Eras

The Neolithic Period

NEE-oh-LITH-ik

Also Known As New Stone Age

Citation Formats

General Reference

History Atlas. "The Neolithic Period." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/neolithic-period.

APA Style

History Atlas. (n.d.). The Neolithic Period. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/neolithic-period

BibTeX

@misc{historyatlas-the-neolithic-period,
  author = {History Atlas},
  title = {The Neolithic Period},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/neolithic-period},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, is the final division of the Stone Age in Asia, Europe and Africa, conventionally dated from about 10,000 BCE to about 2,000 BCE. It is defined not by a fixed span of calendar time but by the Neolithic Revolution, the shift from a hunting and gathering way of life to farming, animal domestication and permanent settlement, which is why the period begins and ends at very different calendar dates in different regions: it opens earliest in the Fertile Crescent and reaches other regions thousands of years later.

Facts

Disputed

Start Year

-10,000 1

Conventionally opened around 10,000 BCE with the beginnings of farming in the Fertile Crescent; the transition happened at very different calendar dates in different regions.

End Year

2000 BCE 1

Conventionally closed around 2,000 BCE; regions reached the Bronze Age, and so left the Neolithic, at very different times.

Geographic Scope

Conventionally applied to Asia, Europe and Africa; because the period is defined by the adoption of farming and settlement rather than a fixed calendar date, its boundaries fall at very different times region by region, and some regions had no clearly demarcated Neolithic at all. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections