Neolithic Revolution Significance

The Neolithic Revolution is one of the greatest lifestyle transformations to ever occur. For years, historians from the archeology, anthropology, and economy fields have discussed how and why the Neolithic time period came into existence. In particular, it is a phenomenon that has been the subject of interest since the first ancient DNA studies completed in the 1980s (Kaestle and Horsburgh 2002). The emergence of DNA studies allowed archeologists to study the past in ways that had never previously been done before. The extraction of DNA from more recent human remains gave way to the idea that the same could be done to ancient remains. The Neolithic Revolution is a part of ancient human history that many archeologists were curious about but

It rose independently in at least seven different areas including southwest Asia, New Guinea, east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, eastern United Sates, central Mexico, and South America. Different forms of agriculture and domestication were being practiced in these different areas depending on the geographic climate of the region. The Neolithic Revolution is also known as the Agricultural Revolution because of the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of agricultural and settlement. Agriculture and sedentism go hand-in-hand. An agricultural lifestyle requires the establishment of a new ecosystem, which also requires permanent settle in one place for extended periods of time. The Neolithic Revolution marked the beginning of sedentary life for humankind, and the practice of a settled lifestyle during the transition to agriculture ultimately led to the beginning of

At the individual-level, aDNA allows archeologists to uniquely identify individuals by determining the sex of that individual by markers on the Y and X chromosomes and through comparisons of that individual’s DNA with that of their putative descendants (Kaestle & Horsburgh 2002). Genetic sex identification is important to archeologists because it allows for an in-depth analysis of a wide range of patterns by sex such as disease, diet, material possessions, and mortality rates. At the local-level, studies of mitochondrial DNA can sequence diversity in ancient groups (Kaestle & Horsburgh 2002). High levels of diversity in such analyses renders the possibility of distinguishing common inheritance and residence patterns and individuals that appear to be “atypical” can be identified as migrants. At a broader population-level, the events of prehistoric population movement, continuity, and replacement can be identified by aDNA studies (Kaestle & Horsburgh