Neolithic Art

Around 9000 BC the ice that covered much of northern Europe during the Paleolithic period melted as the climate grew warmer. The sea level rose more than 300 feet, separating England from continental Europe and Spain from Africa.

The reindeer migrated north and the wooly mammoth disappeared.

The Paleolithic gave way to a transitional period, the Mesolithic, and then, for several thousands years at different times in different parts of the globe, a great new age, the Neolithic, dawned.

Human beings began to domesticate plants and animals and a settle in fixed abodes.

Their food supply assured, many groups changed form hunters to herders, to farmers and finally to townspeople.

The basis for the conventional division of prehistory into Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods is the development of stone implements.

However, a different kind of distinction may be made between and age of food gathering and an age of food production.

In this scheme, the Paleolithic period corresponds roughly to the age of food gathering and the Mesolithic period, the last phase of that age, is marked by intensified food gathering and the taming of the dog.

In the Neolithic period, agriculture and stock raising became humankind’s major food sources, the transition to the Neolithic occurred first in the ancient Near East.
Neolithic Art