The Neolithic Period and the Bronze and Iron Ages

1 The Neolithic Revolution

2 Early sedentary societies

3 The Bronze and Iron Ages

4 The Iberian Peninsula

1. The Neolithic Revolution
In around 8000 B.C., one of the greatest changes in human history occurred:
• The increase in gathering food, such as wild cereals, led to the beginning
of agriculture. From th
Crescen e Fertile
t
• The domestication of animals marked the beginning of livestock farming. extende , agriculture
• Humans stopped became the only animal that produced its own food. d to the
the wo rest of
• As food became more abundant, life expectancy increased. rld.
1. The Neolithic Revolution
This is called the Neolithic Period because:
• Humans began to create new, more sophisticated tools from polished stone for these activities.
• Working with new tools was very important for preparing aliments, such as bread:

1. Tilling and sowing: 2. Reaping: when they 3. Threshing: then

people turned over collected the harvest, they separated the
the soil and sowed1 they reaped2 the plants grain from the husks3
seeds with hoes. with sickles. by threshing.

4. Milling: next they 5. Storing: first people 6. Baking bread: they

ground4 the grain stored their grain in made bread by mixing
with hand mills in holes in the ground. flour with water and
order to make flour. Later on they made baking it in an oven.
ceramic pots.
2. Early sedentary societies
• With the development of agriculture, people abandoned their nomadic way of life and
became sedentary.
• People they built their settlements on riverbanks, as the river provided water for dinking
and watering their crops.
• Neolithic people constructed palisades, and later on, walls to defend their villages.
Social structure and
new activities

• Development of craftwork:
to store and conserve
the grain they
harveste, people
made containers,
using wicker for
basket making and
clay for pottery
making.
• To make clothes,
Neolithic people
invented spindles
and looms.
• Neolithic society
became less tribal
and more
2. Early sedentary societies
Neolithic art and culture

• New religious beliefs: deification of natural • Burials took place under houses or in
forces that affected farming. necropolises outside the
• Ancestor worship and worship of the mother settlement.
goddess (fertility).
• Sanctuaries decorated with paintings and
sculptures were built.

Çatal H
üy
penins ük, in the A
u natolia
the ol la, Turkey, n
dest u i
rban s s one of
ettlem
ents

Santuary of Çatal Hüyük

2. Early sedentary societies
Neolithic art
POTTERY

• ceramic containers for cooking, holding

liquids and storing seeds.
• Different decorative styles.

Cardial pottery Striped decoration

vessel
PAINTING SCULPTURE

• Less realistic than Paleolithic ones. Objects associated to religión and burials:
• Schematic and symbolic paintings. • Small figurines of women,
made of clay
• Grave goods, such as necklaces
or daggers.
• Skulls decorated with plaster.
3. The Bronze and Iron Ages
In around 4000 B.C., another great change in history occurred. Humans in the Near
East discovered metallurgy. This marked the beginning of the Bronze and Iron Ages.
We divide the Bronze and Iron Ages into three periods. This division is based on the
type of metal people used in each period :

The Copper or Chalcolithic Age The Bronze Age The Iron Age
(5th millennium B.C.). (3000-1500 B.C.). (dese 1500 B.C.)

• Not a very strong metal, its • Alloy of copper and tin. • Stronger metal than bronce.
main use was decorations. • Stronger, for tool and • Had to use technology to melt it
• Anatolian Peninsula. weapon making. (at 1000ºC)
• Mesopotamia. • Clear military advantage
over other peoples .
3. The Bronze and Iron Ages
Economy

• New agricultural inventions, such as the • People bartered their surplus

iron plough and irrigation systems. products .
• Trade was a source of wealth5 and new • Establishing long-distance trade
ideas: the potter’s wheel, carts with routes between faraway places, in
wheels, sail boats and maps on clay search of valuable minerals.
tablets. • Rapid spread of new knowledge.

Revolutionary innovations in the Bronze and Iron Ages

Plough pulled by animals Cart with wheels Sail boats

Potter’s wheel Maps on clay tablets

3. The Bronze and Iron Ages
Society
They built walls as
the population and
• The villages became cities with the size of the
settlement grew
thousands of inhabitants.
• The beginning of the division of
labour.
• Social differences appeared .
• War became another economic
activity. The military chieftain Their houses were
became the most powerful circular huts with
figure. stone plinths and
Culture reed roofs.

• Male war gods emerged.

• The dates of important religious
celebrations were based on the
agricultural calendar.

Metal was smelted and mouded, shaped and

polished, to make objects and weapons.
3. The Bronze and Iron Ages
Art Tipos de monumentos megalíticos

• People constructed
megalithic monuments MENHIR
by placing megaliths Megalith pushed into
on their own or in the ground, on its
own or in rows.
groups.
• The Bronze Age ones
are the most famous.
• They were made for
different purposes:
DOLMEN
funerary,
Various megaliths in
commemorative, the form of a table.
territorial and religious.
• Spread of megalithic
architecture to the
coastal regions of the
Mediterranean Sea and
Western Europe.
CROMLECH
Various megaliths
in the form of a circle
4. The Iberian Peninsula
The Neolithic Period (6th millennium B.C.)
• Cave paintings: schematic style, as the Cardia
l pott
Epipaleolithic Levante paintings . decora ery was
cockles ted w
• Pottery: Cardial pottery spread from Lebanon hell ind ith
along the northern Mediterranean coast. cardium entations,
in latin
• The Pit Grave culture developed in .
Cataluña.
4. The Iberian Peninsula
The Copper Age (3000-1700 B.C.)
• Bell Beaker culture: originated in the Valle del Tajo
and spread throughout most of Europe, as far as the
C o l le
Hungarian plains. c
pass tive tom
a b
• The Millares culture appeared in Almería: corridor cham geway a s with a
n
dolmens. e tumu ber. Cove d a large
t h i s nam ople l us ( m re
o und d w i t h a
s
It ha these pe ape stone o f so
us e e sh s) . il or
beca ots in th bell.
ep d
mad n inverte
of a

Burial chamber

Niches
4. The Iberian Peninsula
The Bronze Age (1700–1000 B.C.)
• El Argar Culture in Almería: settlements in high places and buried
their dead under their houses. Their pottery was dark and had
no decorations.
• Talayotic Culture in the Balearic Islands: taulas, navetas and talayots.

TAULA
Two large NAVETA
TALAYOT
stones in the Shape of an
Shape of a tower
shape of a T upturned boat
 4. The Iberian Peninsula
The Iron Age (1st millennium B.C.)
• Iron was introduced by the Celts, in the north and west of the Iberian Peninsula.
• The Iberians settled in Levante and Andalucía. In the centre of the peninsula there was a
mixture of Celts and Iberians.
• Phoenician and then Greek metal traders also settled on the Mediterranean coast. The
introduced writing.
• Tartessian culture developed in the Valle del Guadalquivir. Its people traded metal and
jewellery.