Neolithic- Hypotheses

Neolithic- Hypotheses

1. The term Neolithic refers to a different way of working, that is, what has been the fundamental raw material up to that time in prehistoric contexts has been carved stone. However, what we are going to see now is a new way of working with stone; for example, polished stone will be used in axes and hammers, and the size of lithic utensils will be significantly reduced.

   • There is a tradition that, since the 19th century, permeates the world of archeology: the classification systems. This taste for classifying is one of the thoughts in which this first Neolithic is inserted because it is a transitional stage between ancient stone and the metals of later times. In the Neolithic there is still a very rudimentary life but there is an evolution in the working model. The concept of progress, which has arisen from the ideas of philosophers of the illustration, is now being recovered together with a great interest in the idea that all human societies have the tendency to evolve, that is, the idea that in all societies it is going to change from simple forms to complex forms.
     • Oasis hypothesis
       • Childe's approaches to the origin of the Neolithic are cultural changes as a prolongation of biological changes. Once man has finished the process of evolution from him to homo sapiens he has to change not only biologically, but also culturally.
     • Nuclear zone theory
       • He confirmed the 1st agriculture in the Middle East by the archaeological zone where he worked: Jarmo. He does not observe that there is a lack of water nor are there pollen data that demonstrate the desertification that Childe defends. Finally, he resorts to a set of favorable circumstances, that is, the climatic improvement of the Holocene supposes that man experiments on these animals and these species and reaches their domestication. This theory of nuclear zones remains without the same approach of Gordon Childe, but it remains within the classical theory in terms of progress. It is one more concept of progress to explain the origin of the Neolithic. There is no ultimate motive or why in Childe or Braidwood's approaches and only experimentation is what would explain domestication.
     • The disequilibrium theory
       • The disequilibrium theory is that population tends to balance itself with resources. These models of disequilibrium allow the implication of explanation as a study resource or broader explanations are proposed as a starting point. Binford says that the climatic situation or the climatic improvement that the Holocene supposes brings or brings near to human communities new resources, such as maritime that are of great importance. These resources are associated with an increase in the population which, in turn, is losing mobility as it becomes increasingly dependent on these certain species. Population growth, demographic pressure, that is, the imbalance of one of these factors forces a change to exist.
     • Theory of population pressure
       • In other words, if we talk about imbalances we are talking about constant imbalances because the population has always been growing. However, the population has a constant behavior that prevents them from growing beyond resources. Throughout the history of humanity, we observe that there are many elements of demographic control to avoid reaching the imbalance that previous authors defended. What occurs at the end of the Pleistocene is a saturation, that is, there is a demographic pressure, but not an imbalance as such. In such a way that if there is no possibility of moving or looking for new environments, what they have to change is the way of producing those foods or what is the same, producing them instead of predating them. According to Cohen, it is a forced change and is not optional. It is a change on a global scale that has only one understandable advantage and that is that it produces food for more people in a unit of space.