During the Neolithic Age, people changed from being hunters and gatherers to being producers of food (agrarian). This transformation is known to historians as the Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution is an extremely significant occurrence in human development. Revolutions often equate to major social, economic and cultural/governmental change. The Neolithic Revolution is no different. The origination of agriculture provided a host of new possibilities for human beings. In reality, it is the first step taken toward what we now know as “civilization”. As McNeill writes: “Normal resistance to innovation was reduced for a time, until a series of brilliant inventions and adaptations of old methods provided the basis for as new and satisfactory way of life, which then in its turn formed a stable, customary pattern: that of the Neolithic village community” (140).
Changed geography led to the possibility of agriculture. This, in turn, prompted the development of permanent settlements as humans no longer had to follow the herd for meat or travel far to gather other foodstuffs. Prehistoric human beings had to rely on a combination of hunting animals and gathering plants for nourishment. These communities were typically small and remained mobile in the search for food. The transformation from a food-producing economy had an enormous impact on the lives of humans in this era. Agriculture greatly increased food supplies. This made it possible for people to live in one area so that permanent communities or developments of larger numbers of people developed.
One of the earliest known villages was Jericho. As McNeill notes, “A great spring of water near the banks of the Jordan River provided the basis for the early rise of the city of Jericho, an isolated and comparatively minute island of high culture in the surrounding sea of barbarism” (66). Another early village was known as Catal Huyuk, in the sout...