Near the town of Tovuz, at Goytepe, archaeologists uncovered the remains of round houses packed tightly together. Next to them lay grinding stones, fragments of clay pots, charred grains of wheat and barley, and the bones of sheep and goats. In the Mesolithic the hunters of Gobustan still moved from camp to camp after game; here people reaped grain they had sown themselves and grazed their own flocks. Why and how did this change happen?
The Neolithic revolution: from foraging to producing food
The Neolithic (Greek neos — new, lithos — stone), the New Stone Age, covers the 7th–6th millennia BC in Azerbaijan. Its key event is the move from an appropriating economy (hunting, gathering, fishing) to a producing economy — farming and herding. This deep change is called the «Neolithic revolution». The word «revolution» refers to depth, not speed: the transition took thousands of years.
The ground had been prepared in the Mesolithic (see «The Stone Age: Azykh man, the use of fire and the Mesolithic»): the dog had been tamed and people had learned to keep part of the seed. As the climate grew warmer, big game became scarce and hunting could no longer feed people as before. Women gathering wild wheat and barley saw that fallen seed sprouted and began to sow it themselves; hunters kept the animals they caught and bred them. Fertile river valleys, wild cereals and animals fit for taming made Azerbaijan well suited to this change.
Neolithic revolutionDefinition
The Neolithic move from an appropriating to a producing economy — farming and herding — which brought settled life, pottery and weaving.
The first farming was hoe farming: the soil was loosened with a hoe of stone, bone or antler. Grain was cut with sickles set with flint and obsidian blades and ground on grinding stones. Sheep, goats and cattle were domesticated. Stone tools were no longer only chipped: they were polished and drilled.
Settled life, pottery and weaving
Tied to their fields, people settled down. The best-studied farming villages lie in the west of the country: Goytepe (Tovuz), Shomutepe (Aghstafa) and Babadervish (Gazakh). Houses were built of mud brick and were round in plan. Traces of this age were also found at Kultepe in Nakhchivan, while in Gobustan and the Damjili cave (Gazakh) people went on living in the Neolithic too.
Settled life created new needs. To store grain and cook food people began making clay pots: they shaped them by hand and fired them. Weaving appeared: thread was spun from wool and plant fibres with a spindle, and cloth was woven on a simple loom. As food reserves grew, the population grew and villages became larger.
Farming and the household were mainly in women’s hands. That is why matriarchy continued: kinship was traced through the mother, and women were highly respected in the community. People lived in clan communities; land, tools and harvest were the common property of the community. Since the harvest depended on nature, belief in the power of earth, water and fertility grew stronger.
| Cause | Result |
|---|---|
| The climate warmed, big game became scarce | People began to grow plants and keep animals |
| The move to farming | Settled life, permanent villages of mud-brick houses |
| The need to store and cook grain | Pottery appears |
| Wool and plant fibres | Weaving appears (spindle, simple loom) |
| Women’s key role in farming and the household | Matriarchy continues |
| Copper ore was not found everywhere (Eneolithic) | Exchange between communities grew |
The Eneolithic: the first metal — copper
The Eneolithic (Latin aeneus — copper, Greek lithos — stone), the Copper Age or Chalcolithic, covers the 6th–4th millennia BC in Azerbaijan. For the first time people mastered a metal — copper. Copper ore was plentiful in the mountains of Azerbaijan, especially in Nakhchivan and the Lesser Caucasus. Copper was used for knives, awls, needles, arrowheads and ornaments.
But copper is soft, and tools made of it soon wear out. So the main tools were still made of stone — the very name of the age says so. The soil was still worked with the hoe, and sickles and grinding stones stayed in use. Even so, copper was a big step: people learned to obtain from ore a material that does not exist ready-made in nature, and this opened the way to the Bronze Age.
Eneolithic settlements have been found in many regions: Kultepe I and Ovchulartepesi (Sharur district) in Nakhchivan, Leylatepe near Aghdam in Karabakh, and Alikomektepe in the Jalilabad district of Mughan. Kultepe I was excavated from 1951 by the archaeologist Osman Habibullayev. Leylatepe gave its name to a whole culture spread across Karabakh — the Leylatepe culture; its pottery and buildings show links with Western Asia, especially Mesopotamia.
Since copper was not found everywhere, exchange grew: communities traded copper, obsidian, grain and cattle. Clay female figurines found in the settlements are linked to fertility beliefs. Society was still a matriarchal clan community without inequality of property. The rise of men’s role and the move to patriarchy came later, with plough farming — see «The Bronze and Iron Ages; the decline of the primitive community».
Neolithic and Eneolithic: similarities and differences
The exam often asks about these two periods as a comparison: «choose the similarities» or «unlike the Neolithic, in the Eneolithic…». Remember the rule: the Eneolithic kept every achievement of the Neolithic and added copper.
| Feature | Neolithic | Eneolithic |
|---|---|---|
| Time | 7th–6th millennia BC | 6th–4th millennia BC |
| Economy | hoe farming and herding | hoe farming and herding |
| Tools | polished stone, bone, obsidian | stone tools still main + first copper tools |
| New in this period | pottery, weaving, permanent villages | metalworking, wider exchange |
| Society | clan community, matriarchy | clan community, matriarchy |
| Sites | Goytepe, Shomutepe, Babadervish, Kultepe, Gobustan, Damjili | Kultepe I, Ovchulartepesi, Leylatepe, Alikomektepe |
- 12th–8th millennia BC
Mesolithic: the groundwork for a producing economy
- 7th millennium BC
The Neolithic revolution: farming and herding begin
- 7th–6th millennia BC
Pottery and weaving spread
- 6th millennium BC
Farming villages of round houses at Goytepe and Shomutepe
- 6th–4th millennia BC
Eneolithic: the first copper tools
- 5th–4th millennia BC
The Leylatepe culture in Karabakh
- 4th millennium BC (second half)
The Early Bronze Age begins: the Kura–Araxes culture
- 1951
Excavations begin at Kultepe I
- 2008
Azerbaijani–Japanese excavations begin at Goytepe
Interactive
We opened the low mound layer by layer; it rises on the plain at the foot of the Lesser Caucasus, on the right bank of the Kura. The mound was made by human hands: for a long time houses were built here, fell into ruin, and new ones rose in their place.
The houses are of mud brick, and all of them are round in plan; in some a hearth survives. Among the finds are sickle blades of obsidian and flint, hoes and awls of bone and antler, grinding stones and fragments of hand-made pots fired in the fire. The charred grains are wheat and barley; most of the bones belong to sheep, goats and cattle.
Source tasks
Problem
1) What period does the settlement in the text belong to? Give two clues and name one site of this period in western Azerbaijan.
2) Explain one natural and one economic condition that let people settle here.
3) Give two consequences of the way of life described that are not stated in the text.
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Solution
2) Natural condition: a fertile plain, river water, wild cereals. Economic condition: farming tied people to their fields, and stored grain fed them all year. Marks: both conditions explained — 1; one — ½.
3) Consequences: the population grew; weaving appeared; women’s role in the economy strengthened matriarchy; surplus produce later opened the way to exchange. Marks: two correct consequences — 1; one — ½.
Exam task: similarities (coded answer)
Problem
Choose the features shared by the Neolithic and the Eneolithic:
1. the bow and arrow are invented for the first time
2. the community is matriarchal
3. settlements are permanent
4. ornaments are made of copper
5. the soil is worked with a hoe
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Solution
Step 2: «shared» means present in both → 2, 3, 5.
Step 3: the words «for the first time» always tie a statement to one period, so 1 drops out.
Answer: 235.
Exam task: matching
Problem
Match the sites with their districts:
1. Leylatepe
2. Shomutepe
3. Ovchulartepesi
4. Alikomektepe
a. Aghstafa
b. Aghdam
c. Sharur
d. Jalilabad
e. Khachmaz
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Solution
Step 2: Shomutepe is a Neolithic village in Aghstafa.
Step 3: Khachmaz (Sarkartepe, Early Bronze) is the extra option.
Answer: 1-b, 2-a, 3-c, 4-d.
Remember
- The «Neolithic revolution» is the move in the Neolithic (7th–6th millennia BC) from an appropriating to a producing economy — farming and herding.
- Neolithic innovations: hoe farming, polished stone tools, settled life, round mud-brick houses, pottery, weaving.
- Neolithic sites: Goytepe (Tovuz), Shomutepe (Aghstafa), Babadervish (Gazakh), Kultepe, Gobustan, Damjili.
- The Eneolithic (Copper Age, 6th–4th millennia BC) brought the first copper tools, but stone tools stayed the main ones; exchange grew.
- Eneolithic sites: Kultepe I and Ovchulartepesi (Nakhchivan), Leylatepe (Aghdam) — the Leylatepe culture, Alikomektepe (Jalilabad).
- In both periods society was a matriarchal clan community; patriarchy and property inequality arose in the Bronze Age.