better or worse than agriculture. Indeed, some societies continue to hunt and gather today, or continued until very recently. However, agriculture does open up a range of possibilities not necessarily offered to hunter-gatherers when it comes to making societies more complex.
Agricultural Transition
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The transition to an agricultural lifestyle happened gradually. The first agriculture was most likely practiced on terraces overlooking fertile river valleys in ancient China, India, and Mesopotamia. Terraces are easy to irrigate without much technology or much awareness of how irrigation works, as water naturally flows down toward the river. Later, agricultural societies started digging irrigation canals, like those between the Tigris and the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Irrigation canals took a greater degree of effort and understanding, but they also increased yields. Grains were some of the first plants to be domesticated as they are relatively easy to grow, do not require as much water as most fruits, and provide a steady source of calories. Emmer wheat, barley, lentils, and some kinds of peas were some of the first plants grown. Some societies may have adopted and then abandoned agriculture at various points, rather than making a swift and permanent switch from hunting and gathering. Early agricultural societies would also have continued to forage and hunt to supplement their relatively limited agricultural diet.
Domestication of Plants
Plant domestication was a gradual process that may have begun intentionally or unintentionally. As mentioned above, grains were some of the first crops to be deliberately domesticated. Domestication gradually changes a plant's DNA through artificial selection, making it easier to grow, more weather-resistant, tastier, and more calorically dense over time. The plants that people eat today have, for the most part, been substantially modified from their original wild versions. Early crops were harvested with metal tools and new inventions soon followed, including early grain mills. Cuisines began to shift to focus on the available crop resources that agricultural societies had access to throughout the year.
Not all plants were domesticated on purpose. Some archaeologists believe that almonds were actually domesticated around twelve thousand years ago, possibly by accident. In the wild, most almonds are poisonous because they contain high levels of cyanide. Some have a natural mutation that makes them safe to eat. Those safe almond trees produce seeds that grow more safe almond trees. Humans who, by luck, ingested safe almonds and then excreted the seeds near their homes may have wound up growing almond trees that produced edible almonds. It is impossible to say how many early crops were domesticated in similar ways and how many were the result of deliberate experiments with planting and harvesting.
Causes of the Neolithic Revolution
One of the major questions about the neolithic revolution is why it happened in the first place. After all, humans lived successfully as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years before developing agriculture. Researchers cannot be certain exactly what first caused the neolithic revolution, but there are several theories and factors that likely had an impact on human society and culture at the time. One of the major factors that likely made a big difference for many people was the end of the last Ice Age. The Ice Age lasted for more than seventy-five thousand years, which made it more difficult for many people to find food. When the Ice Age ended, many areas that had been previously hostile to plant and animal life became much more vibrant and full of life. Cultivation would not have been practical in most parts of the world during the Ice Age, so the neolithic revolution could not really have happened any earlier than it did.
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One possible cause that has been suggested to explain why the neolithic revolution began is actually alcohol. It is possible that humans first started growing crops like barley not to make porridge or bread, but to brew beer. Beer, and other simple, slightly alcoholic beverages, would have been safer to drink than most water sources and may have improved the health of some members of society. It is even possible that people started harvesting wild grains to brew alcohol before eventually planting them for the same purpose, according to one archaeological study that found beer-making tools that were thirteen thousand years old.
Social Consequences
The consequences of the neolithic revolution were profound. New technologies were developed as a result of the revolution and social structures became much more complex as people's roles in society diversified. For some, the health effects of the neolithic revolution were detrimental, as cities gave rise to diseases, poverty, and increased malnutrition. However, people also had access to a steadier stream of food with less risk of starvation than they likely experienced as hunter-gatherers. Some people managed to accrue individual wealth and private property, both of which were relatively new concepts at the time. Societies often became more hierarchical, rulers were able to fund stronger military presences, and new kinds of jobs and crafts came into being.
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There were a great many neolithic food items that became more widespread over the course of the neolithic revolution. Grains were chief among them. As agriculture developed, it also spread. Domesticated barley spread throughout Eurasia as a result of word of mouth, trade, and violent conflict. Civilizations that practiced agriculture sometimes found themselves at an advantage in such conflicts, as they had a more steady supply of food than hunter-gatherers did. For this reason, agriculture tended to spread as agricultural societies came into contact with others, ultimately resulting in a widespread agricultural revolution.
Different plants were domesticated in different regions. For instance, in Ethiopia, one of the earliest domesticated crops was sorghum. The culinary traditions of many cultures can be largely traced back to the primary grain on which they relied early in their agricultural histories. Sorghum in parts of Africa, rice in parts of Asia, wheat in much of Europe, and corn in some parts of the Americas have all become staple foods with a long, rich history. Farming was a labor-intensive process that produced relatively low yields compared to modern agriculture, but it was still a major shift in the availability of food and food surplus.
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Just as the foods that were domesticated in each region varied, so did the neolithic diet. There is no single diet followed by all people during and after the neolithic revolution. However, there are certain commonalities that archaeologists have found. Early agricultural societies got most of their calories from grain, which sometimes resulted in tooth decay because those grains would break down into sugars. Hunter-gatherer societies tended to eat more meat and tended to have a more varied diet, though they were always at risk of starvation if food sources were to fail.
Modern agricultural diets tend to be far more varied than neolithic agricultural diets were, as agriculture and plant domestication have come a long way. Today, it is possible to transport foods over great distances. Animal agriculture was not prevalent at the start of the neolithic revolution, so pre-agricultural people in the paleolithic era likely had less access to dairy products and other animal products than agricultural societies that did practice animal domestication.
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The neolithic revolution was the period in human history when people started to make the shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural lifestyle. Neolithic farmers were individuals who took an innovative and revolutionary approach to food production. The revolution began around twelve thousand years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. The first societies to start practicing agriculture were located in fertile river valleys in China, India, and West Asia. The development of agriculture allowed for a vast array of technological changes, like larger ovens that led to a more diverse culinary culture in many parts of the world.
People living after the neolithic revolution had very different diets from those living in the paleolithic era that preceded it. The neolithic revolution resulted in the domestication of many plant species, so the plants that neolithic people ate were often genetically different from those that paleolithic people ate while living in the same area. Because the first domesticated plants were grains, neolithic agricultural people ate a lot more grains and a lot less meat than their hunter-gatherer counterparts. Although agriculture had many advantages, it also contributed to inequality, poor health and hygiene, and malnutrition.
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Video Transcript
The Neolithic Revolution
As we've seen throughout history, humans disagree on a lot of things. We get in fights, we argue, and we can get downright destructive. But if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's this: we love food. Food is great! Humans don't just eat to survive; we eat to thrive, selecting quality ingredients and mixing them to create new recipes.
Our food cultures weren't always this way. In the early Stone Age, humans could only eat what they hunted or gathered. They likely spiced up their food with local herbs and plants, but cooking as an art was limited. By the end of the Stone Age, however, people were making full meals and experimenting with their culinary skills. What changed? The Neolithic Revolution.
In the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, people hunted and gathered for food. This was mostly the case in the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) as well. However, around 10,000 BCE, the global climate changed, bringing the world out of the Ice Age and into a more temperate era. With milder weather, vegetation flourished, and people were able to start controlling when and where plants grew. This was the invention of agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution is defined by the domestication of plants and animals, which let formerly nomadic humans settle down and establish permanent communities. This last part of the Stone Age, the New Stone Age, laid the foundation for many things in our modern world, including the ways we eat.
Neolithic Food Items
The Neolithic Revolution introduced agriculture to the world, so what were the first crops these ancient people were planting? The earliest farms seem to have been based around basic cereals, notably wheat, barley, peas, lentils, and flax. The first societies to figure out how to domesticate and farm these plants tended to be in temperate and fertile river valleys, notably in West Asia (the Middle East), India, and China. These cereals were being farmed by roughly 9,500 BCE.
As people got better at agriculture, other products joined the menu. Rice was domesticated in China by 7,500 BCE, and squash was domesticated in Mexico by 7,000 BCE. Societies across the Americas would soon domesticate beans, corn, and potatoes as well. Olives and grapes also took root around the Mediterranean basin and became important parts of life there.
Just as Neolithic people learned to domesticate plants, they also domesticated animals as part of their early agriculture systems. Many archeologists actually think dogs were the first domesticated animals (which happened in North America and Asia by 10,000 BCE), although they were probably used for hunting and not food. Cattle were being domesticated in West Asia and India by 7,000 BCE, closely followed by pigs, sheep, and goats. Around this time, people in China domesticated the chicken.
What Was the Neolithic Diet Like?
So far, we've discussed several agricultural products of the Neolithic era, but these are just ingredients. What was the food actually like? To answer that, we need to fully understand the concept of domestication. Domestication and taming are different things. You can tame any animal or naturally harvest any wild plant. A domesticated plant or animal, however, has been bred to genetically improve it relative to human benefit. So, ancient humans were breeding wild strains of plants and animals in order to make them more useful.
For animals, this meant breeding out aggressive qualities and increasing things like the amount of meat and fat they stored. For plants, this meant breeding grains that were larger and more plentiful. Have you ever seen a wild strawberry in comparison to a domesticated strawberry? Domesticated ones are larger, juicier, and tastier. Neolithic farmers used domestication to increase the nutritional value of their food, as well as its taste and appeal.
Then, they cooked it. One of the benefits of giving up nomadic lifestyles for farming was that you could build things like large ovens or large pots to cook in. People also had time to process food in new ways, turning wheat into bread, olives into oil, barley into beer, and grapes into wine. Of course, they also spiced their foods, sometimes in unexpected ways. Archeologists working in Denmark and Germany, for example, found 6,000-year-old pots that had residue of garlic mustard seed, cooked in a broth of oysters and cod.
There are archeological finds like this around the world, each one giving us small glimpses into ancient cuisines, but they all share the same message: Neolithic people were putting real effort into their food. They were cooking, experimenting, and even trading to get access to spices and ingredients not native to their homelands.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. The transition to agriculture also resulted in a much more grain-based menu than people were used to, and meat became a less prominent part of their diet. Hunter-gatherers actually tended to have very balanced diets, but sedentary people often eat too many grains, leading to conditions like diabetes. Still, what and how we eat today can be traced back to this era.
Lesson Summary
Let's review…
The Neolithic Age was the last part of the Stone Age, starting around 10,000 BCE with the end of the Ice Age. This era is defined by the Neolithic Revolution, or the invention of agriculture and the transition to non-nomadic, settled lifestyles. Neolithic people domesticated plants like wheat, barley, rice, squash, and corn, as well as animals like cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens. These ingredients still make up the base of most diets in the world today. These ancient agriculturalists also started experimenting with new recipes, utilizing larger ovens, pots, and other tools to instigate a culinary revolution.
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